Night Owl Cards

  I've told this story a couple of times already, but you're used to that. That's what happens when I'm operating a blog long past its "best-used-by" date.   About 20-25 years ago, I was in a bad place as far as cards and collecting. I had stopped collecting a few years earlier and I had considered the hobby part of my past. Yet, I still owned most of my collection, and somewhere deep down, I still did value them.   This wasn't a time where I could sell off my cards for an easy profit -- I wasn't online then -- and thank goodness because I would have done it. But that's why I did sell some of my card stuff at a good old American garage sale. I took a look at what cards I had that I absolutely didn't want. I targeted the monster box of 1989 Topps dupes and ... somebody actually bought it! I also targeted anything that wasn't regulation card size, 2.5-by-3.5. I didn't think they measured up to the "real cards." So I put some 19...

The latest of the many goodbyes I have made since the loss of my parents doesn't include loved ones or even people I know. Instead, it has to do the with the familiar places in my old hometown. My parents were the last human connections to where I grew up. Most of the people I know from that time scattered to various places long ago. There is no one to visit anymore when I return to the Southern Tier. It's not like I'm going to hang out with my folks' friends. This is a bit sad because I spent the first 20 years of my life in the area. There are many places and spots that mean a lot to me. For example, I walked through the local mall one morning a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a long time just to retrace the steps during one of the greatest three years of my life (1983-85) when I worked at a store in the mall. That store no longer exists. It's now a Burlington Coat Factory. But I entered the store and then found close to the exact spot where I onc...

I have sold cards at garage sales several times. I don't give cards up easily, especially to random people who may not enjoy them as much as I do. So, the vast majority of cards that I have sold on the front lawn are items that I never wish to see in my home again. Dupes galore. Non-baseball cards. Non-sports cards. Items of that nature. I've experienced regret with what I've sold in a garage sale only once. It was the time I sold the oversized glossy cards from the early '80s. Collectors of this time remember these "cards" with glee. They were 5-by-7-ish (or more accurately, 4 7/8-by-6 7/8). The photos were featured on thick cardboard stock and contained glossy fronts, much as you would see with movie star oversized photos. The first time Topps issued these was in 1980. It was a set of 60 and they were sold in one-card packs. The photos came with gray backs or white backs. From what I've read in the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, the whi...