Night Owl Cards

  This is my most recent Dodger binder -- binder No. 37 -- sitting there on the floor waiting for its forever home on one of two four-tiered card shelving units in the card room.   It's been sitting there for more than a month. I was supposed to figure out a spot for it during vacation last month but that didn't happen. Turns out it's going to take significant thought and upheaval to get that thing in there.   I always thought that when I got to Dodger binder No. 40, I would stop right there. Any other cards gaining entrance would have to boot other cards. But it looks like it's time for that already.   It seems like a send from Johnny's Trading Spot always touches off this kind of talk. An earlier shipment had me kicking out Bowman and Panini cards of supposed Dodger players who never even made the majors. They're in boxes now. But now I'm going to have to go a step farther.   I think next up will be Bowman and Panini cards that just aren't interesting...

  I was made aware of a major change in Topps Heritage by Cards On Cards over on the House of Cardboard Discord the other day.   I don't pay a lot of attention to the inserts in Heritage. To me, inserts are almost incidental to the brand -- I like Heritage for its tribute to older sets and those older sets didn't have inserts. But I've been attracted to an insert card here and there because it captured a moment from whatever year Heritage was featuring that appealed to me or summed up the year for me.   But that's all gone now.   Heritage has overhauled its inserts in 2025. The following regularly appearing Heritage inserts are not part of Heritage this year, at least not yet:   Baseball Flashbacks Clubhouse Collection relics New Age Performers News Flashbacks Then and Now   Also, the following haven't shown up yet, but they may be regular parts of Heritage High Numbers, which is released much later (I pay even less attention to High Numbers inserts so tha...

  Twice a year I run through my doubles for that particular year's card products and pull any night cards that could find a spot in my night card binder.   I do that in the spring and then again in the fall when I'm filing away the cards for the year.   It's time for the first go-round for 2025 cards, the few that I have. As I've mentioned many times in the last 5-10 years, night cards aren't as fun these days because Topps crops cards too close and you rarely get to see the best elements of a traditional night card -- stadium lights, neon advertising, etc.   But I press on, because there are still empty slots ... many, many empty slots!   Here are the 2025 cards that make the binder so far:   117 - Orlando Arcia, 2025 Heritage   Fills an empty slot! Very exciting.     81 - Twins, set checklist, 2025 Topps   No-brainer, one of the most distinctive cards in flagship this year. Stadium lights and even a lit-up scoreboard! This card replace...

Like most folks in this country, I am not made of money. While going for my daily walks or driving around town, I look at the shiny gargantuans passing for cars on the local road and wonder who can afford that. There are so many of them now, maybe there actually are people made of money?   But little guys like me -- who drive a modest CRV -- must pick our moments for spending cash. Budgets and all that. And, while I've never been a bargain-hunter in everyday life, I sometimes am as a card collector.  Freebies are still a thing in the collecting social media world, though not as often as they once were. I need to do my part in that area -- it's not due to a lack of cards, just a lack of time. But at least I'm participating in the claiming!   Here are some very recent acquisitions, all in response to "free" or "free with a catch" come-ons.     Jim of cards as I see them revived his "Almost Free Fridays" giveaway recently. I was only able to find...