A Collective Convergence In California

Before it gets to be a month since I made the trip, I have to tell you about meeting up with one of my (and your) favorite bloggers.

I flew out to the west coast on May 7.  My primary mission will be described in another post (stand by Billy).  But since I wasn't far from San Jose - namely Menlo Park, California - I contacted Mark from the Chronicles of Fuji.  

 

After I had concluded my business in the afternoon of May 8, he ended up driving north to pick me up and we went to a shop I had found on the map further north of my hotel.  It was Peninsula Sports Cards in Belmont.  Fuji said he had been to another shop under the same ownership that was closer to San Jose.

It was a nice clean shop, with a huge wall of wax boxes and packs on one side (all horrendously overpriced these days of course), some showcases in the middle with various sports cards, memorabilia, supplies, etc.  One case in particular had some interesting oddball sets.  And along a back wall there were bookshelves of older wax, some of which I had collected earlier, but was about three times the price I expected, which could have been just because of the time that had passed.  Looking at the photos on their website (above and below), there apparently used to be a whole wall of singles which now does not exist - much to my chagrin now.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take photos of ourselves to post on our blogs, so my crude South Park Borg drawing and Fuji's familiar character above will have to suffice.

After perusing the shop until the guy behind the desk said the alarm was going to activate whether he liked it or not, we left and went to Gotts restaurant and had some great burgers.  We talked about managing our hoards of extra cards, trading, and the current sales market.  Both of us have huge stashes of stuff we think people would like, but find it is difficult to get it to them for one reason or another.  We also agreed that if these flipper bozos want to pay exhorbitant prices for stuff we got for little or nothing, we are happy to oblige even though selling is not a primary part of our collecting life.

We did bring cards for each other as well.  He gave me a handful of Capitals stars, including a half dozen autographs of some of the older players.  Not worth scanning here, but much appreciated nonetheless!

Always cool to meet a fellow blogger in person, and especially one of the top guys!  Thanks for coming up Mark!  And if you ever get to the other coast, give me a call!

I went out the next day to find two more shops, including the other location of this group, since I had a lot of time to kill until my flight left late Sunday night.  I figured out how to navigate the CalTrain, which is the local commuter rail system starting at the stop across the road from my hotel and saw that one shop was a few blocks from the Mountain View stop.  The other was even closer (I thought) to the Sunnyvale station.  

So I got off at Mountain View and headed south.  Stopping occasionally in a shady spot to see my phone's map program, I walked what seemed like forever through a very nice residential neighborhood in the California sunshine.  Trouble was, it ended up being a three mile walk.  And that shop was nothing more than two showcases with about a dozen individual autographed cards (priced with three crooked numbers), and a couple $199 blaster boxes.  I can't say I'd recommend Kip's Sports Cards.  I had to call an Uber ride from about a half mile from the train station over to the next shop, because after almost six miles, my feet were killing me.  The driver dropped me off at 101 South Murphy street.  I thought the shop was at #56, but it was actually at #566 S. Murphy.  So it was another two mile round trip on foot.  And that shop was nothing but overpriced wax boxes and a few supplies and nothing else at all.  Needless to say, the day was a bust and I just ended up going to the airport to kill the remaining six hours til my 1AM flight, which also had a 3½ hour layover in Denver.  I finally got home at about 2:30PM on Monday.  

But you'll see in the post about what I did earlier Saturday that it was all worth it...