Today's card show was a little more sparse than the one I went to last year. It seemed like there were fewer tables and fewer dealers - but the dealers had more tables and much more selection.
I was there for an hour and a half and only bought from two dealers. Went in with $60, came out with over 250 cards..and a $20 in my wallet.
The dealers I bought from last time were not there, as far as I could tell. I was looking for the guy who had boxes and binders full of vintage baseball. Didn't see him, so I didn't buy any vintage singles. That's the one thing on my "look for" list that I didn't get.
Another dealer I bought from last time was a kid who had a nice dime box of recent baseball cards at 12 for $1. I ended up getting 72 cards from him for just $4. But I didn't see him, either.
The Elks Lodge shows are in one big square room. There are tables along the perimeter and tables in the middle. I started on the right side of the middle tables. All of them were run by a guy wearing a Kansas City Chiefs hoodie. His boxes were as follows: 5 for $1, 4 for $10, and 15 for $1.
The first two boxes were being picked through when I arrived, but his dime boxes were wide open. There must have been at least eight of them, with rows of cards from all years, brands, and sports. I'll show off those spoils throughout the week.
After a while the dollar box raiders left and I got a look. The 4 for $10 boxes were lower-end relics and autos. I picked out six, carried them with me as I did my dime box digging, and decided to put them back when the dealer wasn't looking (I hope he doesn't think I stole them.) None of the six cards fit my collection, and I couldn't justify spending that much on a handful of "hits" when I could get 150 dime box singles for the same price.
I'd searched and searched and searched all but one of those dime boxes. One of the things I was looking for was Prizm parallels. Unfortunately (for Jon at least) the only ones in the dime boxes were hockey:
There were a couple more in the quarter box. I wasn't thrilled with the selection there (probably cleaned out by the guys ahead of me) but I found a dollar's worth:
The Zito, Sefarian-Jenkins, and Mirotic were bought with bloggers in mind, so if anyone wants them, let me know. I like the KCP a lot so I'll probably keep that one.
I joined Kerry's Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club so I picked these up with him in mind. If he doesn't need them I'll probably keep them.
These dime boxes had a ton of the big four sports..and also some tennis, golf, and soccer. I searched for some Kylian Mbappe but came up empty. Got these three instead, mostly because there aren't many soccer stars I've heard of (passed on a Paul Pogba because it was in the 5/$1 box and it was the sixth card.)
Most of the 190 cards I bought in the dime boxes were new..but there was a handful of '80s issues in there. Phegley in particular is super sharp. However the Bernie Nicholls has a dented left edge and a tiny crease at the bottom. I swear I didn't see notice these flaws until I scanned it :/
One more batch for tonight...here's a little bit of baseball bait.
The Danny Duffy snow camo (#d/99) was one of the few numbered parallels I found in he dime boxes.
I'll have more cards to show off once I scan 'em up and log 'em in on TCDB.
~
Ricky Bell was a player we lost way to early. Murph cards are always great. Good stuff. I can always find stuff at a card show. It may take more digging sometimes but I can do it. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the Ricky Bell card his name rang a...bell. But I couldn't recall why.
DeleteI'm glad that you were able to go. Since the year is still so young, hopefully you'll get to hit up a few more in the next nine months or so.
ReplyDeleteI don't collect any of the hockey Prizm, but even so, I probably would've bought those red 2013's if the price was right... so pretty! Dig the random Phegley too :)
Oh, and soccer cards?
I wish I could go back next month; the second guy I bought from said he'd bring a box of Brett Favre cards for me. But my wife already had plans for that weekend :/
DeleteAs for the soccer cards..I was looking through them with Shoebox Shane in mind (since there were no buybacks or 50s Bowman to search through) I had wanted to add Bastian and Zlatan to my collection but didn't want to pay much 'cause I don't follow soccer. Bale sounded familiar to me, and since I didn't see Mbappe, Pulisic or anyone else I knew..I took a shot.
15 for a buck? I would have put the relics back, too.
ReplyDeleteIt was tough because I knew my blogger/trader friends would like some of the relics/autos I had in my hand. if they were 3/$5 I would have brought them home for sure.
DeleteI've filled the brown card show bag before.
ReplyDeleteit's such a great value. much better than retail blasters (more fun, too)
DeleteLots of nice shiny cards here. Looking forward to seeing what else was in this bag.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could have found some more shiny in that 5/$1 box. But there are some nice cards coming up in my next post(s)
DeleteFun fact: Nicolas Batum was only the second player in history to wear #88 in the NBA, after Antoine Walker.
ReplyDeleteI thought that was an unusually high number for a basketball player. Those die-cut jersey cards are cool. I grabbed all I could find and didn't even look at the names until later.
DeleteNicely done. Looks like a good day.
ReplyDeleteThanks, it was a blast.
DeleteI'd be happy with that haul.
ReplyDelete..and this is just the start of it :)
Deletehard to do better than 12 for a George W. ! Money well spent. I'm watching my budget a bit more closely these days so discount is where it's at!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read "George W." I thought you meant Bush..lol.
DeleteCan't say I've ever found a snow camo parallel in a dime box before, nice work!
ReplyDeleteThanks! You would have enjoyed these boxes for sure. I'll have a couple more recap posts about them soon.
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