Night Owl Cards

   This is the 6,000th post on Night Owl Cards. That really feels weird to type.   That is such a big number that I could barely find a corresponding baseball statistic to go along with it, which is what I like to do when I reach a round-number milestone on this blog.   I did find one -- career total bases. Just four players in major league history have reached 6,000 career total bases. Hank Aaron is the king of total bases with 6,856.   The others are Albert Pujols, Stan Musial and Willie Mays, in that order.   I couldn't find much more to say about that, so I dug out a favorite card of each player in my collection to go with the respective player's total base total.     1. HANK AARON, 6856 total bases   Naturally, I pulled out my 1956 copy. This is one of the '56 cards landed during the summer of 2020 that kind of let me know I could actually finish this thing.     2. ALBERT PUJOLS, 6211 total bases   This card amuses me beca...

  Yay, you're seeing another one of these!   As you've no doubt have read already, Chris of The Collector sent out some generous giveaway packages to celebrate a couple of milestones in his collecting life -- 40 years of collecting and 10 years of blogging. Today is the exact day he started his current blog. The baseball card blogging world is more interesting for it.   As you know, I love milestones, in fact I have one coming up with the next post (it was a little tricky coordinating programming). When I look back, my 10th year of blogging arrived in 2018 and I hit 40 years of collecting in 2015.   The Collector said he's stepping away from collecting at the end of his anniversary year but I believe he'll still be writing on his blog, which is great news as I enjoyed some of his researched-themed series, particularly the All-Time Teams one.   But this is not about the future or the past, it's about round numbers and goodies!   I have 10 separate images ...

  Ever since the local monthly show (and many other shows throughout the country) has become overrun with TCG cards I've debated skipping or at least not automatically attending every month. It's become less and less productive over the past 9 months to a year.   But like they say in the majors, "that's why you play the game." I was pretty surprised when I walked into the usual hall Saturday.   First, it was packed. I normally attend closer to 1 p.m. when typically the crowd has thinned out. But I could tell driving into the parking lot that there were still many people there. Second, the show was overwhelmingly sports cards. Any Pokemon, Magic, etc. seemed limited to a handful of tables. I don't know what caused the sudden shift back to sports cards but I was glad I got up off my recliner.   The change affected my mood more than my shopping. The tables were still overrun with graded football and basketball and I'm sure I heard "PSA" uttered 25-5...

  Card bloggers who have been at it for a dozen years or more are aware of Dave from Tribe Cards and his seemingly never-ending giveaways. I've mentioned a few times now that he was my introduction to how wonderful card blogging could be. People sent you cards just because you asked. For free. And good stuff, too. The first stuffed box I received not even two months into my blogging career contained a 1950 Bowman card. I had arrived in the blogging world just to write about cards -- isn't that wonderful that you could do that? -- and now this?!?   So when Dave announced almost four years ago that he was launching another giveaway -- a return to the 12 Days of Cardmas Giveaway, even though it wasn't Christmas -- I signed right up, very enthusiastically.   Years went by and I forgot about the whole thing until Dave reappeared last month to announce he was sending stuff out. The original call for sign-ups provided a sign-up "sheet," requesting our top three choices...

  OK, here it is, the 5,000-card giveaway. I must be nuts: A) This is a lot of cards. B) This is a lot of work C) This is a lot of postage D) Who has the time? E) There is youtube and Netflix to watch F) There are spring training games to watch G) This is a lot of work! But I want to acknowledge people who are still at it, reading this blog after a dozen-plus years and 5,000-plus posts. Sure, probably most weren't around at the very beginning. I'd love to acknowledge them the most, but there's no way of verifying that, so I'm opening this giveaway up to everyone. Yeah, even you, anonymous, and, you, prize hound, and, you, folks who didn't even hear of this blog until "The 5,000-card giveaway ..." popped up on the social media site.   It's possible there won't be that many people who want the cards anyway. It's not like I'm giving away sapphire chrome or Formula 1 cards or whatever is the be-all right now.   All this is is ( is is? ) trying ...

  Ever since I converted our spare room into a card room more than a year ago, I've become more aware of the limitations of space on my collection.   When my cards were spread out in three or four different places throughout the house, I didn't think about it much. There always seemed to be more space -- if one spot was filling up, I could simply move it to another spot.   But now there is one room, albeit a wonderful, sizable room, and ... I'm running out of room.   There is no other place to put cards these days. They either fit in the card room or they need to be sent packing.   So I've started to think about downsizing somewhat.   A week or two ago I sent a bunch of 2006 Topps Barry Bonds Home Run History cards to Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop . He's trying to collect a card for every Barry Bonds home run.   Those Home Run History cards had been part of my quest to attempt to complete everything from 2006 Topps, a master set if you wi...