Night Owl Cards

(I am vacationing this week, which usually means more time for blog posts. But all that extra time makes me feel like avoiding blog posts. Why is that? It's time for Cardboard Appreciation, but it's going to be a short one. This is the 338th in a series): I received a two-card envelope from The Collective Mind a short time ago. Both cards were Dodgers of the vintage type, both former want list material. I did own the 1961 Post Maury Wills card already but this one is unmarked, whereas the other one I received 12 years ago had some updates. At the time of receiving the "updated" card, I mentioned that I appreciated this kind of an update. Wills had an exceptional 1962 season and whoever owned this card absolutely had to get that season down in writing and where better than on the man's own card. It's all there in ballpoint pen -- games played, at-bats, hits, home runs, RBIs and batting average -- from the fabled 1962 season (nothing about his then-record 104 s

  Well ... not exactly. Cards are always on my mind, even if I'm not physically present with them or writing about them. I traded cardboard success for family bonding success over the weekend. That's an even swap but you don't want to read about ducks and piggies. So I'll reveal the ugly card details and show some shoulder-shrug cards before getting out of here and refocused on hobby things.   I managed to skip not one but two large card shows near me over the weekend. This isn't my fault or anyone else's except for whoever decided that schools in this area would get this week off instead the first week in April like what usually happens (my personal vacations are often tied to school vacations -- and I cannot wait until that's no longer a thing).   To compensate, I stopped by a hobby shop in a nearby mall where I was staying and then a flea market on the way home. I managed two cards for my collection, one from each place. Two Panini-themed Dodgers, which i

  Before 2024 Heritage came out, commenters would reassure me during my 1975 Topps buyback posts that there would be buybacks accompanying Heritage in 2024. Just hold on, night owl! I knew that there would be. But having never hunted for buybacks in any previous Heritage brand -- I mean, like, why? -- I had no idea how many would be available. Wow. There are almost too many to process. And many, many that I need, even after accumulating 481 of the 660 cards in buyback form! My watch list on ebay is larger than it's ever been. It's the wild west on there right now. I make a bid, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. If I lose, hell, there's like five more I need coming right after that! I've already purchased eight off my want list -- that's after maybe, maybe finding eight per year for the last 2 or 3 years. But I need to calm down now. They'll still be around in the coming months, and there's that little thing called 2024 Heritage that I'm also collecting

    This is post No. 5500 on the blog. Not that the number means all that much, unless you tell someone outside the hobby that you've written 5,500 blog posts about accumulating cards. That will probably draw some sort of reaction.   To them -- most of them anyway -- it's all just mindless accumulation. It's all stuff for the throw-out man eventually. But to me, and the people who read this -- this blog isn't FOR YOU, people who think cards are dumb -- every card added has meaning. It fits into a specific category that pays tribute to whatever thing -- baseball, player, year, hobby -- that means something to that collector.   There's probably no more appropriate time than to go through some recent pickups -- wildly unconnected -- that have been occupying space on my card desk for too long. Yeah it's another show-off post. I'm 5500 posts in now, I can't change.   This will illustrate exactly how many kinds of cards I think are important and also that I