Another Card Show? In this Economy?

I had planned on shopping at a baseball card shop while I was in Connecticut, but it just so happened there was a card show in town as well. This one was in an American Legion building, and it exceeded my modest expectations. I brought home lots of goodies I'll share over the next few weeks. 

For now, here's a look at some singles I picked up. The first table I stopped at had four boxes labeled 25 cards for $20. Basically a dollar box with 5 freebies thrown in. I ended up with 61 cards, the seller asked for $40, and then said I could take five more. But I'd already spent a half hour at his table so I passed.

Lots of shiny refractors and singles from high-end products. Yu Chang is numbered /149.

A few basketball prizms. I couldn't resist the color matches, especially UConn alums Stewie and Ray-Ray.

Like the last show I attended in NJ, there were tons and tons of football cards for sale. The Jaheim Bell is serial numbered to 75. I didn't know if he was still in the league or not, but apparently he's in Steelers camp this summer. 

Colorful legends. The non-Prizm Bo is serial numbered to 299. 

I'm actually stunned at how much football stuff I've seen at shows, particularly in the off-season. It's nearly equal to baseball in total volume. 

My Packers collection is at capacity but I always manage to make room. 

A Sonny Jurgensen relic for a buck? Sure, why not? I'll even take Tyreek at that price.
 

This show even had some hockey! The Brendan Othman RPA did not come from the dollar box, but the Bobby Holik auto did. I wanted to pick up at least one soccer card to commemorate this year's World Cup, and a lot of sellers had a lot of soccer cards (probably the third-most plentiful sport at the show.) I probably wouldn't have picked this particular Haaland card but I didn't want to use up any more time/money searching for a better soccer single.
 

The Warren Moon RC was in the dollar box, I'm lucky I got to it when I did because there was a guy searching through the other end of the box (mainly looking for baseball) and when I added the Moon to my stack he said "You found that in here? Nice one!" The vintage-ish hockey cards were not from the dollar box. These and other vintage cards came from a seller at the other end of the room. He noticed my Whalers hat and mentioned that he was an assistant to GM Paul Holmgren for a while. His job was to work on arbitration cases for the team; he said the last case he worked on was (against) Manny Legace. 

The odd thing is, Legace never made it to Hartford. He was drafted by the Whalers but didn't debut in the NHL until after they'd moved (and he was shipped to the L.A. Kings by then.) 🤷

On my way out there was a doorway with tables on all sides belonging to one dealer. To the left there were higher-end ($5-50) cards in top loaders and snap-cases. One row was filled with hockey relics from the same early 2000s SP Game Used set. Some were gold versions but they were all the same. Behind me was a dollar box that didn't seem nearly as good as the one I'd hit earlier. 

In front of me was a table with sealed wax packs, rack packs, and boxes from yesteryear. 1993 Leaf and 1994 Topps wax boxes for $40 caught my eye. And then I saw the 1980s packs. Stuff I haven't seen since my earliest days as a collector. I had to bring some of those home for the anniversary break. I just.. I'm not sure I can open them. Maybe next week.

For now, here's a box I'm happy to open: more Topps Chrome Platinum. 

 

I've got more sealed packs in my house than I've ever had at one time, so I might start posting these breaks weekly. Can't wait to ship out the care packages!



Thanks for reading!



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Father's Day at the Card Show

A couple weeks ago, a co-worker noticed me looking at something sports card related and told me that 1) he also collects sports cards, and 2) there's a card show coming up in the town next over from me--on Father's Day. 

I figured I could walk to wherever it was, since Cranford is literally three blocks from my house. Nope!

This card show was in a batting cage-type place in an industrial section of town buried near the woods. The TCDB ad said the show started at 10 a.m., while the Facebook ad said the "new" time was Noon. Figures it would be moved later on a holiday where I would want to be home with my kids. 

Also, admission was $3 and I probably could have dodged it since I got there at 11:30 a.m. and walked right in to see the dealers setting up their tables (15 or 20 maybe) in a very small room. Had I stayed in the men's room for 20 minutes I would have already passed the empty table where someone would eventually collect entrance fees*

*and politely inform some kid bringing in a suitcase of slabs that there's a $10 fee for that. I knew that from the flyer but this jerk was all annoyed that he was being charged for his portable showroom. 

However, I did the right thing and walked around the block until showtime. There was nothing nearby. Not a single store or restaurant or anything. 

When the doors opened I did a quick pass through the very square room. First stop was a father and son selling some shiny cards at the front of the room. The little guy must have been 10-12 years old and dad was pausing in the middle of his deal to stop his kid from sounding too eager. 

After a few minutes of perusing their table I produced a small stack of modern shiny. The kid negotiated a price with me, initially asking $75. "Would you take $60?" I replied. We agreed on $65, and he asked his dad to give him some change. Then the dad wanted to see what they were selling so I handed him the stack:

He grinned when he saw the Jordan Love, as my Packers hat indicated to him that I would want that one. 

I was far too excited to see Tyler Booker in the box. Going to high school with an NFL player's uncle has made me PC an offensive lineman 😦who plays for the Cowboys 😶

There were a few other cards not shown here. You'll see them in care packages soon. 

Another spin around the room led me to a table with a $20 box / $15 box / $5 box setup. Each had a discount for every 3 cards purchased, but I only picked one $20 card and one $15 card.

Am I crazy for handing over two Hamiltons for a non-numbered insert of Randy Arozarena? Probably, but forking over $15 for the Jaxson Dart was an even harder one to explain. Mr. Blue Tent got dragged in the local press for supporting Trump (I get that he's a mormon Ole Miss alum but.. why now?) and while I didn't want to look like a fan of the kid -- on or off the field -- that color match was too much to resist. 

Mmmm.... red

The $5 box had a lot more volume for my taste, and I seem to recall the final price working out to $3 each based on how many I picked out. 

$3 for any Ohtani insert is an automatic 'yes', and the CMC (#d/75) was an easy PC pickup. I didn't need the Murray neccesarily but the color match, low numbering, and my total lack of New Orleans Pelicans made it appealing. Chase Shuggart wasn't the only Red Sox auto in the box; I initially had a Brian Johnson in my stack but chose Chase because Johnson's card and auto were far less appealing. [And, even though he was the longer-tenured Sox reliever, his name alone makes me furious.]

From there I spied a box of vintage singles on a table to my right and began shuffling through 1950's commons. A Del Crandall 1950 Bowman RC was the only one I considered but the condition was probably below VG. Some '57 singles looked sharper; one in particular was really clean - but for the life of me I could not tell you who the player was. Also.. not a single '56 single anywhere in the box :/ 

I slid over to the modern cards on the same table and pulled out a stack while a woman pulled up to the vintage side and told the dealer her husband would be so happy to see a vintage box. (It was the only one at the show.) 

Not all the cards had prices - which is usually a yellow flag - but the lady at the booth told me if I had a question about price I can ask her son (who was about 16-18 years old) I nodded and assembled the biggest of my four stacks. 

Another autographed card of a subpar Red Sox reliever? Add it. Cool looking bat card marked at $4? Add it. Shimmerry refractors? Add 'em.  

Loose Packers? Add 'em.

Even you, Josh Jacobs. Grrr..

Shiny and colorful non-Packers....

...including some more color matches and a Braelon Allen #d to 299? Why not. 

All the loose cards were in a 50 cent box, which I'm pretty sure was part of this pile. 

The most expensive single purchase of the day and the most impressive single card I brought home was this Dale Murphy '89 style orange refractor autograph numbered 12 of 25 (Christmas card!) 

You never know what you'll find at a show, huh? I bought zero graded cards, zero vintage, and the only hockey cards I saw were some very reasonably-priced hobby boxes of 2022-23 Upper Deck series 1 for $50. I would have grabbed one if I didn't already have the set. 

After a whirlwind 90 minutes I had spent about $250, seen every table twice, and picked up a lot of goodies for my PC and yours. So I called an Uber to take me home and while I waited... I stopped at the table by the entrance. Next to the overeager kid and his dad was a dealer with a box of loose baseball singles. They looked like 2026 flagship so I hurriedly pulled out my want list and grabbed what I could. 

I meant to pick up two (more) Misiorowski RCs. I did not mean to pick out two Ryan Ritter rookies. With my ride on th way I was feeling rushed, and had to stop at 33 cards (not all of which I needed) The dealer looked through them all and gave me a price - $25. I didn't have time to haggle, but I did have time to add one card as I thought it over. A Ken Griffey Jr. Donruss parallel seemed a bit much so I plucked the Paul Skenes out of the box and told him that if he could add this I'll give him $25. "Deal!" 

And that was the show. Oddly, the co-worker who reccomended it never appeared. His loss I suppose. 

On the way home I stopped at an ice cream parlor, took my sundae outside and.. it immediately started to rain. I waited out the shower as best I could, with the cards securely triple-bagged in my backpack. 


My next major sports card purchase will be in a couple weeks, when I visit my mom in CT. Now that I know what to expect it will be easier to buget my money there. 

Thanks for reading!



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Summer of Slabs preview... maybe...

On May 1st, I sent an 8-card submission to Beckett Grading. The plan was to get these cards back in mid- July, keep a couple, and send the rest (along with 10-15 cards I already have) to 4 Sharp Corners for consignment. Those cards would be listed on eBay in late July, and I'd receive my payout sometime around the second week of August. This would align perfectly with my birthday and the East Coast National in White Plains, NY. 

I received two emails on Friday, one from Lucky's Promotions listing the autograph guests for the show, including Julius Erving, Frank Thomas, Sammy Sosa, Allen Iverson, and Barry Sanders. Of particular interest to me: Packers legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer LeRoy Bulter, and Basketball Hall of Famer Alex English. 

I've never had an opportunity to meet any of the Packers stars I cheered for as a kid/young adult, and I only have autographs of two: Brett Favre and Dorsey Levens. Butler was the anchor of Green Bay's secondary for the entire 1990s. He invented the Lambeau Leap! 

Alex English was a guy I never even saw on TV, an out-of-market star that I learned about through trading cards and became a fan simply because his stats popped off the page. $39 bucks to meet him and get his autograph - on an 8x10 or a basketball?!?!? That's a steal!! 

The other email I received was from Beckett, informing me that my order would be delivered to me via FedEx on Monday(today). Cool, I'll just tell my wife and she can sign for it, and...

.....nope, she has a chemo appointment. Up until the end of May, she had two appointments every two weeks. But the surgeon took her off chemo so she can get her strength up for the major surgery she needs to have somewhere around the end of August/early September. She shouldn't have any chemo at all. But she's still taking pills and going in for hydration and checkups and whatever. So she would not be home from about 10 am-12:30pm or so. No problem, I can come home for lunch at Noon, and my office is right down the street, so there will only be a two hour-window when no one will be home. 

Yeeahh, no one was home. Of course they attempted delivery at 11:15 a.m. What are the odds? 

Glad you asked. July has 31 days, and every day has 24 hours, and Mrs. Collector has exactly two two-hour chemo appointments per month, and does not leave the house on a weekday for any other reason. So the odds of the FedEx delivery truck arriving at a time when neither one of us would be home to sign for a package that contains $5,000+ worth of trading cards is:

100%, exactly. 

Well, that sucks, but they'll re-attempt delivery tomorrow when the Mrs. will be here. No problem. 

They'd better, because she already has to go upstate on Wednesday for an exam and meeting with some more doctors. That will take her out of the house all day. And, the surgeon called her today to discuss her condition. Apparently her tumor is growing a bit larger no shit sherlock, you took her off the good chemo so he wants to schedule her for some tests on Thursday. He's already starting to waver on his initial steadfast diagnosis that he can remove all of the tumors in one single six-hour surgery. 

What was I talking about? 

Oh yeah. Cards. So, I'm still going to send a consignment order to 4 Sharp Corners and (assuming there are no unforeseen issues with my cards) I'll have some money to spend in August. But I can't drag my wife around a big convention center for 4+ hours while I browse through dime boxes and stand in line for autographs. Instead, I'm going to visit my mother that day. My wife can handle a 2+ hour drive, but standing and walking for more than a minute is an issue. The surgeon told her to exercise but she didn't listen. I kept trying to get her to take walks but she's been too tired or busy. 

I'm torn about what to sell though. If I send everything I initially wanted to consign, that will include hockey cards which are out of season and would likely sell for more during fall/winter. But I don't know what I'll be able to do by then; when I sent my BGS order on 5/1, none of this surgery shit was on our radar. Will things be better, or worse, in November? And it is worth waiting just for the potential to make a couple hundred dollars more?

But if I don't send the hockey cards I have a lot less to work with. My goal was to upgrade these three:

...plus pick up a Nikola Jokic RC, a Joe Montana RC, and some of the remaining 1956 Topps cards on my need list (Willie Mays in particular) If I don't include the high-end hockey cards in my consignment, I'll basically have enough to upgrade the Mantle. 

Not that any of this is important under the circumstances. It's just that the window for enjoying my collection is closing fast.

I won't be able to squeeze in another card show, but maybe I can make the best of it somehow. If the BGS order arrives as expected I'll show those off before I ship them out to 4 Sharp Corners.

Thanks for reading!



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NJ Card Show Review

Went to my first NJ card show yesterday, at a convention center about 20 minutes away. Admission was $15(!) and there were lots of superstar players signing autographs (including Jordan Love) but I didn't have the time or money for any of that. My main goal was to find some quarter and dollar box gems. I was hoping to find some set fillers or vintage, but I only had 2 1/2 hours because family. Time was scarcer than money.

The room looked like a giant warehouse with the tables in the center and along the left side wall, the autograph lines to the right (behind a large curtain) and a cafe at the back where I stopped to pack my purchases away and regroup.

I mainly bought from three tables. Table #1 was a dealer who did not have any prices listed. Picked out a stack:

And he separated them thusly. First stack was $1 each, then $2, then $3. He moved the Deion from $3 to $2 and gave me $4 off at the end.

Second major purchase was a box marked $3 each or 4/$10. I picked out this stack and got a small discount there as well:

Upon entering the convention center, this table was the first I saw from left to right. I actually didn't notice the cards at first because my eyes lit up at the sight of the display behind his tables:

SLUs! 1988 SLUs!! Rare, out-of-market 1988 football SLUs!!!! 🤯 We'll come back to this. 

Here's a scan parade of my pickups. Every single card cost between 90 cents and $2.22 unless noted.

Lots of color matching cards and serial numbered parallels. The De'Aaron Fox Elite (#d/95) and Allen Iverson Ice (#d/149) were the only $3 cards.

The Jalen Suggs came from box #3. 15 cents.




Now for the football portion of the purchase.

Mostert and Thibodeau are numbered to 95. Minshew, Bosa, and Olave were 15 cents.

Lots of Baker Mayfield in these boxes. The Donruss was 15 cents, as was the Lil' Jordan Humphrey Pink Prizm.

Martellus Bennett Black parallel #d/54 (there's one on COMC for $10). Kelvin Joseph RC was 15 cents.

Both of my bags were a little light on baseball, because I just don't follow the sport much anymore and don't keep up with the current stars/prospects. Also because there are fewer numbered parallels, and more collectors to gobble up the good stuff. I think I did okay though:

Puason was 15 cents. I picked it up mainly because my friend is an A's fan.

Pair of Papi for my PC. The Red Mojo Prizm (#d/299) was $1, the OTG was 15 cents.

None of the quarter/dollar boxes I saw had any hockey cards whatsoever. Maybe some Flyers base from Upper Deck. No inserts/parallels/Young Guns... nothing. I was expecting that someone chasing Connor Bedard RCs would dump off the unwanted cards but no. It's not like we have an NHL team or anything.

After spending half my money at the dollar tables, I had about 40 minutes left. The game plan was to shop for higher-end stuff, big PC pieces, graded cards, set fillers... that sort of thing. On my way out I'd stop at the Ultra-Pro table, pick up some supplies, and then see if I could procure an '88 SLU.

It was almost Noon, and the higher-value tables were crowded. Also there was a lot of autographed helmets, jerseys, and prints. I was tempted to buy a Marcel Dionne auto for $40 - not a card, an actual jersey - just for the value. But it didn't fit my collection, so I left with no hockey at all.

I didn't see any 2024 Topps Archives baseball, either - except at one table offering $25 blasters and $40 megaboxes. They had a tin of 2023-24 Upper Deck hockey as well. I didn't want to risk it.

One graded card dealer had a 1988-89 Scottie Pippen RC I need - PSA 8 for $40. But it was off-center. I also saw one 1956 Topps single - a Bob Miller graded by some non-PSA entity I've never heard of. Pass.

Which brings me to the quarter box. The prices were marked $0.25 or 5 for $1. I picked out 134 cards as quickly as I could and hoped to get them for $25. "How about $20?" He said without counting the cards. Done!  I'll show off some more of those pickups in a future post.


With $100 left in my pocket, I returned to the SLU figures. Cris Collinsowrth and Doug Williams interested me in particular, and I knew that one of them was priced at $100. I'll offer $80 for the Collinsworth and call it a day. I thought.

I should have zoomed in more. Sorry.

Nope. Williams was $100 - and creased on the back. Collinsworth was $200. And honestly? That's probably fair. The piece above was in better shape than this one on eBay. It's just a lot of money to spend on one action figure.

Then again, that's how much I spent on 300+ low-value cards and some Ultra Pro supplies.

Thanks for reading!



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Nine In The Afternoon

I went to the card show in Milford today. The dime box guy was not there so I was in and out in less than an hour. I spent a total of $50 on nine cards:

I picked these three from a dealer who has some nice Red Sox cards. He had a Carlton Fisk Panini Immaculate Jersey & auto card #d/15 for $45 that I was tempted to buy, and an Ivan Rodriguez Clearly Authentic auto for $35 that was also intriguing. I decided not to spend that much on a single card. The Betts relic (#d/199) was priced at $18. The JDM/Papi dual (#d/150) was priced at $9. The Perez (#d/36) was priced at $5. 

I offered $25 for the three and he accepted.

The dealer wasn't pushy but he made it clear that he would be flexible on price. While I was searching through his boxes a kid stuck his hand in the row of cards I was looking at, plucked a Yankees card that the dealer valued at $3 and asked if his crumpled up dollar was enough. It was.

On the other side of the room was another dealer I'd seen before. He had a box of random loose packs from all sports and years. I had seen this box before but was too focused on dime box diving to pluck some packs. I've really been jonesing to rip open something (a box of 1993 Leaf S2 baseball is on its way to me) so I reached my hand in the box and pulled out a bunch of 2016 Donruss football and 2016-17 Upper Deck hockey. That's when I noticed these were four-card packs. I was hoping they'd be .50 but I was expecting $1. 

He informed me they were $2 each. I put them all back and bought singles from him instead:

The last time I attended a card show I'd picked up Panini Immaculate autos of Kevin Love and Horace Grant for $15 each. This might have been the same guy; his inventory was similar and there was a crowd around his table just like at the December show. Since there was no dime box (and I didn't see a Steve Young RC anywhere) finding more Immaculate cards was my last remaining goal. 

This dealer wanted $12 for Rick Barry and $6 each for Dan Majerle and Kenny Anderson.  Curry and Brodeur were 50 cents each. He didn't know what to charge me for the Cubs trio so he tossed it in as a freebie. 

On my way out I bought  a bunch of penny sleeve packs (5 for $4) and two packs of top loaders, so I spent about $70 total. I was satisfied with my purchases and the amount of time/money spent, but I don't think I need to go there again for a long time.


But! These are not the only nine cards I acquired this weekend...

There's a story behind these and a hundred other cards I brought home. And I'll tell you all about it in my next giveaway this Friday :)

Thanks for reading!



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