LCS: Last Card Show?

After a long and eventful week that felt like a month in the best possible way.. I decided to go to the Cranford card show. There's nothing I needed in particular - at least nothing that I would find at this show. So I was really just dollar boxing and browsing for neat stuff. Possibly for the last time. 

Here's a card that caught my eye while I was searching through an adjacent seller's dollar boxes. It's the only single card purchase I made all day, and the only time I didn't negotiate a lower price. 

I'm building a decent sized Misiorowski PC - which actually started the first time I attended a Cranford show after I picked up four copies of his Topps flagship RC. Now I've got Chrome, Donruss, Finest.. and this RayWave thing. I don't have any Bowman Chrome prospect cards of Miz. Maybe next month. 

There was a very popular seller in the corner who had all his boxes labeled "Yankees";  "Yankees and other teams" and "Ohtani". Since it was tough to get anywhere near the other boxes I started with Shohei: 

The Archives Ohtani completes my set, and the 2026 Topps base is an upgrade. Love the low-numbered Chrome Platinum parallels. Younger collectors ignore the '70s-'80s greats, but I'd rather have Hall of Famers for $2 than an Anthony Volpe or Dylan Crews any day. 

Eventually I was able to get a better look at the "other teams" section and found some more shiny stuff - including another Miz. 

Next to this guy there was a table(probably two tables) with monster boxes all over the place. So many that some were placed on the floor in front of the tables. The seller saw my Devils hat and asked me if I collect hockey. I replied in the affirmative. This show has more UFC, WNBA, and NASCAR than NHL, so any hockey at all is like an oasis in the desert.

He pulled out a box from behind the table and placed it on top of other boxes in front of me. There were a couple of Upper Deck Young Guns rookies but none that interested me. A block of Ice and some Parkhurst Champions was enough for me to start a stack:

The color matching Bobby Brink isn't rare or serial numbered but it's a nice one. The Hockey Guy on YouTube is always tempted to say "Bobby Brink of the Boston Bruins" even though he's never played for the B's. It just sounds like he should be a Bruin. 

Some Parkhurst Champions including a pair of '52 retro minis that are kinda neat. The Jacob Markstrom patch wasn't a must-have; this card was released before his disappointing stint with the Devils and it's barely a 2-color swatch. But the dealer surprised me after I handed him my whole stack. He singled out this card, and based the price of the whole stack around it. According to his search, the last sale was $23. So he asked $30 for the pile (as you can see by my hand written note.) 

That means everything else in the hockey stack was $7. Including these:

The Kyle Connor Black parallel is #d /100. 

And these. 

And these. I attempted my best poker face when I found the Glo Pee Chee Jack Hughes insert. The dealer knew it was unique "Those are pretty cool, huh?" But I'm guessing he didn't know they were case hits. 

$30 for all these cards except the Glo Pee-Chee is fair. $30 with this card included is a steal. 

In case you were wondering:

It really does glow in the dark!


The RayWave Miz at the top of this post was next to a very popular table; it took me ten minutes just to get near it. And once I did, I pulled out three huge stacks of cards priced from $1-10. I put back a couple but still ended up with over $320 worth of cards that the dealer sold to me for a flat $200. 

I'll scan up some of those for a future post but it would take forever to scan them all. The dealer had to take a few pictures for inventory purposes and there were these pushy kids trying to sell/trade with him while he was spreading out my cards and snapping pics. It's great that kids are still interested in sports cards but they have no manners at all! 

Last time I was at this show I bought a bunch of football cards from a guy with $10 for $5 / $20 for $10 prices. But this time there were so many little rugrats elbowing their way through while I was in front of the box that I barely had the patience to pick ten cards. 

If I hadn't found the Tyler Booker refractor immediately I would have left. Nothing else here was a must-have but for 50 cents each they're solid. His inventory was a lot better last time.

This particular show is in a very small room and I've found some great cards both times I've gone, but I don't think there's anything else to see. All my current set builds are complete, I've got no more room for current baseball / football / basketball shiny, and there's little to no vintage or graded. I'll just let the kids have their fun from now on. I've got to save up for vintage 'bucket list' items anyhow.

No more news on neighbor lady. I had hoped to see her this morning since it was my last day off before Thanksgiving. I'd seen her come home with her husky around 8 a.m. Friday and hoped she'd be at the park this morning. No such luck. Maybe I'll see her tomorrow if I leave early for work. Oh, and a door to door salesman showed up today. I answered the door, dealt with him, and then he went to our mutual neighbor's house (which is is how I found out they're back from vacation). If I had the guts to ask Neighbor Lady for her number I could have texted her "heads up, aluminum siding salesman headed your way. don't answer the door" .. and then I realized that the last time a random guy knocked on her door ... it was me. Sigh...this sucks. 

Thanks for reading!


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