Night Owl Cards

My card collecting friend R.C. sent me a few cards recently. He said he didn't have a need for them and hoped I might find them useful. These weren't your average cards so I can find a variety of uses for them. In fact, I can break the uses down into: 1. Keepers (Cards I can use in my collection) 2. Traders (Cards I'd be willing to use in a trade for the right deal) 3. Giveaways (Cards that I can use in a giveaway next month) Let's see the breakdown with pretty pictures. 1. KEEPERS This was not the only legends short-print in the package but it is the only one I will definitely keep. The 2009 set was the first one to add short-printed legends cards, I believe, and I remember the carefree days when this was a new-and-interesting concept. Plus, the 2009 Topps set is the first one I completed after coming to blogging. And you can't beat seeing Ryne Sandberg in a Phillies uniform. These are each upgrades. As a proud 1970s card collector, I...

If you've collected for long enough then you've probably done that goofy thing where you give the cards you purchase powers of knowing. They're inanimate objects, yet sometimes, I could swear they know what I need. Or at the very least, they are trying to tell me something. It's the only way I can explain my recent experiences with Allen & Ginter. I haven't bought a lot of 2016 A&G because I'm not trying to complete the set. But A&G is one of my first choices during impulse buys because I still like the set and, oh yes, minis. So, speaking of minis, I pulled this one. Now, I had pulled the same mini when I bought my first blaster of A&G and posted its contents. And I had just sent that mini to a fellow collector. So what are the odds of getting that mini again? Yeah, I know some math guy is going to tell me and say that the probability is actually not all that unusual. Don't spoil my post. The A&G cards are trying to tell me...

Well, things are kind of back to normal around NOC. After trying about 21 different ways to get my scanner working, it finally occurred to me that maybe I scan too many images and I just wore the poor thing out. That's got to be it, right? How many times do regular people use their scanners? Once a week? A couple times a month? Meanwhile, I'm scanning 10 cards a day, on a light night. So, I went out and bought the cheapest scanner I could find -- because I'm just going to wear it out in a year anyway -- and I'm back to posting with pretty pictures. Since I've been dealing with evil scanners for the last 48 hours, I don't have a lot to say. But I did manage to buy a pack of cards while I was purchasing a scanner, too. One-stop shopping is still America's greatest invention. It was the same thing that I bought the last time I bought cards: You thought I'd try for something Panini-esque this time? Ladies and gentlemen, when the best product w...

The Baseball Hall of Fame's official magazine, "Memories and Dreams," is delivered to my newspaper office about six times a year. Most of the time it doesn't have anything to do with my job, but I'm interested in baseball, so I take it home and read it. There's not a lot to it: a few stories about Hall of Famers and exhibits. Some stuff I knew, some stuff I didn't. But the magazine that arrived the other day drew my attention. It was all about baseball cards. The cover features the T206 Honus Wagner. And there are articles about the Wagner card, Jefferson Burdick (known as the father of card collecting), Sy Berger and baseball card exhibits at the Hall of Fame. There's also a story about the explosion of sports memorabilia and card shops in Cooperstown. People who have attended the induction ceremonies recently can't help but notice them. But when I was a kid, there weren't very many memorabilia shops when we visited. Later, I return...