Night Owl Cards

  I have no idea who first came up with the two-for-one deal but they're not getting enough credit. I've been suckered into that pitch probably more than any other in my history as a consumer. It just happened the other day with -- no surprise -- cards. An ebay seller was selling two 1981 Topps Squirt panels for $2.99. I have no idea whether that's a deal, but for 3 bucks who cares? I needed that Dusty Baker, that's the whole reason I came across the sale in the first place. Yeah, I'll take two! It's amazing how often two of the same thing comes in handy in my hobby. As a set collector and a team collector, I can use more than one of the same card all the time. A couple weeks prior I ordered a 2023 Allen & Ginter Andre Ethier card that I needed as it's a short-print. I didn't read carefully enough and two showed up to my surprise. But I needed two anyway, to knock one off of the many SP's in '23 A&G! In the case of the Squirt panels, I do...

    When I wrote that article for Beckett Baseball magazine about my Dodgers collection -- wow, it's been three years already -- I ended it by saying I would continue to collect cards of my favorite team "on the way to 25,000" total Dodgers. Well, I'm moving in on 30,000 now. The counter on the sidebar says 29,469 so I think after a few more months I'll hit 30K. No plans for it to be anything special. In fact I like the idea of it being some insanely random card. I have a lot of people to thank for accumulating such a total and three of the biggest contributors to my team collection all recently sent me cards! It's not really such a coincidence, they're three of the few bloggers sending cards in the mail to other bloggers. I don't know what happened to everyone else, wasn't fun enough I guess? But thank goodness they're still doing it.   First up is a blogger who is probably an even bigger Dodger fan than me -- he still has more Dodgers than m...

  Whenever I finish a vintage set that arrived before I started collecting, I let some time pass for admiration purposes and then I go through and pick it apart. By that, I mean pinpoint the cards that could be upgraded some day. While I'm completing a set that old, I usually ease my condition standards a little because collecting an old set is difficult enough. After some time has passed, I can see that maybe I should have held out for a card in better shape. Whether I ever do upgrade those is another matter. I recently finished the 1970 Topps set and I just went through it and, weirdly, the upgrade candidates are in the low numbers. I guess that will help with cost! While making a list of potentials, I decided to chart a 1970 element that has always interested me and I'm sure it's been mentioned by collectors before. Why are there just four cards in the entire set that use blue for the team names?   The first series lulls you into complacency with Grant Jackson at card #...

  I forgot to show off a handful of cards when I made my COMC post a few weeks ago .   The cards are all similar, "retro"-type cards from the 1980s.   It's interesting now to call 1980s cards "retro". The '80s was 40 years ago and those cards aren't exactly new. Maybe we need retro sets of the retro sets!   TCMA cards were the first retros that I knew and the first TCMAs I owned were Brooklyn Dodgers-related ones from 1974 and 1975 (now 50 years old!!). I associate TCMA with the '70s, although they were still cranking out sets in the 1980s.   A bunch of other outfits joined them in the '80s and I have a lot of Dodgers versions of those retro sets as well as for other teams. These few COMC '80s retro cards are all Dodgers, though.     This is a Jake Daubert card from the 1987 Sporting News Conlon Baseball Immortals set, which is "Series 2". There was a Series 1 version in 1986. I'm a big believer in that there are not enough Jake...

  Joey Votto announced his retirement yesterday in his usual quirky-and-lovable way . It was another sad reminder that my old gang is breaking up. First Evan Longoria and now Joey Votto. I'll explain. I feel an odd kinship with the rookie class from 2008, at least those players who received rookie logos in 2008 product. That's because I started when they started. I began a blog in 2008, and that was the first year that I was fully into modern cards since the early '90s. I returned to modern collecting in 2005 and 2006 but 2008 was when I became aware of everything, every last dumb product available, because the wonderful blogging world had told me so.   So I knew all the rookies that were around that year, hot or lukewarm. You couldn't miss them, card companies were shoving them down our throats. Ross Ohlendorf, Brian Bass, Kevin Hart (no, not the comedian), Chin-Lung Hu, I knew all their names.   There were some decent players, too, guys like Jay Bruce, Carlos Gonzalez...