Night Owl Cards

(Greetings on National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. There are no chocolate chip cookies in the house, nor do I see one for me on the horizon today -- certainly not buying the package in the downstairs vending machine at work. I shall distract myself with Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 355th in a series):   Continuing my recent trend toward devoting Cardboard Appreciation to oddball sets , here's another item -- that I didn't know existed until last week.   I mentioned a few posts ago that I was asked to assess a collection that was given to a church thrift shop. The collection was once owned by a boy who is now 25 and includes mostly cards from the early 2000s to the mid 2010s.   I also mentioned that the co-worker who asked me to look it over gave me permission to pick out some cards for my own collection. I added a handful -- no more than 15. A lot of it was familiar stuff that I either already own, don't like much or don't collect (football and basketball mostly)....

You're all posting your 2017 collecting goals, I'm looking backward. That's pretty typical behavior here at NOC. As you know, I don't make any kind of new year card goals that I record and check off. That kind of goal-setting behavior is for real life. Card collecting gets me away from real life. One of the best vacations from real life is the week between Christmas and New Year's. I'm not one of those fortunate folks who gets to skip out of work during that time, but there are enough festivities taking place then that it takes the edge off. Last week, my wife visited her sister and came back with Christmas presents. My presents contained what you see above. I got to open packs on New Year's Eve! Just in case you don't know what you're looking at, that's a blaster of 2016 Chrome and two hanger packs, one of Chrome and one of Allen & Ginter. My sister-in-law is at it again. She didn't have the midas touch this time that she usua...

The year 2007 was not a shining example of the greatness of baseball cards. Out of all of the sets that were released that year, I think the only one that stood out as memorable was Upper Deck Masterpieces. The year also marked the real start of the variation plague that we're still dealing with today. The most famous incident is the Topps Derek Jeter card featuring a photoshopped George Bush in the stands and Mickey Mantle in the dugout. It turns out it wasn't a variation at all as Topps didn't issue a later "correction." This means that Topps had tricked collectors into spending crazy amounts of money on what was, and still is, a base card. Because of that, and other trickery foisted on the 2007 Topps set, I don't have a great opinion of it. It doesn't help that the inserts in the set (excluding the "Distinguished Service" series) are among the worst ever. Alex Rodriguez Road to 500 and Generation Now can die in a fire. I will supply the...

I've run into a brick wall with about five different post ideas today, so you're getting a rambling, housekeeping type post while I regroup. For starters, is anyone really happy with this A&G Troy Tulowitzki card? The fog is eating his cap, consuming his glove and has already devoured his left foot. This is not a baseball card, it's a horror movie scene. And while I can't get off of Allen & Ginter, someone explain this to me: I have three of this card. That seems odd because the Matt Garza card is No. 347, which means it's a short-print. Yet, I have more of it than any other card in the set. I know there's a mathematical reason for this -- something to do with probability and other stuff that made me realize how much I detested math when I was in high school -- but I refuse to think about such things anymore. I'm just puzzled by why I still need a regular ol' base card of, say, I don't know, Kate Upton, but the card gods ar...

A little more than three years ago, I made a list of the 10 players that I am the most sick of pulling from packs. Those are the players that show up the most times when I buy packs, or maybe it's just a player that I've never heard of who keeps popping up over and over. Or maybe it's a player who's a downright irritant, no matter how many times he appears. I decided to update that post , even though I don't buy nearly as many packs as I did back then and don't exactly feel qualified to do this post. It was interesting to look back on my innocent viewpoint back then. For one, I didn't have much of a problem with Mark Teixeira, relatively speaking anyway. I also had barely heard of Zack Greinke. For those who don't enjoy clicking links, here was the top 10 three years ago, in reverse order: 10. Mark Teixeira 9. Alex Rodriguez 8. Jose Vidro 7. Nook Logan 6. Zack Greinke and Tom Gorzelanny 5. Jeff Weaver 4. Eric Chavez 3. Carlos Lee 2. To...

Way back in the first days of the blog, I mentioned that the one player in the major leagues today who seemed like he was put on this earth to play baseball, the one player who I couldn't possibly envision doing anything else, was Chipper Jones. Even though there could be any number of players about which you could say the same thing, for me, there could be only one player like this at a time. The first player I attached to this concept was Cal Ripken Jr. No real surprise. He came from a baseball family. What else was he going to do? But when I saw Ripken, I knew that he was THE Baseball Guy, the man who if someone said, "give me an example of the ideal baseball player," would flash instantly on everyone's screen. But Ripken held that title all the way until his retirement. Being THE Baseball Guy is a career-long responsibility, and no one can take it from you. Since Ripken's departure, Jones has held the honor. But now that Chipper is old and dec...

Yes, the Awesome Night Card series has been hijacked by the Stadium Lights insert series. That series is the reason why I skipped the Awesome Night Card post last week. It's the reason why I'm showing two awesome night cards again this time. I just can't think of any other night cards until I get this set out of the way. These two cards came from Adam, who runs a fledgling blog called Big Sexy Cards . I believe the blog title is a tribute to the Bulls' Kurt Thomas. Don't ask me to explain more. I don't follow basketball. The arrival of Tulowitzki and Utley means I need just two more cards to finish off the set. The Robinson Cano card is on its way to me. After that, all I will need is the Adrian Gonzalez card. You know what that means. If you ever want to see any other night cards on this blog again, photoshopped Gonzalez needs to arrive in my clutches. Give up A-Gone, and none of my night cards get hurt. And then we can all turn out the lights and ...