Night Owl Cards

  The monthly card show this month featured an autograph guest for the first time. It was former Buffalo Sabres forward Ric Seiling, who was a starter during the late 1970s and 1980s. I didn't follow hockey as a kid so I didn't recognize the name (my wife, who did follow hockey back then, knew it). No matter, I was late to arriving to the show and they always set up autograph guests early in the program. He was getting ready to leave as I was walking in the door.   Because of the commotion of the first autograph guest and a bunch of jocularity going on, no one saw me come in and nobody was there to take my money -- the second time this has happened at this show.   There are signs that the organizers are still figure things out. Even though they've expanded to a larger room and there are more dealers and they are now offering shows at other cities, there is still a haphazard feeling to the proceedings. To be expected, sure, I mean this town hasn't had a regular card show...

  Right now, the Bills are playing a team I don't like, that I think is going to win and end the Bills season. I could be wrong but that's not calming my nerves any several hours before the game. What I need is something to do unrelated to NFL playoffs, so I'm doing this. Writing words has a way of distracting me and calming me down. Getting new cards can be a nice distraction, too. Hell, this whole hobby is a distraction. I just received last week a nice, big package from Base Set Calling . It contained plenty of variety, which as you know can also be distracting -- oooh, look at this, ooooh look at this! It was good for Brian to spread things around because there's bound to be dupes in any single category. For example: These were all duplicates. They are very nice duplicates, which means I am sure there are upgrades here. But I have been quite active in my 1979 Topps football chase the last few months. These, however, were needs and big names, too. They've waited...

  I suppose this is typical for set collectors or collectors in general when it comes to a new project: I don't like to continue with more of the same. The latest example: I just finished the 1970 Fleer Laughlin World Series set a couple of weeks ago. I also want to complete the 1971 World Series set and am around 15 cards away on that one. Logically, I'd jump to the '71 set next. But I can't get myself to do that. With collecting a number of different sets, I automatically pivot to something different, leaving the set that figured it was next wondering in the dust. I just need to keep myself entertained and jumping back and forth between sets does that for me.   So last weekend, I put in some orders for some needed 1979 Topps football cards. Yeah, sorry, this is a football card post -- it's playoff season, you should have expected it. All of them arrived quickly and are here now so let's see them. A couple of random needs that don't fit neatly into any cate...

  A couple things before I start the big show: 1. I like to be a good commenter on the blogs and leave a comment when something sparks my interest. Lately I have been unable to comment on some blogs via my laptop. This is only from my laptop, not any other computer, like the one at work, so I know it's some sort of settings issue on my laptop. But it only comes into play on three blogs that I know of. Those are: Johnny's Trading Spot , Nine Pockets and Uncle Charlie's Shoebox . I know this is something I have to fix (like I have the time) but I'm mentioning the specific blogs just in case they've wondered where I was in the commenting section.   2. RIP, Mr. Baseball. Bob Uecker, who lived to age 90, is one of those baseball guys who lasted through multiple generations. First he was a player, then a broadcaster, then a pitchman and guest host, then an actor, then a movie star. Whether you knew him first as a ballplayer or his famed Lite Beer commercials or from Majo...

    I was thinking about writing this post within the next month or so, ideally around when I found the first cards of the season. But it's going to be far too busy then and I'm not good at planning posts in advance, so you're reading it now. This year marks the 50th anniversary of me in the hobby, buying baseball cards. In the spring and summer of 1975 I made periodic trips to whatever nearby store sold cards and greedily purchased them. The instances were relatively rare -- I wasn't going to the store every week. I had a meager allowance and had to save up in order to buy a few packs. The occasions were so seldom, I can sort of remember all of them: 1. Walking to a drug store several blocks away in Binghamton, N.Y. (this happened maybe three separate times) 2. Walking to a corner store -- we didn't know the name of it, we called it "the green store". This is where my 1975 mini cards came from, in cello packs, the kind you see above. It was closer than th...

  Maybe it's the start of the year, but I feel the urge to leave the social media scene more and more. I don't consider blogging part of that. It's separate for me. But I deleted Twitter/X two months ago and I think Facebook will be coming next. I know a lot of folks deleted Facebook a long time ago, I get it. I've stayed because of connections to people who mean something to me in my life. But as some of them leave the app themselves, there's less there for me to see and the recent news that the site is about to enter an even wilder scene than it already has isn't encouraging me to stay (I have never relied on Facebook for news, I have a journalism degree for crying out loud).   I never joined Instagram or TikTok, so if/when Facebook leaves, all that will be left is Bluesky . (There's also Discord, but I'm not on that much).   For now, Bluesky is pretty delightful. Part of me expects it to go to pot eventually like it seems every social site does, but I...