Night Owl Cards

  The sooner you figure that out the easier life will get. I bet it takes people until their 30s to realize that, and many even later in life. I think I was in my 40s, and I still wonder if I know how to adjust. Because it's not just solely being aware that life is a series adjustments but to be at one with it, to be at peace with the new development and that there will always be new developments, and LFG.   For example, there's card show coming up in a couple of weeks. Not only that but -- new development -- there are two card shows in essentially the same area going on at the same time. I've had it marked on the calendar for months because shows don't come around all that often, my last one was five months ago. Why I plan stuff out anymore is beyond me, because I'm not even sure I'll go to the card show now because -- new development -- money is suddenly tight. With new developments and adjustments popping off all over the place, it's good to have backups.

  I stopped by Walgreens last week for a couple of items. As I almost always do, I swung by the toy aisle to see if there were any repacks. There haven't been any cards there practically since the pandemic, but habits. I've grabbed so many repacks from Walgreens in the past. One of these days they're gonna return. I reached the middle of the aisle, the customary spot for cards, and in place of the usual hooks and absence of product was this: Cards -- what few there are -- locked in a case. My first instinct was to laugh. Finally, Walgreens has something other than repacks, an actual hanger box of this year's Heritage, and it's in a locked glass case. I was also baffled. This store hasn't featured cards in months, possibly years, Is loss prevention pertaining to trading cards really a big deal for them? I figured it had to be corporate policy, across all the Walgreens, or at least those in the region or something. So I took a trip across town a couple days later

I grabbed a couple of 1975 Hostess panels recently. There's a guy on ebay selling them very reasonably, although I suspect none of them feature short-printed cards. Anyway, it's nice to see some rational sales on that site among all the yokels. I thought I needed both of the panels, but I didn't worry about it too much because the great thing about those '70s Hostess sets is that there are endless possibilities with them. You can collect the panels or the individual cards. You can cut the cards off the panels and improve on the individual cards that you have -- likely trimmed by someone with much inferior cutting skills. You can leave the panel intact and compare it with the other one you have and see which one is trimmed more nicely. I know grading-type collectors turn their nose up on Hostess cards. They're too DIY and there's that whole staining issue. I'm happy that I have something that I can collect that few of them are going to hoard up, although ther

    There are few bloggers who have consistently built my collection like Bob . In the past there was Dave from Tribe Cards, Dan from Saints From the Cheap Seats, and Eric S., whose blog name I don't remember. They would flatten your home with a few palettes of cardboard and leave snickering while you looked around the property in a stupor. But bloggers don't have the means they once did. (Johnny's Trading Spot aside). Postage is crazy, cards are expensive and nobody has the time to blog anymore. If I'm gonna get a monster package, it's probably going to come from a reader, with a little more free time. Bob has been the recent exception. He sent another blast, as varied as ever.   A pin from the 1988 World Series. I love the notation "Dodgers beat A's in 5" so everyone knows what happened. I don't have much knowledge about commemorative pins and there seems to be 27 versions for every event, but a few key ones are nice to have. A couple of Bills fr

    This was meant to be a companion piece to the Joy Of A Team Set post I did on the 1972 Topps Pirates. In fact, I thought of this post first, and I probably should have posted this one first. But life has a way of forcing you into next-best scenarios. I was thinking -- as I often do -- of MLB's issue with competition. Maybe the new playoff system will take care of this -- although that's hardly the best way to address the problem -- but the same teams keep showing up in the playoffs year after year. It's always the Dodgers (yes, I'm OK with that), Yankees, Astros, Red Sox, Braves, Cardinals, Giants and Rays. There are cameos by the Mets, Brewers, Phillies, Twins, Indians/Guardians and White Sox here or there. But mostly you can forecast who is going to be in contention early in the season. Some of the teams that I didn't mention have not been repeated playoff participants in years, even decades. A lot of those unnamed teams were very good and constant postseason

  Forty years ago, Topps and Kmart teamed up to release the first boxed set through a retail chain, which touched off those now familiar and ubiquitous sets from Topps, Fleer and many department stores that lasted through the 1980s. But the 1982 Kmart set was unique when it came out. I know. I was there. My brother worked at Kmart at the time. One day he came home from work to tell his fellow baseball-card-addicted brothers that Kmart was selling some sort of new Topps set in individual boxes. We were intrigued. Everything about this was new. A 44-card set all in one mini box? Never heard of such a thing. You can only get them in one particular department store? Wild. I was instantly jealous of my brother. He had access . My brother picked up a box almost immediately. We could afford them even on our paltry salaries. I remember each box costing $1.97.   But getting a box was more difficult for me. I don't remember what time of year it was but maybe I had school to go to, and I stil