All In A Day's Work

Here is what a typical day at the National sports Collector's Convention yielded:

Laid out on my hotel bed, I can go left to right and tell you what all these are. 
The first stack is a major hit to my list of 2003 Heritage.  Besides short prints and variations, these brought my needs down to nine cards.
The next pile is the continuing effort to amass all 300+ black minis from 2012 Gypsy Queen.  Still a "have" list at this point.  One of my want list items that is destined to be active for years.
Then we have the end of my 2016 Heritage high number set, followed by my conclusion of my second set of 2017 Topps Series 2.
The first row ends with a couple 2012 Cooperstown inserts, a header card for the 1993 Iooss inserts from Upper Deck, a Bowman buyback (didn't know they had those) of Willie Randolph for my PC, and a stray Heritage single from 2002.

Moving to the next row, there are 2010 A&G singles, probably including short prints, if that's not what the whole pile is.  I found a vendor selling just short print A&G for 25¢ each!  The majority of the row with the green spots, are current 2017 inserts.  Concluding then with some First Home Runs from a couple years ago.

Next is the really good stuff - vintage!  That's the real 1960 Willie Mays, not a reprint.  Found him, Killebrew, and several high numbers for good prices.  Also killed many 1970 and '72 from the far end.  Following those are two '72 Kelloggs that went with the baseball in the final row.  More on them later.  And finally, some Redskins and vintage football set hits.

Jumping to the end, there are 1979-80 Topps hockey hits to my set, mostly for about a quarter each as well.  The Gretzky is going to be a bitch....

The last row is O-Pee-Chee and Hostess (and the two Kelloggs) from my huge Player Collection list.  I actually have a chart with all the years of OPC across the top and all my PC guys down the side so I can tell at a glance if I need one or not.  It's the most in depth charting I've ever done, but it really helps.  It's hard to keep a list of "parallel" cards like that straight otherwise.  Plus, the visual aid works best for me.

The OPC's etc. came from a seller who was smack in the middle of the show floor.  He had these at the end of the table, kind of "around the corner" from several stacks of non-sports cards, and far away from the bulk of his vintage.  I knew I had to pounce since there are so many of my guys in the late 70's sets, and here was the better part of a couple whole sets.  Most of the big stars were still there too.  Luckily, only a couple of my guys are big stars.  Lets see who I got....

I always like to get a business card from a vendor who has a great selection of something like this or gives me a fantastic deal.  Not sure where Stan is from, but he's worth a visit.

Breaking down the OPC's into years, I managed to find a few from the earlier 70's.  The League Leader cards are an especially welcome addition to the OPC ranks....

Then 1978.  More LL's and Don Baylor acquired just before his passing.  Less than half of all the guys I have in the '78 set though!

The coolest thing with OPC is that often they are the bridge card between the regular set and the traded set.  They'll show the old picture with the new team.  Looks cool beside the regular Topps and Traded editions.

1979 virtually complete as well.  Checked them off and I'm still lacking twenty cards for other guys I didn't find.  That's how many PC's I have.

A few more "transition" players....check 'em against Topps.

And then the Hostess.  Still amazed how many I still need to fill in after all this time.  For a long time, all I sought was Topps, Kelloggs, and Hostess.

The two Kelloggs are variations of Palmer and Bud.  Stat numbers in both cases.

Not bad for a day's work, eh?! Did it again during the previous evening's VIP preview, and the next day too.  Don't have overview pictures, though.  Got caught up in the buying frenzy too much to remember to document it all well enough.  Promise I'll do better next year!