Night Owl Cards

I've been typecast. My card collection "success" is a reflection of how people see me as a collector. I'm known as "the guy who collects Dodger cards". I'm known as "the vintage guy," and "the set collector guy" and "the oddball guy." "He likes night cards" and "He likes Allen & Ginter," etc. It's true, I like all that stuff. And there are certain cards I collect more enthusiastically and fanatically than others only because I know I will like everything -- every last card of that type. But I can find beauty in any kind of card. Doesn't have to be vintage. Doesn't have to be a Dodger. Doesn't have to be part of set. Oh, it helps. But I can find a card from a junk wax set I wouldn't even dream of attempting to complete that I like. I can find a card released so deep in the 1990s that it would take me a good two weeks to determine the set that it's from ... and lik

My night card collection has become the most casual collection that I own. I almost never make Awesome Night Card posts anymore and the Night Card Binder sits unopened most days. It's not until I take it off the shelf and look inside that I realize how magnificent it is and how terrific most night cards are. All those glowing lights and sometimes even neon! I need more of that! Some collectors still help me realize that and none more than Dave, a reader who has blessed my collection with fine cardboard from everywhere and every era. You'll see some impressive stuff he sent tomorrow, but for now, I have NIGHT CARDS because he sent 58 of them! Good night! This forced me to pull out the Night Card Binder and figure out how many of them would fill the many empty spaces in it. It turns out 36 of them are finding a new residence in the NCB! Let's see what makes a night card binder these days. Of course, early Upper Deck is always a possibility for the binder.

If you were blogging around 2008-09, you know about a blog called "Things Done To Cards". It's still going , although it's updated maybe a couple times a year. It's one of those collective blogs in which several writers contribute articles. I contributed a couple a long time ago, I remember I once wrote about how in sixth grade me and and a friend would cut up the 1977 Topps four-player rookie prospect cards to create "mini cards". That's what "Things Done To Cards" was all about -- doing things to cards, whether it's a company encasing a scrap of cloth inside a card or an amateur card artist doodling on an unsuspecting player. Recently, a collecting reader, Joe, who has sent me all kinds of nifty stuff over the years, delivered a random assortment of cards, some that he had saved for me and others he had picked up randomly at card shows and such. A few of the cards had things done to them, although I didn't catch on righ