Night Owl Cards

  This time of year is always a cold realization for this baseball fan.   Especially on the weekend, I'm at a loss. There are no baseball games to watch. College football means nothing to me and I'm only a casual NHL and college basketball fan so I can't get into those games until much later in the season. I like to watch the NFL, but for the most part that's only on Sunday.   So, it's tough. On Saturdays, I wander aimlessly, around the house, through the card aisle, and ... huh ... what's this? Topps is doing Heritage football? Maybe I'll try a pack of that.   Actually, this purchase was more deliberate than that. I saw the hanger packs when I was in Target a couple weeks ago when picking up the Topps Update I wrote about . Heritage football is using the 1976 Topps football design, and I've mentioned I love that set and that the first football pack I ever bought was from that set.   It would be foolish not to try a pack.   But by the time I was done I w...

   This card showed up in a package from Sportscards From The Dollar Store on Oct. 24, I think. I'm not positive on that date, but I know it was close to the weekend and it wasn't last weekend.   The date is important to me because of the date on this card. It's the first time I owned a card that notes a famous moment that occurred on my birthday. And it took receiving this card to realize that Apollo 11 -- well-known for the first moon landing -- rocketed into space on my fourth birthday! Mark it on the calendar!   I've always known that the moon landing was on July 20th, close to my birthday but I never tracked back to the blast-off date. So that's a pretty cool card to have. It's from a five-card set commemorating the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11, issued by Citgo gas stations in 1994.   Thanks to buckstorecards I've accumulated several cards of athletes who share my birthday but never an event that shares my birthday. I've finally dedicated a couple...

  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...

  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...

  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...