Night Owl Cards

As I slowly pull back from collecting modern releases, some of my collecting goals have gone by the wayside. My stated mission is to have every Dodgers card (and Dodgers prospects card). So that means getting cards from the new sets that come out every year. But that's starting to get old. I'm making fewer and fewer trips to the big box stores and when I look through cards online, I rarely focus on what was made in 2018. It sounds like I'm ready to start ordering team sets of whatever modern set that is out and be done with it. But actually I'm not ready for that kind of collecting. As long as I can trade for cards, I'd prefer to land my modern cards that way. Let someone else do my dirty work. There are other collectors far, far more willing and happy to buy modern sets, the kind that I can't even devise a want list for, and thankfully they send some of those cards to me. Not too long ago, Douglas from Sportscards From the Dollar Store sent a boat...

Each year I notice a malaise that settles over the blogging community during late August. I'm not sure why that is. My guess is vacations come into play. In some areas of the country school has started up (which still strikes me as bizarre). Perhaps some folks are a little tired of baseball -- their teams are fading, the NL playoff contenders are a collection of gross -- and they can't get interested in cards. This is usually the time of year when everyone fails to comment on one of my posts, a rarity as a post earlier this week was the first in almost two years without a comment. And yesterday I kind of opened my heart and the clicks were, well ... weak. But I knew all this. That is why I had planned to start The Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s countdown in August, specifically the end of August. Maybe I could generate some interest among bored collectors. However, life has conspired all summer to prevent that from happening and with everyone apparently too busy ...

Remember a year ago at this time? Remember what the card shelves were like? Desolate. A few rack packs of Series 2. Boxes and boxes of football and basketball and stuff that is of so little interest that it didn't even register with me, but no baseball to be found. It was like that for MONTHS. From June to the end of the year. No Allen and Ginter. No Archives. No Chrome. No Stadium Club. I had to order the final seven cards I needed to complete the 2017 Stadium Club Dodgers team set nine months after it first appeared in stores because not only couldn't I find any packs to open but neither could anyone else. Stadium Club cards just weren't showing up in trade packages. For awhile I thought that's just the way things are going to be for retail buyers in this new hobby world. People are so obsessed with making a little cash off the latest hot rookie that we would go through this year after year before everyone collectively realized that the name of the game...

For two weeks now, you've been reading about the greatness of Stadium Club. The cards are beautiful, striking and breath-taking. Why the heck can't flagship do this? Let's declare this the set of the year right now. And, on and on and on. And everyone is right. Some of the photos are amazing, mesmerizing and captivating. It's annually one of my favorite products because I know I'm going to see an astonishing card. But despite all the accolades it's not a perfect set. There are small things, gnawing little things that explain why I have grown less and less interested in Stadium Club every year. This is not to say SC isn't a terrific set. I'm just saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, fan boys, do I have to be the only one that points out some obvious semi-negatives in this year's set? Am I the only one that sees it? Will I be accused of being a buzz kill? Screw it, I don't care. I waited two weeks for this set to come to my backyard and it's not ev...