Card Show Chronicles

Two days.  Two Shows.  Way too many cards to scan.  So today's post summarizes the highlights from last weekend's card shows.

Show #1:  GTSM Bay Area Autograph Experience

This show was pretty much a complete bust in terms of dealers.  There were two, maybe three guys selling vintage cards and another three or four sports card vendors in all.  In fact, there wasn't a single dime box to be found.  It took me less than twenty minutes to walk around the entire showroom floor.

Luckily one of my buddies set up at the show, so I had the opportunity to dig through his boxes.  I ended up digging out sixteen cards that caught my eye and we went back on forth with what both of us considered fair prices.

We finally agreed on a $65 price tag for the lot.  That might seem a little high, but I walked away with some very cool cards.  My favorites are the Dave Winfield rookie card, the Don Drysdale autograph, a Chipper Jones patch, and this unique Kobe Bryant Christmas relic:

The only other purchase I made last Friday was for this 2008 Press Pass Gridiron Gamers card of Colt Brennan for my Hawaii PC:

I picked this up for a buck off of a dollar table and ended up walking out of the show having spent a lot more than I originally planned.  But most of the money went into my buddy's pocket and I added some decent cards to my collection.


Show #2:  Serramonte Mall Sports Cards, Toys, and Collectibles Show

The next day, I woke up early and headed out to my favorite show of the year.  There were two main items on my want list:  1977 Topps Star Wars Sticker Set and a 2012 Crown Royale Silhouette Russell Wilson autographed rookie card.

As fate would have it... I didn't purchase either of these, which was probably a blessing since I blew the bulk of my cardboard budget the night before.  After hanging out for close to six hours, I ended up finding three different vendors with dime boxes.

In an effort to save time, I combined the three purchases into one stack of 161 cards.  I actually spent $17, but one of the vendors included a box of American Bandstand trading cards and a 1971 Kellogg's Willie Mays:

Okay... let's get to the dime box cards:

Tony Gwynn Cards

I grabbed every Gwynn oddball or insert I could find and when the dust settled, I had fourteen cards in my stack.  Six of those cards were new editions to my binder, including the cool looking Wonder Years card.

Baseball Inserts and Parallels

The majority of my dime box purchases were baseball inserts and parallels.  This is what I normally target in hopes of filling in my binders and whatever doubles I get go into my care package box which get shipped to you guys.  My favorite?  It's easily the 1998 Flair Showcase Wave of the Future Brad Fullmer.  One of the coolest insert sets from the 90's.

Baseball Oddballs

I was pretty excited to find some older oddballs in this show's dime boxes.  All of the Kellogg's I found were significantly damaged, but I don't mind adding them to my collection for a dime.  The 1961 Post George Altman represents the oldest card from my entire dime box purchases, while the 1975 Hostess Lou Brock is the coolest.

Rookie Cards

I was surprised at the lack of rookie cards in this show's dime boxes.  If I were to guess, I'd say 20% of my dime box purchases are typically rookie cards.  This time I only found fifteen and five of them were 2011 Topps Legends A.J. Green rookie cards.

Football/Basketball Inserts and Parallels

This trip I avoided anything outside of baseball and in the end there were only a handful of football and basketball cards.  Heck... I didn't even buy a single hockey card at the show.  The highlight from this lot was easily the 1996 Playoff Prime sample card of Antonio Freeman.  It represents the sole addition to my Promo Card PC.

Vintage Baseball Cards

Last, but not least are the vintage baseball cards.  There weren't as many as I had hoped, but at least I finally added a Boots Day card to my vintage binder.

The next group of cards was purchased as we were literally leaving the show.  They were at the table closest to the exit and had my buddy not clarified their sign, I would have left without these cards:

The vendor had the boxes labeled "$1, buy 1 get four free", but I only saw the $1 part and had no intention of dropping that much on quarter bin quality cards.  But my buddy pointed out that they were really 20¢ each, so I decided to quickly sift through the boxes.  I ended up buying $2 worth, 70% of which were Steve Largent base cards.  I think I'm going to chase down all of his regular issue Topps base cards produced during his playing years.

I'll wrap things up with a fifteen dollar purchase that will leave most of you guys scratching your heads.

2013 Topps Star Wars Jedi Legacy "Ewok Fur Relic" #ER-7

Yeah... I know.  It has already been pointed out that I could have had 150 more dime box cards.  Instead I chose some Ewok fur.  Oh well... it's easily one of the most unique cards in my collection.

Well that's it for now.  I hope everyone is enjoying their week.

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!