Night Owl Cards

That would be 2018. It's been coming for awhile. Probably around 2015 or so I began to think "I can't do this anymore. I just can't keep up." Even though from the beginning I always knew that there would be no way I could collect every Dodger card as a team collector, I still had hope for several years. There weren't that many parallels or that many inserts. Sure, there were a bunch of 1 of 1 cards, but I could ignore those easily enough. Then it became a deluge. More and more parallels. More and more inserts. More and more variations. Cards from Panini that I didn't even like and parallels and variations of those . Then the online exclusives came. More and more online exclusives. Topps Now and the Living Set and current players on retro designs that were issued like every week and that weren't available at the store down the street. Then came the club-membership-type deals from Topps where you could sign up and Topps would make cards made exc...

When I first returned to the modern card world in 2006, I knew a "hit" as a card autographed by a player or a card containing some bit of baseball residue, usually a piece of a player's uniform. As the years moved along, that definition of "hit" expanded to items that didn't seem all that special to me, such as "manufactured" relics, which came from the same source of all of other cards, the card manufacturer. Then I started watching people go ape over buybacks, like pulling a 1977 Topps card with a stamp on it was a reason to buy a hobby box. "Hit" means a wide variety of things now. And you can be congratulated for pulling something that you didn't even know was worth congratulations. The above card contains one of those very congratulation messages on the back. It comes from last year's Topps Big League set. This is considered a "reproduction" because there are 1/1 versions of each of these, which I assu...

Without really knowing it, I've almost ignored modern cards on this blog for a good two weeks. Between busting through a box of 1989 Fleer, organizing a box of cards mostly from the '80s and '90s, focusing on past sets like 1992 Pinnacle, 1958 Topps and 1977 Topps football, reliving my memories of trips to buy cards and powder blue uniforms, there's been no time for cards produced here in 2018. I even didn't bother going to the card aisle for two weeks. I'm sure many readers prefer it that way and are screaming at the screen -- "No, no! Why is there a 2018 Topps card on the top of this post?!?! Where are you going with this?!?! Back to the past!!!! Back! Back!" I hear you. My heart isn't in current cards either. But I do still collect them. Therefore I must show them. A little while ago, Jason of Hoarding Cardboard sent an envelope of Dodgers goodies, most of which were current cards that I needed. The Chris Taylor Big League card get...

Each year I notice a malaise that settles over the blogging community during late August. I'm not sure why that is. My guess is vacations come into play. In some areas of the country school has started up (which still strikes me as bizarre). Perhaps some folks are a little tired of baseball -- their teams are fading, the NL playoff contenders are a collection of gross -- and they can't get interested in cards. This is usually the time of year when everyone fails to comment on one of my posts, a rarity as a post earlier this week was the first in almost two years without a comment. And yesterday I kind of opened my heart and the clicks were, well ... weak. But I knew all this. That is why I had planned to start The Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s countdown in August, specifically the end of August. Maybe I could generate some interest among bored collectors. However, life has conspired all summer to prevent that from happening and with everyone apparently too busy ...

I owned my first baseball card 44 years ago. I've been collecting off and on ever since, and for about 35 of those years, I'd consider myself a baseball card collector. I've also been trading through the mail for almost 10 years. Given all of that, I still don't think I have a lot of cards. I don't consider myself one of those collectors who has "everything" and is "difficult to buy for." I see cards I need every day! That's just not possible. But just recently I've realized that, yes, I do have a lot of cards and, yes, I am a difficult to buy for. How can you guys stand it? Dime Box Nick recently sent me some cards and you know how well he does unearthing obscure items from the past and present from the many dime boxes that sprout out of the ground out there. Well, all of these, plus the fantastic gold Pizzazz Nomo ... ... are dupes. The glorious Endless Summer Jackie, the smiling Jackie, the mini Kemp, the Dem Bums,...