Night Owl Cards

  I did some light card organizing over the weekend. I moved my 1983 Kellogg's 3-D complete set from binder pages to top loaders, as it's one of the later sets that I'm confident won't crack when confined like that (unlike mid-'70s 3-D sets).   I also moved a small stack of 1981 and 1982 Topps stickers into leftover pages I had bought for early '50s Bowman cards. It took me forever to realize that the stickers would fit that size, too.   I have less than 20 stickers from the '81 set, so it fit into one page (pockets double-bagged). That's a good thing because my 1981 Topps binder is large and STUFFED.    There's a reason for that but just to illustrate how large the '81 binder is, here is a photo of the 1980 Topps and 1981 Topps binders -- both flagship sets complete -- side-by-side.   The 1980 binder is 44 pages (double-bagged, of course) and the 1981 binder -- maybe a little overstuffed is 71 pages -- 71!!!   Where does that compare among the l...

  I don't expect this post to be anything more than venting. The collectors who need to see this aren't reading blogs. But sometimes I encounter something and I've got to write about it and that's why I'm laying down a few guidelines for the ridiculous idea of "card show etiquette."   I went to the monthly card show Saturday and was slightly surprised by how many people were attending. It's the summer time and usually dealers (if not the whole show) take the season off because it's not a very profitable time. But it was busy.   The show is in a medium-sized conference room in a small business complex. If you set up seven rows of tables inside that room, with another row of tables along the back wall and a couple tables along the front wall, there's not a lot of room to roam. That's the show promoter's fault more than the attendees, sure, but maybe take that into account before acting like you're the only one shopping.   I went to th...

  That's a moment-in-time snapshot of my card table and surrounding other activities in my card room. There's a lot going on in there right now. Not only is it the central hub for cards coming in and cards going out, but there are two large boxes of cards coming in that I'm trying to get myself around. Also, TCDB offers have ramped up again. And, those card stacks off to the left will tell you I'm in the middle of another Dodgers dupes card sort. I try to do this once a year, around September or so. But I skipped it last year so there's even more to do. Also, life has somehow turned what was once a week-long activity into a two-month activity. I don't know how it did that, but it dood. More card stacks. More incoming. There is a lot to do, card-wise. And blog-wise. I have topics in mind that involve research. And little time to do it. When I'm in that kind of crunch, sometimes I dismiss incoming cards for blog posts, thinking that I just can't come up wi...

(Appointments, responsibilities, work, appointments, responsibilities, work, appointments, responsibilities, work ... oh, hi, here is a blog post that I fit in when life is a driver's seat and a desk  ... appointments, responsibilities, work ... It's time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 325th in a series): I have slowly been picking off O-Pee-Chee Dodgers needs the last few months. It's been very methodical, because there's not a lot of cash but there are a lot of cards that I want. So I leave the OPC quest and then come back to it again.   In going through the 1981s that I needed (this is the second straight Cardboard Appreciation on a 1981 card, I'll have to fix that next time), I was a little surprised to see Rick Monday in the set.   I shouldn't have been. Yes, OPC sets were smaller than the Topps version during this time, and, yes, OPC picked and chose what Expos and Blue Jays showed up in the set. But Monday was still a notable player, and, unlike ...

  I'm sure this happens to everyone, but when I'm shopping for other people, most of the time I'm also shopping for myself.   During the Christmas season, especially if I'm in a store that sells cards, I'll swing by the card aisle if there is any cash left after shopping for the significants.   And when I'm looking for cards online for someone, I find myself throwing a few things for myself in the cart, too.   Sometimes when you're shopping for someone else, you end up with a card just because! I think that's what happened with the Devin Mann Bowman Platinum autograph card up top. It arrived from The Diamond King .   I had snagged a couple of cards from his most recent Flash Freebie (it pays to look at people's vacation photos, you guys) to distribute in my 5,000-post giveaway and -- what's this? -- it's my second Devin Mann autograph card! (Devin Mann is in his second year of Double A in Tulsa, but I'll ignore that now).   These were all...

  The popular Twitter card question-and-answer feature, CardChat, put out a series of questions yesterday relating to buying cards, particularly in 2022. The last question was simple: show your favorite card purchase from this year.   I was stumped.   Any other year, it would've been the easiest question in the world to answer. But this year, so far, I have no answer.   Sure, I've bought cards I've liked, you've seen them on this blog for the last four months. But there's nothing that stands out as FAVORITE or something that other collectors would see and, say, "oh yeah, that's a great card."   A year ago at this time, I was buying 1956 Topps of superstars, any number of two dozen cards I purchased in the first four months of 2021 I could enter as my answer to my favorite card purchase and be sure about it.   But this year is different. Buying cards is different. If I want to buy vintage, I will more than likely have to pay something unreasonable, if I...