Night Owl Cards

    I've written about this card a few times on this blog. It's the first autographed card I ever bought, at one of the first card shows I ever attended back when I was a teenager.   It was a pretty savvy move at the time, though I was not thinking of getting a deal or anything like that. Still the value of Koufax cards and Koufax autographs have shot up in the decades since. I'm very happy I have it.   But my main focus as a collector has not been autographs, it's completing sets and completing Dodgers team sets. Because of that, this Koufax card has always stood in the way. Since it's autographed, I never considered it part of the 1961 Topps Dodgers team set, though I list the set complete on checklists, like on TCDB.   While attending the monthly show in town over the last few months, I've noticed that the one dealer I go to all the time had a 1961 Koufax under glass. Just your regular, "ordinary" '61 Koufax, no signature scrawling on it.   I...

   Don't worry, not more on the 2025 Series, at least not now.   Today I "finished" the 1971 Fleer World Series set, what I like to call the "Fleer Laughlin World Series set" as it was illustrated by artist Robert Laughlin and he was the inspiration for the sets, which he kicked off in 1967, creating and issuing the sets out of his own home.   The 1935 World Series card was the last card that I needed, kind of a surprise that it was the final one to arrive at my door.      The 1956 card was the second-to-last arrival, more in line with my expectations.     I figured either the 1956 or 1919 or 1969 card would be the last one I needed. They were all among the final six or seven but nothing proved very difficult to find, which I appreciate, though part of me is a little miffed that these aren't adored by other collectors like they are by me. Still I should be careful what I wish for (see: my increasing difficulty in obtaining '70s Kellogg's and ...

  I admit I might have purchased this card for too much money the other day. It's what sellers are counting on from fans of the team that wins the World Series. And when the card shows a photo of a play you don't ever remember seeing before -- or at least don't remember seeing in a do-or-die situation in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series -- you buy it.   It's not going to get into my hands until next month, but I know how that goes, having experienced the same thing when I bought one Topps Now card to commemorate the Dodgers' win in the 2024 World Series.   While I'm waiting, I'll have more time to think about whether what I just saw was the best World Series game I have ever witnessed.   This has been a popular topic among national commentators and fans in general. When I first thought about it, I tried to rank the best World Series games in my head but quickly gave up. However, yesterday at work I was wandering through my Facebook ...

  I slept 9-and-a-half hours last night/this morning. I don't even come close to that kind of sleep most days now. Probably average around 7.   The combination of the World Series and my cold shredded my sleep cycle all last week, and Sunday night was the first chance for real rest. Not only was I coming off the hangover of the Dodgers' Game 7 victory but the Bills had their biggest game of the season thus far, beating the hated Chiefs in another tense affair. We can't space this stuff out a little more, sports leagues??   I woke up today feeling better than I had in more than a week. I still don't think I'm quite there yet (see: coughing fit just 10 minutes ago), and with that amount of sleep today, I had barely any time to do anything before having to work.   A package from Dime Box Nick has been waiting for my words for 10 days now and I'm finally squeezing it in right now. As you know, Nick stopped writing on his blog nearly a year ago, but this is the seco...

  Before I wrote this, I was caught between wanting to celebrate my team's World Series championship and thinking maybe I'll shut up about it because people don't want to hear it.   I know I shouldn't worry about that -- who cares what those people think, my team just won two World Series in a row for the first time since I became a fan 50 years ago! But I was raised not to boast and if people are mad about the thing I want to boast about maybe it's not worth boasting about anyway.   Still, I didn't come up with the current MLB climate of haves and have-nots. I picked my team a long time ago, before free agency was a way of life. The only super-team I knew then were the Yankees. There are several super-teams now (look up MLB payrolls, the Dodgers aren't even first). The Dodgers get a lot of hate, warranted or not. But I can't let that spoil my celebration of TWO WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIPS IN ROW.   I'm not accustomed to this, obviously. I've watc...

  Hooooooooooooooooo! It's your favorite cardboard-collecting owl's designated holiday! Who decided I'd rather scare kiddies from tree tops instead of page binders inside a well-lit card rooooooooooooom? Who? Who? Was it the same person who decided airing Game 6 of the World Series on a major holiday was a good idea? Who? Who?   When you think about it, Halloween is trooooooooooly the oddball holiday on the calendar when it comes to major U.S. holidays. Almost every other holiday has to do with family, country or religion. Halloween covers a couple of those elements but only tangentially and only if you have little tykes trudging outside in the rain and wind and cold while they beg for gooooooooooooodies.   So on this oddball holiday I have some gooooooooodies of my own -- the cardboard kind -- that arrived on this festive day. They happen to be oddballs, tooooooooooooo! In keeping with the season.     Ooooooooooooo. One of the last remaining 1971 Fleer World Se...

  As a Dodgers fan, I haven't said much about the World Series while it's been going on. So on the one-year anniversary of the Dodgers winning the World Series over the Yankees, and while this year's Series teams are traveling back to Toronto (boo!), I'll write about it a little.   First, Game 2 and Game 3 -- the two most interesting games in the Series, per me -- are now two of my most favorite World Series games in my almost 50 years of watching the Fall Classic. Yoshinobu Yamamoto's complete-game victory on Game 2 was marvelous, and while not very unusual in the annals of World Series starting pitchers, the performance was a rarity in the last 20 years and a call-back to pitchers like Hershiser, Reuss and Sutton. Very exciting.   Game 3 was even better -- a repeat of Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, filled with so many wonderful, exciting moments that it was difficult to remember them all. I thought I would only be able to watch Game 2 of the whole Series, thanks...

  Yesterday I completed the 1969 Topps set. While home for dinner, I opened a couple of card orders and the last one contained card No. 500, Mickey Mantle.   It's the yellow-name variety, it's the last Mantle card issued during his career, and all that stuff. Most importantly for me, it's the final card.   I thought it would take me longer to get this card and finish the set. Once I had acquired the Nolan Ryan in September (and the Phil Regan, don't forget him!), I started looking at Mantle prices. I didn't like what I saw. But I didn't do a thorough search, so I figured there was something a bit more reasonable out there for when the time came.    Well, the time came a couple of weeks ago. Out of the blue, I received a reimbursement check from my health insurance that I wasn't expecting, and I immediately knew where some of that was going to go. I started searching again and it became apparent that I was going to have to spend $200 to get anything that was...