Night Owl Cards

  Wow, that's a lot of scuffing on that card. It's still surprising what you see once you scan a card.   Before getting into the heart of this post, thanks to reader Casey for taking those cards off my hands from the downsizing post. There will be more posts like that, with (slightly) better cards!   OK, now while I'm trying to get rid of some cards, I'm still adding cards at a pretty good rate. Lately I've been swimming in 1980s Donruss, which if you knew me in the early 1980s would certainly make you chuckle.   I've written about this several times -- Donruss was my third choice in the 1980s from the very moment I first saw the brand in 1981. Topps first, Fleer second, Donruss third when walking to the drug store or deli to find cards. By 1983, I wasn't even bothering with Donruss. The following year, Donruss produced what I've often called "the only Donruss set that matters" but mostly the reason I bought any in 1984 was because I purchased ...

   I just finished another yearly sort of my Dodgers dupes boxes. It took a long time, as usual.   Thanks to giving away some Dodgers cards recently, I freed up some room. But there are still plenty of extras that will probably be with me for the rest of my days.   I don't want that to be the case with many of my other cards.    I alluded to this during my anniversary post a couple of months ago. I need to downsize. You've seen my card room. It's fairly big. There are two large shelving units that are packed. There are boxes stored on another shelf and in a couple of drawers, and in a closet. I am officially out of room.   I don't want to stop collecting, but to keep going, I need to clear out some space. My plan is to remove some/many of the cards in boxes and then I can take some of the cards that are now in binders and shift them to boxes, freeing up some space on the shelves.   So what happens to the cards I'm taking out of boxes??   Ah y...

    I've written about this card a few times on this blog. It's the first autographed card I ever bought, at one of the first card shows I ever attended back when I was a teenager.   It was a pretty savvy move at the time, though I was not thinking of getting a deal or anything like that. Still the value of Koufax cards and Koufax autographs have shot up in the decades since. I'm very happy I have it.   But my main focus as a collector has not been autographs, it's completing sets and completing Dodgers team sets. Because of that, this Koufax card has always stood in the way. Since it's autographed, I never considered it part of the 1961 Topps Dodgers team set, though I list the set complete on checklists, like on TCDB.   While attending the monthly show in town over the last few months, I've noticed that the one dealer I go to all the time had a 1961 Koufax under glass. Just your regular, "ordinary" '61 Koufax, no signature scrawling on it.   I...

   Don't worry, not more on the 2025 Series, at least not now.   Today I "finished" the 1971 Fleer World Series set, what I like to call the "Fleer Laughlin World Series set" as it was illustrated by artist Robert Laughlin and he was the inspiration for the sets, which he kicked off in 1967, creating and issuing the sets out of his own home.   The 1935 World Series card was the last card that I needed, kind of a surprise that it was the final one to arrive at my door.      The 1956 card was the second-to-last arrival, more in line with my expectations.     I figured either the 1956 or 1919 or 1969 card would be the last one I needed. They were all among the final six or seven but nothing proved very difficult to find, which I appreciate, though part of me is a little miffed that these aren't adored by other collectors like they are by me. Still I should be careful what I wish for (see: my increasing difficulty in obtaining '70s Kellogg's and ...

  I admit I might have purchased this card for too much money the other day. It's what sellers are counting on from fans of the team that wins the World Series. And when the card shows a photo of a play you don't ever remember seeing before -- or at least don't remember seeing in a do-or-die situation in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series -- you buy it.   It's not going to get into my hands until next month, but I know how that goes, having experienced the same thing when I bought one Topps Now card to commemorate the Dodgers' win in the 2024 World Series.   While I'm waiting, I'll have more time to think about whether what I just saw was the best World Series game I have ever witnessed.   This has been a popular topic among national commentators and fans in general. When I first thought about it, I tried to rank the best World Series games in my head but quickly gave up. However, yesterday at work I was wandering through my Facebook ...

  I slept 9-and-a-half hours last night/this morning. I don't even come close to that kind of sleep most days now. Probably average around 7.   The combination of the World Series and my cold shredded my sleep cycle all last week, and Sunday night was the first chance for real rest. Not only was I coming off the hangover of the Dodgers' Game 7 victory but the Bills had their biggest game of the season thus far, beating the hated Chiefs in another tense affair. We can't space this stuff out a little more, sports leagues??   I woke up today feeling better than I had in more than a week. I still don't think I'm quite there yet (see: coughing fit just 10 minutes ago), and with that amount of sleep today, I had barely any time to do anything before having to work.   A package from Dime Box Nick has been waiting for my words for 10 days now and I'm finally squeezing it in right now. As you know, Nick stopped writing on his blog nearly a year ago, but this is the seco...