At seventeen

 

This is Night Owl Cards at 17.

 

On this date in 2008, I started a card blog when it was about the coolest thing you could do in the hobby outside of pulling a card of Kosuke Fukudome. Today, it's not a very cool thing at all and whatever happened to Fukudome, Nick Blackburn and Callix Crabbe?

 

But this is still me. None of those other hobby outlets have suited me as much. I'm not immune to chasing the bright new thing, but I still keep coming back here. Writing about the hobby in a detailed way will always appeal to me most.

 

That doesn't mean I'm not cutting back on the hobby in other ways: not in words but in more physical aspects. You will see examples of this in Year 18 of NOC but for now, let's look back, using something I have collected for as long as I have written this blog and now their time is ending in my collection.

 

Wrappers!!!

 

I have tried to set aside a wrapper for any card product that I have opened -- but just one per set, I'm not that much of a pack rat! I deposit them in a box in my card room that sits next to my card table. I thought it would be cool to show the Topps baseball wrappers for the life of this blog, at least the ones I have.

 

THE PRE-BLOG ERA

 

 I returned to buying packs of cards of current baseball players in 2006, two years before the blog started. The vast majority of cards I bought in 2006 were the three-panel rack packs, which is why I don't have a Series 1 wrapper or a proper Series 2 wrapper. Same deal somewhat with 2007, though less so.

 

 

THE 'HEY BLOGS ARE COOL" ERA

 

I love this time period -- not necessarily because of the cards that were issued (although you can see I bought plenty of them) -- but because blog life was never more vibrant, intoxicating even. So many writers, so many perspectives and so many people so enthusiastic about cards that they were willing to write about them sometimes two, three times a day on their own little blog.

 

 

THE EXIT BEGINS

 

(Masahiro Tanaka, there's a name from the past. Also, it's weird to see a deceased person on a pack wrapper from the last 13 years).

 

The first time I mentioned Twitter on my blog was in April of 2009. There were jokey references for several months and then I joined in 2010, didn't know what to do with it, removed it in 2011 and then rejoined in 2012 when it became obvious that this is where a bunch of those former card bloggers went.

 

Although Twitter had its plusses and benefits as far as acquiring cards and connecting with people, it didn't appeal to me like blogs did and I missed the writings of those who ditched their blogs. In general, right around 2011 was when bloggers started to disappear, whether to Twitter or just vanishing altogether. Dinged Corners, beardy, that guy who liked the Tampa Bay Rays (no, not The Collective Troll, the other guy).

 

I started writing less -- 2013 was the last year I posted twice a day sometimes. But still new blogs popped up and new people came to this blog -- which is still a thing.

 

 

THE FIRST HOBBY BOOM ERA

 

I do not have any wrappers from 2016 Topps. As you know, I really dislike that set and have tried to get as many cards I have from that set out of my house. Perhaps the wrappers went out, too, I don't know.

 

I fetched an image off my blog because I got curious who was on the pack (blogs are good like that).

 

There you go. The wrapper looks better than anything inside.

 

This period was when Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger blew up the hobby. 2017 was the first year since I returned to collecting that I encountered empty card shelves, product just not available. It didn't bother me a ton because 2017 flagship wasn't anything great. But it was a harbinger of things to come.

 

As far as the blog, I think I was probably at my writing peak right around here, if I had to cite a specific year, I'd say 2018. Ideas came easily. I was busy but not too busy enough to devote a lot of effort to the blog and I remember getting quite a few compliments during this time. It was nice. I still think I wrote some of my best posts in this period.

 

 

THE HOBBY GOES TO HELL ERA

 

I'm sure many people in the hobby -- and people who followed the hobby business -- would not describe the early 2020s in these terms. Someone made a lot of money. But everyone knows what happened to the hobby in 2020. New people arrived in force and a lot of them couldn't control themselves. Card product vanished from shelves, soared in price, there were fights in parking lots -- all great blog fodder, of course -- or just tweet your outrage.

 

I went months and months without finding current cards to buy. Not a big loss because 2020 and 2021 Topps are pretty lousy. By the time cards returned, around 2022 a family member was buying the whole set for me for the holidays. So I had less reason to visit the card shelves anyway. My visits to Walmart and Target really dropped and have not picked back up. Oh, I swing by from time to time, but a twice-weekly habit of checking on product is now once a month, if that.

 

 

THE DISCONNECTED ERA 

 

Back to the present.

 

As I've written too many times in the last few months, the hobby is very scattered these days, particularly online. You need like six different apps to really stay connected, and I don't want that anymore. This isn't 2009 me. I don't have that kind of time.

 

Many people who once read my blog have disappeared. A lot of them have left the hobby altogether. They don't have that kind of time. However ...

 

I am still amazed that I have an audience, after all of these years, after all of the changes. Probably what awes and humbles me the most is how many people who have told me that this blog was what drew them into the hobby, what turned them into a collector. I hear this from people who are my blog peers and those who discovered Night Owl Cards maybe 10, six or three years ago. There are still readers. I know that. And they're not just bots.

 

 My stash of Heritage wrappers over the years.

 

 

And the Allen & Ginter wrappers.

 

I will be putting the Topps flagship wrappers and the Heritage and A&G wrappers into page sleeves to accompany the sets I've built or just put in their own separate binder. As for the other wrappers I showed at the start of the post, most of them will be tossed. I've tossed many of them already (a lot of that Bowman and Panini stuff I can't believe I bought).

 

So that's "a wrap" for year 17. A year ago I said I was going to remove the black background from this blog -- obviously I didn't do that. I'm just stuck with what got me here in a lot of ways. You'll see more of the same in the year to come. And maybe a few surprises.

 

Thanks, as always, for sticking with this thing. Thanks for reading.

 

And to all those who disappeared: I miss you. Well ... most of you.