Night Owl Cards

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Match the song title: Breakfast in America

I am a member of Generation X. Known for being independent, cynical, loyal and less career-oriented, that mostly describes me. But I often feel out-of-kilter with those in my generation. Many times Gen X memes focus on growing up with '80s and '90s music, 1980s movies and late '80s/early '90s TV shows. That's not me. While I generally enjoy the grunge era of music from the '90s, it's not my preferred listening and I grew up with '70s variety shows on the TV. I like 1980s cards a lot. But I prefer the '70s. That might be explained by being an older Gen X guy, just one year away from being a "boomer". But I don't relate to them either from a pop culture standpoint. I don't think Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are the be-all of rock music. I have never liked progressive music, that meandering, way-too-damn-long style. I gravitated instead to short, sharp, new wave tunes. Even today I prefer that. Any song from a new album that cross...

Stuck on this topic (also, exotic to me, part 2)

I have written several times about my love for the vintage-era Wacky Packages stickers to relatively limited response. I get it. They are not sports cards, which is the main reason people visit this blog. Also, they are from an era that fewer collectors remember when compared to, say, the 1980s and Garbage Pail Kids. So that's a double whammy if I'm looking for "hey I remember those!" and "they were the best!" But I can't help it. I have to collect them. And I have to write about them. Wacky Packages stickers were right there, dead-center, at the start of my collecting enthusiasm. I bought them along with 1975 Topps baseball cards. You know how much I love '75 baseball cards. I put packs of both baseball and Wacky stickers on the counter at the same time and tore into each when I got home. Naturally, I bought more baseball but, those stickers, I connected to those. They were quirky. They made light of common products I saw every day in my h...

Brother, those are repacks

Last weekend, my wife went on a girls weekend to her hometown of Buffalo, showing the north country locals around and all there is to do when you're in an actual city. They checked out the new stadium and a couple great restaurants (Buffalo has an endless supply) and several female-centric shops that make my eyes sleepy. On their way back home they stopped at Viddler's, a well-known retro 5-and-dime store outside of the city. My dearest likes to find me something on her trips without me and this time it actually involved cards, which doesn't happen much at all. She brought back four of these packs, which I had never seen in my life. I didn't have any idea what was inside. My abilities of perception continue to decrease as I get older so I didn't even see the "modern & vintage" reference on the packs and my mind raced about what weirdness was inside -- Disney characters or odd knock-off dinosaur cards -- OK, I'm making that sound more inte...

A giveaway realization

It's time to give away some more cards that no longer fit in my collection. I haven't done one of these since July. But it's almost been a year since I started these giveaways, so there's at least one more before I see if I want to continue this. My purpose in giving these cards away is to free up some space on the two shelves that house most of my binders. That's shelf one. There are five binders that are lying flat (not counting the top shelf) that I'd like to move into a vertical position with the rest of them. But it's proving to be a tougher task than I thought. I think I just have too many cards that I'd like to keep in binders -- forever. I could put some binders on the top shelf but I don't want to stress out that top shelf any more, it's an old unit and there's some bowing. If I leave it the way it is, it should be OK. This is the other, sturdier shelf. There is one binder lying flat -- the 2024 Heritage binder -- that I...

Not as connected or on top of things as you might think

About a week or two ago I started thinking about purchasing some current product. It had been awhile. This was even before I saw that The Collector had landed a hobby box of 2026 Topps Update and thought it looked like a good idea. Clearly I had been away for too long and had lost my senses. But then last week I received an envelope from Chris with Dodgers cards from said Update set. This is about what you can expect from Update if you're a team collector, and it's been this way for several years -- relief pitchers Series 1 and 2 ignored, pointless "rookie debut" cards and equally pointless combo cards of "more than one guy". Also, we've got to get these cameramen off our cards and off the field. I don't care about the photo angle you're providing. I don't need dudes in civilian clothes on the field chasing players around! You're taking me out of the moment! The inserts are even more appreciated, even if I have my issues wit...