Costco is insanely crowded in my area on the weekends. That's why my brother and I hit up the business center as soon as it opens every 2nd Saturday of the month. It's a routine and it's never failed us. We're in and out within twenty minutes. No fighting for parking. No long lines. No traffic jams getting out of the parking lot. But there's one huge downside. No free samples.
Oh well. Can't have it all. Luckily today, I came home to four samples sitting on my office desk:
1995 Select Certified Sample #50
1995 Select Certified Sample #89
The first two are mid 90's samples from Pinnacle that were included in Reader X's January care package. Sorry about the five month delay Xavier.
Next up are a pair of early 2000's Donruss Diamond Kings samples:
2002 Donruss Diamond Kings Silver Sample #073
2002 Donruss Diamond Kings Silver Sample #077
As much as people enjoy their Costco samples, I'm not gonna lie... I prefer the cardboard versions 100x more. I was fortunate to have worked at a card shop in the late 90's, so I had access to a bunch of different promo cards. One of these days I'll sit down, organize them by sport, manufacturer, and year... then slide them into 9-pocket pages.
For now, they're going into my promo box... which trumps my Athletics box. But don't worry... Xavier and John sent me plenty for that PC. Unfortunately, I'm a little strapped for time. So for today, you'll just have to settle for these samples.
Thank you Xavier and John!
I know it's been awhile, but here's your question of the day:
Do you get excited for free samples at Costco?
Do you get excited for promo cards?
If you said yes to both, which do you prefer more?
Happy Saturday and sayonara!
Extra Innings
Rough week for baseball fans. First Ted Turner, now Bobby Cox. Thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends, and fans. Both played instrumental roles in my baseball fandom.
1991 Face to Face #668
Turner in the 80's by provided me and millions of others with Braves baseball on TBS.
And Cox for managing one of the most entertaining teams of the 90's... which we enjoyed on TBS.
8 comments:
I’ll usually go to Costco with some coworkers once a month for lunch. We wander through looking for samples first but can’t say I get excited about it.
It’s always fun to find cards in things like magazines, so I did enjoy early 2000s Beckett magazines for the sample cards that reason.
I stay as far away as possible from the samples when I am at Costco (and even further from the cell phone plan guys standing near the front door). I have an almost visceral reaction to sales pitches and have reconsidered even continuing my Costco membership a few times when random employees as if I want to upgrade my membership.
I like sample cards when they are part of a set I am chasing. I've got all the '93 Finest samples but don't have the cash to chase the 1949 Leaf (last seen around 2009) or 1952 Topps samples.
BTW - It would be interesting to read some posts about your experiences working in a 1990s card shop. How did these samples arrive? Were you visited by manufacturer sales reps? etc
Definitely a rough go here for me. I still to this day miss watching Bobby get thrown out of games. I can see it now kicking dirt on the umps shoes :) Yeah...good memories.
When my kids were small they could make a whole lunch out of Costco samples. I usually would take them around for samples while my wife did the real shopping. (appropriate mothers day memory!)
Imagine if Costco handed out baseball card samples? That would be insane! Closest I can think of to that, one year (2005) on opening day, MLB was handing out sample packs of cards at Penn Station and Grand Central, and I made a few rounds at each to pick up some extra cards.
Bobby Cox, always fun to watch.
gcrl - the monthly lunch at costco with your co-workers sounds awesome. the one closest to our school doesn't have a food court, so it's not something that will happen for me anytime soon. as for the beckett magazines, i remember when i stepped away from the hobby in 2001/2002ish, i'd buy becketts to sort of stay in touch. some of them came with sample cards
cardboredom - lol. yeah, i try my best to steer clear of those guys trying to sell/promote something at costco. although it did once lead to me purchasing a new ac unit there. i'll share card shop stories here and there on my blog. most of the time the topic of my post will remind me of something that happened at the shop. i'm kinda worried that those card shop memories will begin to fade. one of my closest card collecting buddies worked at the same card shop i did back in the late 90's. so whenever we'd hang out, we'd talk about the good old days. unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, so i don't have anyone to help refresh my memories. in regards to the samples i accumulated, i'm not 100% sure how the owner acquired them. i know most of the boxes and product he sold came from gtsm, so if i had to guess... they'd give him a stack of promo cards whenever they got them. he'd toss them into a box that was behind the counter. every now and then, i'd go through it and ask him if i could take a few.
johnnys trading spot - sorry buddy. definitely a rough few days. there's something about those 80's and 90's managers who would go crazy kicking dirt on the umpires until finally being tossed. such great memories
bo - that's awesome. when i was in high school, i'd go and enjoy the samples while my mom shopped. these days, i don't go out of my way to get any. but if i'm walking around and something looks good, i'll try it. honestly i try to avoid costco as much as possible, but that might change if they started handing out baseball card samples
batting out of order - yup. he was part of that generation of entertaining managers.
Nice stuff from X and John. I enjoy collecting samples of my PC guys as well. They're just kind of a cool somewhat-oddball that helps keep things interesting.
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