You Can't Teach A Dog New Tricks

The past month or so... work and personal life has sort of trumped hobby and blogger life.  With birthday dinners and back to school stuff out of the way, I should be able to start writing and reading blog posts in the near future.

With that being said... I have been picking up a few nice items for my PC that I'll share in the near future.  A while back, I made the decision to focus on quality over quantity... and pick up a few nice things that I'll cherish rather than a bunch of lower end items that end up taking up space which I'm slowly running out of.

On Saturday, I brought that strategy with me to the Serramonte Mall Sports Card, Toys, & Collectibles Show in hopes of tracking down a 1979 Topps baseball set or maybe a 1956 Topps Willie Mays.

The last thing I wanted to do was add a bunch of low end stuff that would require me to sort, scan, and utilize the limited free time I currently have.  Unfortunately I have way too much bargain blood in me to pass up some of the deals I found.

Overall... I dropped $198 at the show, but since I'm not trying to write a novel today... I'll share half of my purchases today and show off the rest on Thursday.


Purchase #1:  25 Relics and Autos $40

I kicked off the card show with a nice haul of relic cards... that ended up costing me a $1.60 per card.

A few of them were solid hidden treasures like the 2007 Tristar Elegance jersey card of Clayton Kershaw (top row... 4th card from the left).  Another solid find was the 2007 Ultimate Collection patch card of Pudge in the bottom right corner.  The Jonathan Franklin and the Cleveland Indians Winning Trios cards were additions to my Prime #'s PC... which is slowly starting to take off.  But my favorite card of the lot was the 2004 Topps Clubhouse Collection card of Hank Bauer (bottom left corner).  I think this might be my first Kansas City Athletics relic card.  I think.


Purchase #2:  6 Cards $20

I normally don't bother flipping through $4 relics, but the 2001 Donruss Classic Combos card of Brooks Robinson caught my eye.  The only bulk discount the vendor offered was a 6 for $20 deal.

I found these three baseball cards for me.  The other three were basketball cards that will eventually be headed over to Mr. Kingsley who won my Pay It Forward Contest.


Purchase #3:  Nickel Box $40

Ninety minutes.  Eight hundred cards.  And one really sore back.

I'm not complaining though.  This was one helluva nickel box haul.  Hundreds of colored refractors.  A few almost complete Diamond King insert sets.  And tons of other inserts and parallels for my binders.

Sadly... there weren't any NASCAR for Billy... and the basketball was pretty much picked through by the guy standing next to me.  I did manage to find a few singles that I'll throw into his prize package though.


Purchase #4:  Ted Simmons Signed Baseball $15

Technically this purchase is part of the nickel box deal.  While going through the guy's boxes, I noticed the ball in one of the boxes and asked him what he wanted for it.

He started at thirty... but we ended up settling for $20 with $5 worth of nickel cards for free.  Since I wouldn't really pay $20 for this ball... I choose to think that I paid $15 for the ball and I paid $5 for 100 more cards in my stack.


Purchase #5:  Basketball Card Lot $10

I'll refrain from sharing this purchase, because it's the other half of Billy's prize package.  However it includes a few shiny cards and a couple of "hits".  Don't worry Billy... I'll dig into my PC and see if I have some NASCAR for you too.

Well that's it for today.  On Thursday I'll share my remaining four purchases... which include a huge addition to my Oakland Athletics PC and a Negro League relic card.

Have a great week... happy Tuesday and sayonara!