Night Owl Cards

  Welcome to the Vintage Week finale.   So, just before I went on vacation last month, a work acquaintance was clearing out his childhood home, which is a few hours from here. He uncovered his childhood card collection and, having no interest in collecting anymore, wondered if he could sell it. He knew I collected cards, based on the conversations I've had with the guy who works downstairs (the one who clears out store shelves and chats up the distributor). He asked if he could bring some of it in and I could gauge what he had. Sure, I said. Because, here's the thing: he's older than me. This isn't one of those many people who was hoarding junk wax in the late '80s.   A couple days later he brought in several shopping bags with his collection in tow. Instantly, I was impressed. Almost all of the cards were from the 1960s and 1970s and they ran across all four major sports, baseball, football, basketball and hockey.   Before I go through the cards and sets, though, I...

(For the first time since March, readership numbers went up in July, breaking the year-long downward trend. But it's August now, a traditional low readership month, so might as well lean into it and restart one of my least read features! It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 313th in a series): Without realizing it, I've been doing well in adding Carl Yastrzemski cards to my collection. Nothing nuts or anything (heck, I already have his rookie card), but it's nice to officially have his 1970s Topps cards out of the way with this particular one. I nabbed this card in another Twitter sale from @Tec872 as I continue to chase the '70 set. It occurs to me that Yaz is one of those players who never competed for the Dodgers that I will absolutely hang on to his cards as if he did. I know this is probably a common thing for people more accustomed to player collecting or those who grew up in the '80s and had to have every Bo Jackson card, whether he played f...

  You're going to have to wait a little for the vintage on this post, and it's just one card. But I think it's a decent one. So, yeah, that's my tease. First with the modern junk ... er ... stuff.   Kevin from The Diamond King sent me an unexpected envelope a week or so ago. It might have been payback for the 5,000-post giveaway envelope I sent, or maybe I actually requested some of these cards and don't remember. When I'm uncertain, I always land on the side of my feeble memory.   All of the cards, except for one, are modern Dodgers items, like the Koufax Archives card above, and a few are pretty snazzy, too.   For example this from last year's Donruss. I didn't know such a thing existed. It's certainly different for Panini, as the card company is not in the habit of showing actual baseball scenes behind the players.   I admit though I half expected Mookie to move in some sort of lenticular fashion, so that was a small disappointment. Also, this is...

  I'm currently taking a forced break from my pursuit of Kellogg's cards. I'm in the middle of trying to collect the 1979 Kellogg's set. I struck out in attempting to purchase the entire set, as I had with 1980, because there's been a run on Kellogg's cards all year. So I've gone the card-by-card route, which has been more successful, but still frustrating in this "suddenly people care about these cards" world. And now the pursuit has ground to a halt thanks to limited cash flow, always an issue in August.   Before the Kellogg's sabbatical I had accumulated several '79s through various auction purchases last month. Here is that group: But now a few '79 Kellogg's cards are languishing in online carts and it's difficult to keep the panic from welling up inside as I envision collectors plucking those wonderful 3-Ds out of my unattended basket. Still, I can distract myself from that terrible scenario by playing with the cards that I...