Night Owl Cards

  Sorry, sports fans, I'm carrying out on my threat to compare Allen & Ginter owl cards. If I don't do it, who will? Owls have been a traditional A&G subject since the original sets in the 1880s. The card above is from the 1888 A&G Birds of America set (no, it's not mine, yes, I should look into collecting these). A&G, I think, was the first card set to feature owls, at least according to TCDB. There was a Beautiful Birds of America set in 1886 but they didn't consider owls beautiful apparently . Since the A&G reboot in 2006, an owl hasn't appeared on a base card but keeps popping up in insert sets. This is owlie's first arrival in the 2010 A&G set, as part of the National Animals mini insert theme. It flew in all the way from the Dominican Republic for an appearance. The next time owls appeared in A&G was five years later in the Birds of Prey mini insert set. I made certain I found those owls. There are three of them. There are 10 ca...

A few posts ago, I showed some pictures of "the card room" in my home. It's your typical assortment of card stacks, boxes and binders, binders everywhere. I mentioned in that post that I stack binders on top of each other because I read somewhere that storing binders vertically can warp pages and then warp your cards. But stacking comes with a cost, especially if you're trying to cut corners. I have a lot of card interests and consequently a lot of cards. But I don't have the money or the space for all those binders. So I do two things that I know will cause several collectors to shake their heads. First, I double-bag my pages -- 18 cards per page. I have done this since I first knew there were binders and pages to store cards. I've done this for so long that leaving nine cards to a page to this day seems extravagant. Almost wasteful. The only set that I have not done this for is the 1956 Topps set, because the card backs are so fantastic. If I w...

I don't expect anyone under 35 to grasp that title reference. But don't you worry, I'll have you all caught up by the end of the post. A few days ago I went to Target armed with a gift card. I was under strict orders to purchase baseball cards with it, and I am a good little soldier. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, my Target tries to squeeze as much money out of a card consumer as it can. Everything in the card aisle was full-price. If I wanted something cheap, it would have to be loose packs of 2012 product, and I have zero interest in 2012. Deflated, I left. The gift card will have to wait until 2013 Topps hits shelves. Next stop was Walmart a few days later. I had hoped to grab one of those "Best of 2012" repacks that I've been reading about on the blogs. I know I just said I have zero interest in 2012. But judging by some of the stuff I've been seeing out of those things , I was willing to gamble. But there was no "Best ...

I was involved in Cardboard Heaven's Rose Bowl draft a few weeks ago. It my first card draft and a lot of fun. I quickly figured out that the objective, after finding a few cards you want, was to get cards that could be used in future trades. And that's what I did. Some of the cards are already in packages waiting for All Work And No Play to get his dull ass to the post office. Some of the other cards you'll see here are posted in a pathetic effort to jump-start some trades -- not that I have any time for that. The Prince Fielder bat card was obtained to work out a deal with a Brewers fan. Heh. That worked out spectacularly. Fielder will be making his imprint in Detroit for the next nine years. I don't even know if a Tigers fan wants a relic card of a guy in a Brewer uniform. I know, personally, I wouldn't. It's not like I'm clamoring for Angels cards of Juan Rivera. ... OK, bad example. But you know what I mean. So, Prince may or may not stay with...

( Note from the night owl: This is an actual new post. It is not a post you have read before. Blogger is somewhat back to normal. ... We now return you to your regularly scheduled post -- scheduled to publish Thursday night, that is). I received this "postcard" from Thorzul in a trade a week or two ago. I use postcard in quotes because although it's postcard size, the back is thoroughly blank. I don't think you can send this card through the mail in the traditional fashion, unless you want postal goons at your front door the next day. Thorzul had no idea what the card is or when it was issued, so he thought I might be able to figure it out. You know, because I'm a Koufax fan, and a Dodger fan, and have gobs and gobs of free time on my hands. Heh. But I enjoy a good research project. Besides, I didn't think it would take me much time to figure out. After all I do have this: You might be saying that this is a book about baseball cards and wha...