Night Owl Cards

I have what some people have said is an extensive want list on this blog. It has received 10,927 clicks as of this writing (I promise not all of them are from me). It has proven to be valuable over and over. But there is one flaw in my want list: It is a facade. A charade. A ruse. A front. An illusion. I am reminded constantly of how inaccurate my want list is. The most recent time was with a generous swath of cards sent to me by Johnny from Johnny's Trading Spot . Out of the Dodgers that he sent to me, just about half of the cards that I needed weren't on my want list. Why am I even keeping up this pretense? Let's take a look at the cards that weren't on the list and see if I can determine a reason in the world why I wouldn't have had them on my list. 1987 Sportflics Mike Scioscia Reason why it wasn't on the want list: I'm sure I thought I had completed the team set for this long ago. False confidence is the enemy of a respectable want ...

We're a want list family. When nearing major gift-giving days on the calendar, I both issue and require want lists. The more specific the list, the better. I'm not much for surprises. Surprises are for lazy people who don't want to make a list. Make a list! You'll get what you want and the person giving won't feel like an inadequate loser when you don't like what they gave you. Not once has a Christmas been ruined because there weren't enough surprises. But a few have been ruined because someone was waaaaaaaaay off target in their gift selecting because there was no list because everyone was too busy dancing through magical flowers in Surprise Me Land. Make a list! This is why the want list on my blog is so detailed. I need to tend to it more than I do, but for the most part it features everything that I desire in mind-numbing detail. This is because I know what I want and people shouldn't have to guess like we're two newlyweds. Convers...

I try to make my want list as thorough as possible, but it will never be as thorough as I'd like it. I fall behind with a lot of the new sets (there is no 2012 Bowman Chrome or Topps Update list yet). And I omit most inserts and parallels, mostly to preserve my sanity. But still some people find my want list daunting to go through. I don't mean it to be that way. I just want to give people OPTIONS. I'm someone who is annually frustrated by my dad's Christmas wants. He usually mentions about 3 things, none of which could actually be anything he really wants. I don't want to do that to people. So I create a big, giant, wonderful, stupendous want list and let people dive in. I'm always grateful when people take a chance and go through it, especially if it's not their thing. I know it's not Oscar's thing. My fellow Dodger buddy runs the All Trade Bait, All The Time blog, and he's said several times that he can't handle all those lists...

I've said this many times, but a want list is a wonderful, wonderful thing. If you have a blog and don't have a want list, I have only one question for you: "What? You don't like cards?" Posting a want list on your blog is such a successful enterprise that it can be a little TOO successful at times. One small example: I received this non-descript, late 1990s card of Jose Vizcaino throwing out an anonymous Brave (I choose to keep him anonymous because it's a Brave. I don't care) from Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk . It was part of a big lot of Dodgers that I'll show some other time. I was very happy to receive the card because like a lot of my late '90s wants, it's been sitting on the want list  forever. I'm convinced nobody was collecting cards during the late '90s. With all the Yankee championships at that time, I understand. Too depressing to do anything at all. So with one '98 Fleer Tradition want eliminated, I wen...

When considering the hobby's greatest invention, I'm excluding the cards themselves. It's understood that the cards are the greatest thing about collecting. The greatest invention of the hobby is best described as a tool. Any guesses? Well, if you said "price guide," then you're really at the wrong site. Go find the Beckett site and go nuts. Roll around in some patch cards. Binders and pages? They were pretty radical back in the late '70s, which is the first time I ever came across them. They come in handy to this day. But that's not the greatest invention. Blogs and the internet? Tremendous tools of the hobby. But neither are the exclusive domain of card collecting, as much as we'd like to think they are. Top loaders? Penny sleeves? Card shops? Card shows? Shoe boxes? Bubblelopes? Rummage sales? Nah, none of that. The greatest invention in the hobby for me is also the most useful invention. It is the want list. As you know, I...