First Mall Show of the Year

Card shows used to be so alluring.  Not long ago, I was constantly on the lookout for them in my area.  However the rise in interest for graded and gaming cards has sadly lowered my interest in card shows.  I'm especially turned off by the ones that charge parking and/or admission.

Luckily there is still one local mall show about twenty minutes from my place.  Sure it's flooded with Pokemon cards and slabs, but I did manage to find a few dollar bins two Saturdays ago in between visits with friends.

Most of my purchases revolved around football cards, which isn't very interesting most of you.  So I'll go out of order and show off the lone baseball card purchase first...

Purchase #2:  Dollar Rookie Cards  $3

There was a couple with four shoeboxes filled with top loaded dollar cards.  I spent over twenty minutes standing there going through all of them, while talking to the gentleman about the hobby.

1987 Fleer #269

One of our conversations revolved around how this card was once one of the most expensive in the set.  Anyone remember back in the early 90's when Will Clark was towards the top of Beckett's Hot List?  Remember when this card booked for $35?

2019 Topps Update #US1

The vendor had a handful of cards laid out on top of the shoeboxes to attract customers.  This was one of them.  I'll pick up copies of Vladito's flagship rookie card for a buck all day long.  Unfortunately, this was the only one he in these boxes.

1995 SP #99

It's hard to believe that it took me over three decades to finally add this card to my collection.  I bought a lot of football back in the 90's, but never owned this card.  Sapp was a beast on the gridiron and a first ballot hall of famer.  This is arguably my best find of the day.

The rest of my card show purchases revolve around football cards, but I'll wrap up this post with a vintage baseball card I purchased off of eBay.

Let's continue with my card show haul...

Purchase #1:  Modern Football Rookie Cards  $10

My first purchase of the day was from a guy who had a few rows of cards he had marked at $3 each.  I pulled out five and he charged me $10.  Two of them were for fellow bloggers, but these are for me:

2025 Phoenix #200

2024 Prizm #301

I don't usually go out of my way to purchase rookie cards of quarterbacks who aren't on the Packers or Seahawks, but both of these guys impressed me this season.  Classify this as a FOMO purchase.

I don't usually take the time to go through $3 bins, but this card caught my eye:

2021 Prestige Xtra Points Blue #244 (#'d 003/249)

Micah Parsons is a stud and the Green Bay Packers were right in the thick of things this season until he tore his ACL in December.  Can't wait to see him return next season.

Purchase #3:  Super Bowl Bound QB RC  $3

Two of my friends set up at this show.  Tom specializes in the non-sports stuff, along with higher end sports cards.  While Tony focuses on the cheaper stuff.

I noticed a stack of Drake Maye cards on Tony's table.  This was my favorite:

2024 Topps Chrome #203

Maye had one heck of a season... and on Sunday he'll be facing off against my beloved Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl.  Go Hawks!

Purchase #4:  Bargain Bin  $12

I'm a sucker for bargain bins... and this guy had two boxes filled with dollar cards.  If the card was in a one-touch or top loader, it was two bucks.

Let's start with them:

I figured the magnetics were worth the two dollar price tag alone.  In hindsight I should have grabbed all of his $2 one touch singles at this price.  I also picked up two cards in top loaders:

2024 Leaf Pro Set Pure Green Spectrum #60 (#'d 1/49)

2025 Phoenix Phoenician Penmanship #PHP-MRN

I was pretty excited to add this Joe Namath to my Prime Number PC.  Plus sticker auto or not, I'll always add a Super Bowl MVP autograph to my collection for a couple bucks.

I also pulled out three dollar cards from his boxes.  One is for a fellow blogger, but here are the two for me:

2024 Prizm Silver Prizm #145

2025 Absolute Red Plaid #137

The vendor ended up tossing them into the deal for free.  That was a nice surprise.  I'll definitely look for his table the next time I attend this show.

That wraps up my latest card show haul.  Two hours of entertainment and walking out with a small stack of cardboard made the experience a successful day at the mall (even if there were two baseball cards involved).  There's another show in February, but it falls on the same day as one of my flea markets.  Not sure I'll attend both, but we'll see.

Here's the baseball card I mentioned earlier in the post:

1959 Fleer Ted Williams #67

Greg over at Crocodile Sports Cards show off this Ted Williams card on his blog two weeks ago and I immediately added it to my saved eBay searches.

I was drawn to it, because it features Sam Snead, who was one of those old school golfers that my father talked about when I was a kid.

That leads us to today's question of the day:

Are there athletes that you associate with your parents or other family members?

I'd say Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Joe Montana, Jim Plunkett, and Bart Starr are athletes that remind me of my dad.  As for my mother, Joe Montana reigns supreme.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Snacks, Cards, and more Childhood Memories

This photo (found online) was taken sometime in 1986.  Unless you grew up in South San Jose... it probably doesn't do anything for you.  On the other hand, this photo takes me back to my middle school stomping grounds.

Sunrise Plaza is a strip mall that currently looks like this:

I'll still head over there whenever I'm craving a burrito from Chavez Supermarket or need a sporting good from Dick's.

But back in the mid 80's, it was the home to the UA Cinemas, Nova Arcade, and a local pharmacy.  That's where my friends and I would to buy snacks and packs of cards before watching a movie or hanging out in the arcade.

I hadn't thought about that pharmacy in years.  But a few weeks ago, Gregory over at Nine Pockets wrote a post about some Mario Lemieux cards that originally came with some candy.  One of the questions he asked his readers was if there were any stationary or drug stores with racks of candy in our areas when we were kids.  That immediately made me think of The Pharmacy.

By the time the late 80's rolled around, a card shop called National Pastime opened up in the shopping center.

A few years later the shop moved right down the street from my house.  It's currently a nail salon, but that's a photo of the actual address where the card shop was located.  I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to work at my LCS back then.

Anyways... today I figured I'd share another present from Ryan's advent calendar that is directly related to snacks and cards.

However let's kick things off with a cardboard appetizer involving two Nolan Ryan food issues:

1986 Drake's Big Hitters #33

I don't remember eating any Drake's baked goods, but they seem to similar to Hostess products which I ate all the time as a kid.

1991 Jumbo California Seeds #20

Sunflower seeds were a staple for me and my Little League teammates back in the 80's.  By the time Jumbo was inserting these cards into their packages of seeds, I had hung up my cleats.  But I picked up this card somewhere along the way.

Why am I featuring cards of Nolan Ryan?  Well he celebrated his 79th birthday yesterday and he happens to be one of SumoMenkoMan's favorite baseball players.

Okay... let's get to the advent calendar portion of the post.  Here's the haiku hint that Ryan wrote:

The 25th present in the advent calendar was a large box of rice crackers:

The box contained twenty individually wrapped packages that had a pack of cards attached to each one:

I opened them up, dumped the rice crackers into a bag, and separated the packs from the bags:

There were two different packages available:

Each came with a single pack attached to the back:

Here's a closer look at the front and back of one of those packs:

I cracked open the first five packs.  Each contained one baseball card and an advertisement card.  The baseball cards are made out of acetate or something similar:

Here's a peek at the card backs:

I love that there are so many snacks in Japan that are sold with trading cards.  Personally, I wish we'd see more modern food issues here in North America.

What about you?

Would you be more likely to purchase your favorite snacks if they came with trading cards?

There's no doubt in my mind that I'd seek out more snacks at the grocery store if they came with cards.  Heck... a few years ago I bought a box of cereal mainly because it contained an uncut sheet of MLS cards.

That's it for today.  Thank you Gregory for inspiring this post... and thank you Ryan for providing the snacks and cards.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Calm Before the Storm

Collecting sports cards can be relaxing.  Rooting for sports teams can be quite the opposite.  Today's a big day for one of my favorite teams and I've been stressing out about it for the past week.

I figured I'd try to distract myself this morning, but catching up with a pair of items from Ryan's advent calendar that could be classified as relaxing or calming.

Let's start with the helpful hint that he wrote:

This was one of the most obvious haikus from his package.  It refers to this miniature bonsai tree:

The planting portion was super simple and took less than a minute to complete.  Now the waiting game begins.  I'm planning on taking the pot into my classroom.  Maybe watching it grow will help some of my 8th graders relax too.

The other "calming" present was building block related.  Here's his haiku:

And here's the gift:

It's one of those blind bags that contains one "Space Collection" build.  Here's the one I received:

Building block sets are often pretty therapeutic, but this little sucker was a challenging build due to its small size.  Here's a photo that shows the size compared to the mini bonsai planter, a Lego mini-figure, and a Kenner SLU:

The astronaut will accompany the bonsai pot and join the other Lego builds I have displayed in my classroom.

While on the topic of building blocks, I wanted to show off one more Christmas related gift before discussing the storm that quickly approaching.

My friend's mom gave me this awesome Lego set:

2024 Lego Star Wars #75375

I've thought about buying the midi-scale Millennium Falcon for over a year, but I just never got around to doing it.  So I was blown away to see that this was waiting for me under their tree.  Unfortunately, I haven't had time to build it... but as soon as I do... I'll show you guys what it looks like.

Okay... now let's get to the sports section of this post.  In a couple of hours, the Seattle Seahawks will host the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship Game.  Division games always stress me out.  Division games that involve the winner moving on to the Super Bowl is next level.

On one hand, I haven't been as impressed with the Seahawks defense since these guys:

2014 Prizm Red, White, & Blue #200

On the other hand, I'm not quite as confident in the Seahawks offense as I have been in the past.  I'm predicting a close game... but honestly have no idea who wins this game.  I've watched a ton of analysis and prediction videos... and I feel like even the experts are pretty torn.

At this point the only thing to do is sit back, watch the game, and see how things play out.  Let's go Hawks!

Here are today's questions of the day...

Do you ever get stressed out over your favorite sports teams?

Out of the four remaining football teams, are you rooting for any of them?

If so, who?

Happy Sunday and sayonara!