Night Owl Cards

I will buy just about any single card for a dollar. Even a card from 1990 Donruss, in the right situation, if I was desperate enough, I'd have no problem handing over a buck. A dollar, I think, is the perfect match for a wanted card. I don't live in a land of dime boxes, so I don't have some skewed view that every card should be 10 cents. Ideally, I'd like the average to card to be maybe a quarter. But in this era of online sales, slick modern cards, bells and whistles and vintage all over my want lists, I think if I could pay a dollar for most of the cards I want, I'd be happy. Then there are the times when spending a dollar seems like a steal. This card arrived for the price of a dollar, actually it was under a dollar but I had to factor in shipping. This is the short-printed Sandy Koufax card from 2017 Update and it was going for Too Much Money back when Update was released during the fall. I fought off the urge to buy it then and I was rewarded. Thi...

I entered another one of those no-brainer group breaks at Cardboard Collections a little while ago. Colbey finds card sets that totally escaped me, charges next to nothing to enter, and then throws in extra cards with your winnings. It's practically irresistible. But I'm repeating myself . This latest break featured 1995 Topps Embossed, 1993 Bowman, something called Ultimate Victory and 1999 Stars N' Steel. I signed up and got meself some pretty funky cards. First the Stars N' Steel cards. I'm not sure how these were made. But they definitely consist of steel. The corners are definitely sharp. And they're definitely more dangerous than a butter knife, if you're so inclined. I've never considered cards a deadly weapon, but in the wrong hands you could draw blood with these things. I'm trying to picture me and my friends opening these as kids on the way back home from the drug store. We'd have to run back for band-aids. Here...

I'm always kicking myself for not thinking of the most simple, most ingenious ideas. I hear about what someone has come up with, how they've gotten rich inventing soap-on-a-rope or some other such thing, and I think, "you could've figured that out, dodo. What's wrong with you?" For instance: Cliff of Capewood's Collections (yeah, I know some of you know him as " Capewood ," but he's got an actual real name and I'm telling you it's Cliff), came up with a terrific idea that I can't believe I hadn't thought of myself. What he did was, before the cards came out for the 2009 season, he contacted several bloggers and offered a team swap. The person he contacted would accumulate either Phillies or Astros -- Cliff's two favorite teams -- from any 2009 sets and Cliff would set aside '09 cards from his trade partner's favorite team. Then, at mid-season, they would check in with each other and swap teams. What a great i...

I was watching the Mets game this afternoon, looking at the players stride to the plate wearing bright, pink wristbands and swinging bright, pink bats. It's been the tradition on Mother's Day the last few years. The Mets' play-by-play announcer, Gary Cohen, remarked on how many more mothers were at the ballpark on Mother's Day than when he was a kid. He noted that it had become a tradition to bring your mom to the ballpark. But, he said, it wasn't always that way. I had noticed the same thing. When I was growing up, I didn't know one single adult woman who was interested in baseball. My mother has sat through hundreds of baseball games over the years, but none of those games were in a ballpark because we could never get her to go. Instead, she saw baseball on television or heard it on the radio as her three baseball-crazed sons found a game every chance they'd get and in any way possible. To this day, when I visit her or she visits me and she sees a game on...

I've never been one to pick up the cheap cards just because they're cheap. I've avoided Opening Day every year that it has been issued (yet, somehow, I still have a bunch in my possession). Same with First Edition/First Pitch. My philosophy has been: it's a hobby, buy the cards you want to buy. So, I've bought the Heritage, A&G, and chrome packs with barely a thought. Fortunately, I think most high-end cards look like someone sneezed on cardboard, so I haven't bankrupted myself with this philosophy. But I just don't have the cash that I used to, and for one of the first times in my life I'm looking for bargains. That's why I've gravitated toward First Edition this year and started something I call First Edition Fridays . This is the second First Edition Friday and to mark the occasion , I bought two other economically responsible packs: 2008 Upper Deck Documentary and 2007 Topps Turkey Red. I have never opened a pack from either of these tw...

With money the way it is around here, I can't think of a better buy than this year's Upper Deck First Edition. Normally, I avoid First Edition (and in past years, Opening Day). But at 99 cents per pack, I literally can't afford to ignore these cards. I already find myself buying more packs than blasters this year. I guess if I did the simple math, I'd find out that is not the economical way to go. Blasters save you money if you're the set-collecting type. But I've never been all that thrifty, so I buy a pack here and a pack there and tell myself I'm saving money. At least at 99 cents a pack, I really am saving some cash (unless First Edition blasters are going for $7 a box. Are they?). So tonight I bought my first two First Edition packs of 2009. You'll probably see a few more of these on future Fridays. I'm calling them First Edition Fridays. A little bit of fiscally responsible fun to kick off the weekend. Almost everyone has seen this year's ...