Night Owl Cards

Last month, I made 21 entries to this blog. That was an all-time low for me. Never in the seven-plus year history of Night Owl Cards had I been less prolific. Today's post, on the final day of June, is No. 20 on NOC for the month. Welcome to a new all-time low. I saw this coming a few months ago, and it doesn't have anything to do with a lack of blogging interest or cardboard malaise or anything like that. It's mostly because I have never been so busy during the life of this blog than the last two months. Multiple trips out of state for various reasons, graduations and other milestone celebrations, and year-long work planning projects coming to fruition, all conspired to keep me away from my beloved blog. I knew they were coming. I knew I couldn't do anything about them. And I also knew that by the end of June, they would all be over. It is the end of June. You now have my undivided attention. Let's celebrate with a fat pack of Series 2! Hey, wait! Co

I'm fairly certain I have written about checklists more than any other blogger. I'm at least in the top five (quick, someone rank the checklist bloggers and then check them off!). I write about them more often because I come from the heyday of card checklists. The checklist has been a disposable afterthought for decades so nobody else ever thinks of them anymore. But I think of them because cards like the one above were front and center in my collection as a kid. You couldn't help but notice all the tiny boxes and shrunken names. And, I think of them so much that a checklist has made my Nebulous 9 list at least twice . The second time was recently with the 1982 Fleer Dodgers checklist (the Yankees are on the reverse but we're not showing that for obvious reasons). I'm happy to say that the checklist has been removed from the Nebulous 9 because Nick from Vermont sent it to me. Now, here is the reason why I needed that checklist: If you're one of

We begin this month's '56 of the Month post with a Panini card. Yes, a Panini card. I can't get much farther from a 1956 Topps card than shiny, metallic Panini Prizm. But there's always a reason on NOC. This card, and the '56 Topps card I'm about to show have something in common. As you know, the Dodgers wear red numbers on their uniform fronts. It is one of the most famous uniform accents in the history of professional sports, as there is little red (outside of the shooting baseball in the logo) in the entire Dodgers' makeup. But Panini's cards illustrate the front number in blue, which is quite jarring for Dodgers collectors, and I would think, faithful baseball followers. The red number is as part of the Dodgers uniform as pinstripes on a Yankees uniform. Because it is such a fixture in Dodgers' uniform history, my guess is it is off-limits for depiction by Panini, which does not own a Major League Baseball license. Logos are off-limi

Speaking of repeating myself, here is another tale of how I'm way too busy for this convoluted hobby to know what is in a set or even what I have. Three PWE's received recently help illustrate that tale. The first one is from P-town Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year . He sent three cards, one of which is the one you see at the top. The Fleer Sports Illustrated cover cards are probably the best card thing that ever came out in the '90s. The second card from Tom is the pretty pointless Clayton Kershaw card from the National League all-star set, in which Topps merely reprints the same photos and plants an AL or NL logo on the front. But people like me fall for it. Fortunately, I didn't have to fall for it this time -- P-town Tom did it for me! Here is the card that I didn't know what I had when I first saw it. But it was only for a minute -- and then I realized that Pro Debut was probably out and I was happy to have another card of the 19-year-old supe

Let's face it, Topps has come up with some interesting card ideas in the past year. The revival of oddball issues, the daily reveal of ToppsNow cards, and now some sort of rip card that doubles as a prize-winning game, have been well-received, in general. New ideas are never perfect and there are some aspects of this latest newness that don't appeal to me. I will never grasp digital-only cards, for example, and the chances of me pulling some contest rip card are nil because I don't like flagship this year. But Topps needs to do stuff like this, if only to quiet the endless drumbeat demands of "INNOVATION!" that you hear from '90s kids all the time. Personally, I'd be happy with a thorough, well-crafted, 726-card base set on sturdy cardboard. Period. But the hobby, like the world, is all about "gotta do MORE NOW " these days, so I know that objective left the radar a long time ago. Still, even with Topps and other card companies attempt

First off, there aren't a lot of perils. But I'll list a few here, most of which I've already covered. 1. You're not the new kid on the block. Readers know your deal. There are no tricks. Whatever is the latest and greatest, you're not doing that. 2. You're established, and people like to take pot-shots at the establishment. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I usually consider the source. 3. The gnawing, nagging feeling that you've covered the topic before. Sometimes it's not a "feeling," it's a "knowing." While in the act of writing something, I am thinking, "I've done all of this before." You've just got to hope someone's reading your blog for the first time. 4. You have a lot of cards. Therefore, you get a lot of dupes. And sometimes it's obscure dupes, too. For instance, I received a healthy stack of cards from Mike at Not Another Baseball Card Blog . Since Mike resides i