Night Owl Cards

   On the good side of being down one vehicle for at least the next month is I won't be able to act on any impulses to drive to Target/Walmart in search for cards.   The past week demonstrated how home-bound I will be (we're a two-car family and opposite work shifts allow us to trade-off the remaining -- older -- vehicle). The only alternative for card purchasing will be online.   I'm well-aware of the online options. I've mentioned many times that there have been no reliable card shops where I live for decades. The monthly card show has been a blessing, but that brings me to another obstacle: the weather.   I had planned to go to the latest monthly show Saturday. I skipped the one last month because it was zero degrees with wind-whipping snow. But this time, snow reappeared again, starting overnight -- more nasty angry-wind stuff. But the forecast promised it would wrap up by late morning. So, no sweat, the card show runs until 3.   Then the late morning f...

    This 1975 Hostess card of Brewers pitcher Billy Champion cost me 8 bucks -- a little more than 10 with shipping included.   The card contains a small crease in the corner and the pitcher, although featuring one of the all-time names in the sport, was an average performer in the '70s, otherwise known as "a common." But it's a short-print.   The Champion arrived not too long after the card of his former teammate, Robin Yount. The Yount is a short-print and its his rookie card, too, but it cost only a few bucks more than the Champion, likely because it's got a few issues (though nothing that bothers me in the slightest when it comes to Hostess cards).   I've returned to attempting to finish this set after getting frustrated with it last year. I didn't encounter the kind of price bumps I'm seeing with '75 Hostess when I was completing the 1976 and 1977 Hostess sets (1976 completed at the end of 2021 and 1977 in mid-2024). But I've got around 17...

  The internet has a great way of providing something you have always wanted, or never even imagined possible ... and then eventually ruining it.   I experienced this great disappointment in duplicate in 2025. Two sites, so entrenched in my entertainment preferences for so many years, had evolved so far away from what I had valued them for that I could no longer ignore it.   I am struggling now to separate myself from one of them, which is Spotify. I have used the streaming site daily for the last four or five years, it has been where I discover new music and how I determine my favorite songs and albums of the year. So getting away from that and finding a new option (I'm trying Tidal right now but it is not cooperating with me) is going to take awhile.   The other site I hope is more of a clean break. In fact, I have already declared in multiple places that I have made my final order on COMC. I hope that remains true.   I have been ordering from COMC since late ...

  Hooooooooooooooooo! It's your favorite cardboard-collecting owl's designated holiday! Who decided I'd rather scare kiddies from tree tops instead of page binders inside a well-lit card rooooooooooooom? Who? Who? Was it the same person who decided airing Game 6 of the World Series on a major holiday was a good idea? Who? Who?   When you think about it, Halloween is trooooooooooly the oddball holiday on the calendar when it comes to major U.S. holidays. Almost every other holiday has to do with family, country or religion. Halloween covers a couple of those elements but only tangentially and only if you have little tykes trudging outside in the rain and wind and cold while they beg for gooooooooooooodies.   So on this oddball holiday I have some gooooooooodies of my own -- the cardboard kind -- that arrived on this festive day. They happen to be oddballs, tooooooooooooo! In keeping with the season.     Ooooooooooooo. One of the last remaining 1971 Fleer World Se...

  Something that Johnny's Trading Spot wrote on one of his recent posts got me curious. He mentioned his ranking on Trading Card Database in terms of all cards entered -- or how many cards you have in your collection, according to TCDB.   I knew all about totaling your collection on the site, but I didn't know you could compare it with other TCDBers' total collections the way you can with total cards of players in your collection or total cards of teams in your collection.   I was immediately intrigued -- and had no idea how to find that information. I looked around for a little bit before my patience ran out after 5 minutes and I emailed Johnny. Turns out it's way at the bottom of TCDB's main page where the columns of links are listed. In the last column is a link called "Stats," which is where I found the info.   Here are the bad boys who lead the way:   Good grief, that's a lot of cards.    I knew right away that I wouldn't be anywhere near the...

   The last three weeks I've averaged three posts a week, which is an all-time production low on Night Owl Cards.   I'm OK with it, which is not something I could say for the majority of the time I've been running this blog. But it's not like I have a choice. So I've accepted it, with the hope that I'll return to at least 5 posts a week, but not expecting that to happen.   Some of the old "requirements" of this blog remain in place though, clinging to the "old ways." One of those is "blog about every card package you have received from others." But when you cut down on blogging time, the cards pile up.   Another requirement is "keep the card room relatively orderly." My card room isn't immaculate, I don't think anybody's should be. But I've got the neatness gene and I can't handle cards piling on top of cards, potentially falling on the floor, so the cat will think it's a new play thing and bop them...