Night Owl Cards

   I've been collecting in a public space for a long time, there are so many cards that I have seen over and over and over.   So it's surprising when I get a card that is exotic to me. In the last week, I have received several packages and envelopes from fellow bloggers -- surprising in itself -- that contain what I would call an "exotic" card.   I decided to focus on those cards. But I'm not doing it all in one post. I don't have the time for that and it's not fair to those who sent the cards. So I'm going to space them out over time. That way you (but mostly, I) don't get bored.   The first exotic card came from Zippy Zappy of Torren' Up Cards . It's the latest in a series of envelopes from him. I could actually consider all four of the cards he sent "exotic". They certainly aren't showing up on my store shelves.     Three of the cards are from the 2026 Stadium Club Nippon Professional Baseball League set, issued only in Jap...

  Baseball season is essentially over, and football season has begun in my household. See: Sunday afternoon, when the Bills game dominated the TV and we turned over to the Guardians-Rays only after the Bills' win was done. (It was in the eighth inning).   So that means it's time for my one or two football posts out of the year.   I grabbed a couple of football cards from the Diamond Jesters Time Travel inventory last month, one from the 1980s -- Freeman McNeil there -- and one from the 1970s.   John Rowser from 1975.   This is how football cards come into my collection these days -- a card here and a card there, whether through the Time Travel Trading, something I find appealing at a card show or maybe landing a card from one of those social media selling sites.   There is very little intent behind those purchases. I'm not seeking the card out, I'm not building the set, it's just something that I enjoy, either the player or the design or something about it...

    What's your own blog for if not to unload your feelings after your team is eliminated from the playoffs?   So this will be me mostly just talking to myself.   I shall do that with cards from an envelope I received recently from fellow Dodger fan gcrl of cards as I see them . He's probably in a similar state of mourning. The first card I'm showing is a Leaf "Baseball Nation" Steve Garvey card. It's mini in size. It's also not that colorful in person, in fact it's rather plain.     Jim made sure to send me the "1975" serial-numbered copy.    So, the Dodgers didn't get a 3-peat. I didn't expect them to. I don't know what all the chortling was about -- I knew when the playoffs began that the last team the Dodgers needed to see if they wanted to win another World Series was the Brewers. The sweep was a bit unexpected but I knew they'd lose to the Brewers -- the Dodgers lost the season series to them and did not look good in a c...

  Several years ago I announced on this blog that I wanted to complete all of Fleer's 1980s baseball sets.   After Topps, Fleer featured my favorite '80s cards and since all players shown on those cards are players from my youth, I wanted all of them.   Building on the ones I'd already completed, like 1984 and 1981 Fleer, I tackled the rest. I now have 8 of the 9 1980s Fleer flagship sets finished. 1987 Fleer is the last remaining one incomplete.   I don't have anything against 1987 Fleer, it just happened that way. In fact I like '87 more than some other '80s Fleer sets, like '86 and '89. But here we are. I need 70 cards to finish the set.   I mentioned not too long ago that I'm having trouble paying attention to this set build. The cards I do have sit in a box on the floor, they're not even set up in a binder waiting for empty pockets to be filled. There are so many other card completion interests that come before this one.   I find I don't...

  I finally completed the 2025 Heritage set last week (the first 500 cards, no way I'm tackling high numbers sets anymore).   The Pete Crow-Armstrong card is finally mine. It took me a year after I landed the second-to-last card to find a PCA card price I could stomach. As I mentioned earlier , my timing wasn't good as the price of the card started soaring just when I was finishing the final few short-prints.   It still was too much to pay, but the prices on the card have come down about 10 dollars and I was sick of looking at his face in ebay listings for months. So I paid up.    The arrival of that card closed the book on a three-year run of complete Heritage sets in the night owl nest with 2023, 2024 and 2025 Heritage finished. Each of those sets are tributes to the first three sets I ever saw, 1974, 1975 and 1976 Topps -- those sets mean the world to me, so I wanted to get those Heritage sets done more than any other.   I had planned to keep going, at l...

   I took a few days off to visit my daughter and check out her latest living quarters. She's moving up in the world -- literally -- she's got a second floor.   The first thing we did after checking into the hotel and getting some food is take in the Ringo Starr concert. Yes, Ringo, who just turned 86, is still touring and drumming and singing and holding up pretty well, at least as far as I could determine from my distant seats.   There he is front-and-center singing with Steve Lukather, the guitarist for Toto, during Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band's final concert of their 2026 fall tour. At far right is Colin Hay, the lead singer for Men At Work, and second from right, in the front, is Hamish Stuart, one of the singers in the Average White Band. Greg Bissonette, a yeoman drummer for Ringo's band, is playing the trumpet I believe at top right. I think this might be "With A Little Help From My Friends" if I've got the order right on my camera roll.   Th...

  I found out on Monday from Matt at the Diamond Jesters blog that a former card blogger, Johnny, a.k.a., hiflew, passed away over the summer.   I could have come across that news earlier if I was reading the TCDB forums regularly or on X, but because I don't want to spend all my time online, I keep my card outlets to the blogs and one or two other social media sites.   But back when I knew Johnny, blogs were about all there was. He ran Cards from the Quarry. He was one of the only Rockies collectors I've come across in my years of online collecting. He was easy to trade with because, my goodness, finally an outlet for my Rockies cards!   I traded a lot with Johnny, mostly between 2011 and 2014. Good times. There were a couple of other arrivals from him in 2017 and 2021 when he was doing some card selling (he always had good stuff), but, like many former bloggers, he found other places that he preferred more and that was TCDB.   I am not too active on TCDB be...