Night Owl Cards

  I should probably post some thanks here for Nachos Grande running the end of the year awards again this year and allowing me to win Blog o' the Year for a fifth time.   I appreciate it after so many years of doing this because like I've said before, blogging about cards is far from the hot, young thing it once was. Folks still voting for NOC all these years later means I'm still doing what I set out to do -- writing about my love for cards and trying to do it in an interesting way. Glad to still be of service.   OK, now on to getting rid of some cards.   The last downsizing session a month ago was an immediate success, much to my surprise. So I'm going to try again with some slightly -- very slightly -- more interesting cards. As a refresher, I need to get cards out of my house. The card room is sizeable but can no longer hold everything. In order to make room for more cards I have to get rid of cards that aren't useful, i.e., have been stashed in boxes for year...

    OK, now that I've established myself as an oddball in the current collecting landscape -- preferring vintage cards and all -- it's appropriate that I show off some recent "oddball" arrivals in my collection.   This runs the gamut and covers 85 years of trading cards and some of it isn't even cardboard.   Let's see:   Fired-up by my first acquisition of a 1960 Leaf high-number Dodger card in Rip Repulski, I decided to grab another one with this Joe Pignatano. It has a few minor flaws (it was listed as "good," which is usually "good enough" for me), but it still looks great.   That leaves just Stan Williams to complete the team set. Upon landing the Repulski, I received an email informing me that the Williams was available for a reasonable price on sportlots. But I didn't jump on it (I'm rarely financially ready to pounce on opportunities) and it's not there anymore.     Here's a card -- and an owlie greeting card -- that ...

   One thing that has become very clear to me over the last year is that my way of collecting cards -- the way that was the established primary way of collecting for as long as I've been alive -- is being phased out.   There are a variety of reasons -- and forces at work -- for this. I am reminded of one of them every time I attend the monthly card show.   In the past year, the show has moved from primarily sports cards to primarily RPG/TCG cards. I have less than zero interest in these. When I paid my entrance fee at the table, the guy there asked if I wanted to enter the raffle and gestured toward a gift basket filled with TCG stuff -- don't ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you. I gave the guy a flat "no" that sounded like "of course not."   But I'd say more than half of the tables was Pokemon, Magic and whatever else there is in that fantasy realm. Just about the rest was graded football and basketball of mostly modern cards. But I've writt...

  What might that be? The Dodgers' second straight World Series title? The Bills' win over the infernal Patriots last weekend? Finally killing off the yellowjacket infestation underneath the siding in August?   Nah.   My biggest win of the year was landing the prize in the vintage giveaway over at The Diamond King a couple of weeks ago. In keeping with the season, DK has been giving away a bunch of cards from his collection. I waited out the numbered and prospect lots and I was rewarded. Vintage! Sweet, sweet vintage.   As a veteran vintage collector, I saw cards in the lot that I already owned, but that didn't stop me from entering because there were several cards I didn't own, including cards on freshly made want lists! Plus, I could always do a giveaway myself with the extras.   There was so much variety in this group that it took me awhile to figure out how to present it here. I'm still not sure that this won't turn out to be rambling without any direction...

Ah, 1998, an epic year in the night owl timeline. But baseball cards didn't have anything to do with it. I was five years into my collecting hiatus. The year is legend because I became a dad. I am sure I watched some of the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race with a baby in my arms.   Somewhere in the summer of 1998, my wife and I were wheeling that baby in her stroller while walking through a mall, I don't remember which one. We walked into a chain book store -- I don't remember which one -- and I spotted Topps cards on one of those islands near the front of the store. They were packs of 1998 Topps. OK, sure, I'll grab a couple of packs and see what cards look like in the year 1998.   I recall thinking they were OK, nothing special. They certainly didn't break my hiatus, which lasted for another eight years, give or take a pack or two. I had no idea how active the hobby was at that time -- the number of sets and companies and "innovation." It was a year...