Night Owl Cards

As you may have heard, I am a set collector from way back. I love completing sets. Big, honking sets of 700-plus cards with no short-prints is preferred. But the set-collecting pull is strong, and I'll settle for what they're putting out these days, as long as it doesn't look like crap. Late last week I opened a package that contained the last card I needed to complete the 2015 Stadium Club set. It was the Kris Bryant card that I ranted about a few posts ago. Now, normally, this would be the best news of the day. A set is complete! All that effort and time, all that cash and cataloging, all that sorting and admiring. Completion! On your average day this would prompt me to craft a post all about 2016 Stadium Club, or list my favorite Stadium Club cards of all-time, or my favorite club sandwiches of all-time. But something bigger happened on that day. Something bigger and cardier. The package arrived from Cardboard Icons . Ben's a blogger from way back, former ...

One of my missions with the latest COMC shipment was trying to finally ... finally ... finally, for the love of Hiram Bocachica, finish off my main 2015 collecting goals. One of those main goals was completing the Set of the Year, 2015 Stadium Club. I was seven cards away from reaching my goal before I received the shipment. I was able to find six of the cards that I needed. The Yu Darvish card was one of them. Here are the others: After receiving the cards, I then went through the stack of Stadium Club cards I owned to confirm that I needed just one card more to complete the set. Because you know how much a set collector's math can be off when it comes down to finishing a set. And I confirmed it. I still need just the one card to complete the set. This is the one card I need. Isn't that funny? Imagine that. The last card I need is the Kris Bryant rookie card. Wacky, right? What a coincidence! Except it's not a coincidence. I could have a...

I received an email a little while ago from Scott of Sports Cards Ate My Brain . He said he had a bunch of 2015 Stadium Club off my wants that he was going to send. "Cool," I said. I like that set a lot. It's about time I got close to finishing it. Scott didn't lie. He did have a lot of Stadium Club off my wants. Here they are: Still very cool. But, wait, that's not all of it. OK, there we go. Thanks to that, I'm less than 10 cards away from the complete set. Time to stop buying SC packs for the one card I need and get the rest online. But Scott didn't stop with the Stadium Club. He also sent a bunch of 2015 Series 2 needs: And a bunch of 2015 Update needs: This is how I was able to complete the Series 2 set at the card show the other day, and how I was able to come within one of completing the Update set. But that wasn't even half of what Scott sent. In a totally unexpected development, I saw oodles of other want...