Night Owl Cards

  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...

  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...

  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...

  As you've probably heard/read by now, this year's World Series teams have a few things in common.   It is a matchup of two "small-market" teams. It's two teams that play "small ball," or at least "smaller ball" than most of MLB teams have been playing the last several years. Both teams are based on pitching, speed, fielding, smart base-running and each have a couple of phenomenal hitters.   Also, both play in domed stadiums.   But there's more than those things that make them similar for me. For the longest time, my brain has frequently considered them the same team. I've often thought of the two teams as mirror images, the Rays as the "American League Brewers" and the Brewers as "the National League Rays". Maybe it wouldn't be that way if they were in the same league (they probably should be, shouldn't they Mr. Selig?). I mean I do the same thing with the Brewers and the Mariners. The main reason I tend to...