Night Owl Cards

    If you visited my card room -- and I still plan to do some sort of blog tour of it someday -- you would note that one blogger has a notable physical presence in the room without actually being there. That's Rod of Padrographs . He has sent me so much quality stuff over the years. I don't just display anything in a spot where I can see it every day but Rod manages to find things that I don't mind seeing every day. Two of the posters on my card room walls -- the Ron Cey/penguins Nike poster and the owls poster -- are both from Rod. There's a Sandy Koufax children's book on display high on a shelf. That's from Rod, too. And, of course, the Ron Cey-signed birthday card greeting that Rod engineered is in full view as well. The cards in my card room are mostly stored neatly in binders or in boxes, not visible unless you open them. But if you did -- and I do -- you'd see Rod's contributions there, too. The number of cards from Rod in my collection grew rece...

  I finished my 2023 Topps Heritage High Numbers Dodgers team set when the last three cards arrived Thursday and Friday.   They're all horizontals, in keeping with the 1974 Topps theme, although I think '23 Heritage went a little bit overboard with them.     Just one of the players is currently with the Dodgers now as Busch was traded to Tampa Bay and  Hernandez is supposed to be joining another team soon. (Update: He's apparently coming back to the Dodgers ).   The Hernandez card is a short-print but it didn't cost me much, barely over a buck.   It's also a card that "rights a wrong" if you're into the editorial sanctity of photos (which Topps definitely is not -- lots of evidence over the decades on that).  The Hernandez card probably looks familiar to some collectors, most probably Red Sox collectors, who first came across the image in the 2021 Topps flagship set. It's another great photo on a Kiké Hernandez card. This was one of the better car...

(Hello. Holiday Insights says today is Card Reading Day. I had no idea there was a day devoted to reading the backs of your baseball cards. This world isn't so bad after all. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 334th in a series):   I received my first 2024 Topps flagship card in the mail yesterday. It arrived from Jeremy of Topps Cards That Never Were .   I expect I'll find some 2024 packs for myself by the end of the week, if the stores cooperate, but this is an excellent start, might I say a phenomenal start.   I was captivated right away by the 2024 Topps design. A neon lights theme for a card set is sure to be popular but I've explained my fondness for lights at night and built my blog look around it (in several iterations) since the very start of this blog more than 15 years ago. This set is built for me -- what took you so long, Topps? -- so, please excuse the love letter that starts now.   I know it's not cool online to like new things, especi...

  Ten years ago I titled a post " Loose Ends ," which was just me trying to provide some updates on some things I was working on -- mostly trying to reassure people that I hadn't forgotten their trade package and such. I'm much less worried about stuff like that now -- I'll get to it when I get to it. The list of to-do things that don't have to do with this blog grows daily and I've given up on "hobby responsibilities" for the most part. Things are much more casual with my hobby, there shouldn't be reason to worry. To continue that theme, here are some things that are going on in my little corner that tell some sort of story but I don't know what that is. Doesn't matter. Just enjoy the scattered approach. I received another monstrous box of cards from Johnny's Trading Spot over the weekend. It will take quite awhile to go through it (although much of the TCDB accounting is done). But one easy item to relay is he sent three Fleer ...

  My Target gift card for Christmas went to a "giant box" of 2023 Heritage High Numbers, naturally. More of that 1974 design? I had to explore. Heritage High has always been a weird bird. Longtime card bloggers probably remember when Topps mixed Heritage High Numbers in with Topps Update (then called "Updates & Highlights) -- like in the same packs -- to encourage collectors to buy High Numbers. Now, Topps postpones the appearance of several notable players until High Numbers to promote the brand. Nobody likes this set, I guess. But without having to spend my own cash on it I gave it a shot. The main Heritage set is finished, but that's only 500 ... er, 501 cards. The '74 set was 660 cards! The problem with that is Heritage High Numbers is 225 cards, which brings the total to 725 ... er, 726 (hey, hang on until 2027 Heritage and that will work!). So what to do? Well, I'm not going to try to finish Heritage High, I knew that. That would be more short-print...