Night Owl Cards

  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...

Thanks to all who voted in the comments for their favorite 1970s Topps card of Bert Campaneris. I didn't know how this little project would go, since I wasn't installing a poll and, let's face it, the whole theme of the post is how Campaneris these days doesn't get the respect he once did. (Also, I was stunned by the amount of folks who never heard about the bat-throwing moment. Where am I hanging out that I see that mentioned at least every other month?) A surprising 31 people voted for their favorite Campy and the one with the most votes was the one I saw first, the '75 Topps Campy card above. The voting totals: '75 Campy - 11 votes '70 Campy - 4 '72 Campy - 4 '73 Campy - 4 '76 Campy - 4 '74 Campy - 3 '78 Campy - 1 My thanks to the readers who indulged me with their votes, or even if they didn't vote, their comments on that post. To show my appreciation -- for reading, for commenting, for joining in my card talk ...