Welcome to Card Almanac! Thanks for the visit. I’m excited to share with you this new project. Let me explain why I chose the name and start to share what exactly is the purpose of this site.

What is an almanac?

When I was younger, I would save up my money to buy trading cards. I would often diverge from that and purchase video game consoles (I loved my Sega Genesis) and sports almanacs among other things.

The Information Please Sport Almanacs were a thing of beauty. These sports almanacs had so many facts, stats, etc. It was a baseball card on steroids. I would read it for hours at a time. Then I would take frequent glances at it. And then I would recount what I learned to my family.

Wikipedia says an almanac is:

an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar. … The set of events noted in an almanac may be tailored for a specific group of readers, such as farmers, sailors, or astronomers.

Continuing to read in that same article on Wikipedia you will find:

Modern almanacs include a comprehensive presentation of statistical and descriptive data covering the entire world. Contents also include discussions of topical developments and a summary of recent historical events.

Examples of Almanacs

• The Old Farmer's Almanac is a reference book containing weather forecasts, planting chart astronomical data, recipes, and articles. Topics include gardening, sports, astronomy, folklore, and predictions on trends in fashion, food, home, technology, and living for the coming year. Published every September, The Old Farmer's Almanac has been published continuously since 1792, making it the oldest continuously published periodical in North America.
• Barbanera is a famous Italian almanac, printed for the first time in 1762 and still published yearly today. It traditionally proposes weather forecasts, information about lunar phases and the stars, curious facts, proverbs, gardening tips and advice for a healthy lifestyle.
• Poor Richard's Almanack was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin offered a mixture of seasonal weather forecasts, practical household hints, puzzles, and other amusements. The publication appeared continually from 1732 to 1758.

Doesn’t everybody want to know the correlation between card prices and astronomical data? Or be able to predict when a specific rookie card will rise because of weather trends?

In all seriousness, how great would it be to have an almanac with trading cards as its subject?

A Trading Card Almanac

Based on previous experience with almanacs, and given our kind-of deep dive into what an almanac is, what content belongs in a trading card almanac?

• Information on every card and set ever released
• Checklists
• Release dates for sets
• Print runs
• Pack odds
• Sales information
• Cards by player and team
• Player information
• Team information

I know there is lots more data that could contribute to your collecting experience. The chance of getting this data and compiling into one data set is going to be very difficult, if not impossible. The thought of it though is very exciting.

So much of this data is already available. We all have our favorite sites, books, magazines, etc. What are favorite sources of information? What information are we missing?

A Digital Almanac

It is safe to say that I won’t be getting in the book publishing business anytime soon to publish a trading card almanac. I’ll stick with creating web sites and applications.

Thus, I proudly present to you, drum roll please, the Trading Card Almanac.

Currently, it is a humble website consisting of a mailing list and a handful of checklists. As much as I’d like to have a complete website, I’ll give you what I have and get feedback on what I can do to make it better.

Checklists are the main thing that will be worked on over the next coming months. As I release new features and functionality, I will announce them here seeking feedback. Whether something is useless or simply amazing, I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

In reality, the primary reason Card Almanac was built is to test and validate some other projects that I have been working on (otherwise known as dogfooding). I’m excited to reveal these projects because I feel the trading card industry will benefit as whole. More details to come as they get closer to release.

Check out the Trading Card Almanac

The Card Almanac application is changing often. Check out the app! We'd love your feedback to know what you like and what we can do better.