Night Owl Cards

I'm am still in a "get rid of surplus cards" frame of mind. So far, I've gone the contest route and the trade-300-cards-for-2-cards route. This weekend, there was the trusty garage sale. I've had varied success selling cards at garage sales, but mostly it's been productive. Friday was very productive as a big, BIG box of dupes disappeared for the low, low price of 10 bucks. OK, I can hear you: "What was in that box?" you're saying in a panic. "There might have been something in there that I NEED!" Well, you should have spoken up sooner. Those things have been accumulating mold in my closet for six years now. I got rid of all I could in trades, but they were no longer useful. Before I sold them, I removed anything I could conceivable want or use. I still have some beat up late '70s cards. I still have some '09 O-Pee-Chee dupes. I still have some Fan Favorites and a smattering of early '80s Topps and some A&...

Like many guys, I refuse to grow up. I put on a good front, but really, I'm about 14 years old. There are just some things that never change no matter how old you get. Baseball is always fun to watch. Girls are always fun to watch. Bugs are always fun to watch. Pretty much in that order. And because of my profession, the worst day of the entire year is always in September and the best day of the year is always in June. For 40-something years, I have rooted for the last day of school. A lot of people have long since given up that wonderful feeling of childish anticipation. Those poor, poor people. June is just another month to them. But like I did as a kid, counting down the seconds on the last day of school, I still count down the hours until the high school sports season is no more. That last day this year was Saturday. And one of my co-workers said, "we should have a party." And so we did. It didn't last long. September-to-June was a long slog. But we wer...

As in "certain" that this card is now in my collection. The Nebulous 9 is now down to a mere six cards. That's both due to my laziness in adding more wants and a sudden blitz on the list by fellow collectors. I've received four cards from the Nebulous 9 in the last couple weeks, including this mere 1989 Topps checklist, which came from cynical buddha . Now I can add it to the '89 binder with the rest of the unchecked checklists and everything will match. We must feed the OCD monster. Here are two other cards that came with the checklist: Two ugly Gypsy Queens (although the inserts are just a tiny bit pretty). I need one more base card Dodger and then you can expect never to see these cards on the ever blog again -- unless I'm doing an end-of-the-year post about which set most resembles the outside of a 12th century asylum for the criminally insane. Thanks, CB! This former Nebulous 9 need -- a 2002 Fleer Greats Maury Wills -- arrived fr...

First, a message for Shelly. Shelly, darling, thanks for the invitation. I'm glad that you like my blog. But I bet you tell that to all the blogs. In fact, I've been looking around, and you DO tell that to all the blogs. I'm not interested in your free collectors zone, whatever that is. I'm not good in groups and I don't like people advertising on my blog. So I will keep deleting your come-ons all day (and all night) long. And, finally, learn how to spell "website." OK, up above is a '75 Lineage mini from Cardboard Catastrophes . It's a card for the crazy cause of collecting all the '75 Lineage minis. I have a handful more on the way, but even with those I probably need like 85 more. That's OK. This is a long-term project. Because I'm not collecting 2012 Heritage and 2012 Gypsy Queen and whatever else, I'll be slowly adding '75 Lineage minis. It's been a lot of fun so far. I love seeing that mini stack grow and ...

No, I haven't received the Manny Ramirez card already. The One-Card Challenge doesn't work that quickly. It's just that the usual has happened. I should never announce my set progress until I put that set into a binder. The binder reveals what the want list doesn't -- what cards I am REALLY missing from the set. After placing my 2011 Allen and Ginter cards in a binder yesterday, I discovered to my horror (I have experienced this horror about 57 times, so I really shouldn't be horrified anymore), that there were two other blank pockets besides the Ramirez card at #316. The second blank pocket -- #101 -- I filled easily, to my relief. Peter Bourjos was sitting in my dupes stack as I suspected. I was just happy that I hadn't traded it off. The other blank pocket houses card #77. Of course, a Dodger card. This card is already in my Dodger binder, which is why I'm not going to the One Card Challenge post and removing my Ramirez request. I stil...

I received this card in the mail on Monday. It came from hiflew who runs Cards From the Quarry . It's the 349th card that I have obtained in the 350-card 2011 Allen & Ginter set. Ever since I declared my frustration with the set, that I have had a more difficult time completing the set than in past years and that I didn't know whether I would try to complete it for a fifth straight year when 2012 A&G came out, I have received what can only be described as an outpouring of assistance in helping me finish off the 2011 set. Most of the credit can go to Brian at Play at the Plate . In one quickly sent package, he knocked off 17 of my needs from the set. There's the first group of them. I have a new scanner and there are infinite things that I don't know about it, including how to get nine cards on a scanner bed. So you're going to have to live with things like borders being cut off. There's the other group. Whoops ... that card on the b...

When I say I'm not collecting any 2012 Topps, that means I'm not collecting ANY 2012 Topps, in all its forms. Heritage, Opening Day, Attax, Update, Allen & Ginter (gulp), none of it. I'm reasonably confident that I will be able to stick to this. Even if I grab a few packs every so often, there's nothing there that's going to make me chase the set. However, Allen & Ginter is the one that could give me some hesitation. It's not for the reasons you might think. I'm beyond the design (two straight years of disappointing designs will do that). I'm beyond the non-ballplayer subjects. I'm even beyond the quirkiness (there wasn't much quirkiness in last year's set). No, the problem I'm going to have is next summer when everyone gets their boxes of A&G and the latest edition of Gint-a-Cuffs commences. As a three-time Gint-a-Cuffs participant, I know that GAC is a heck of a lot of fun. It's even fun for a loser like me w...

I'm happy to say that I've been notified of at least two transactions that are in the works because of The One-Card Challenge. Hopefully, there will be many more. Any day in which someone can finish off a set is a great day, really. One of those people on the verge of finishing a set is Mark from Mark's Ephemera . Not only will he have the final card in what, no doubt, is a very cool collection, the '94 Ted Williams Company Negro League subset. But he'll probably end up with a couple of cards from me for devising this logo for The One-Card Challenge. Isn't it charmingly retro? The logo -- it's based on the '63 Fleer checklist -- has booted my lame attempt on the sidebar. From this point on, click on that logo to get to the post where you can leave your pleas to finish off a set, or to see if you have a card for someone else that will finish off a set. I'm still tempted to turn this into a page of its own -- much like Mark's Got It. Got ...