Pasteboard Power Tour 2022: MD/DC Stops

Continuing on our pursuit of cardboard, we move to Monday the 20th of June.  

Our first stop was the shop next to McDonald's in the Cabin John Mall in Potomac, MD.  Potomac is the suburb of DC where all the multimillion dollar mansions are, so this is where the fancy people live.  

Hall Of Fame Cards usually has a decent selection no matter what you're looking for, although it may take you a little longer to find it.  They have vintage cards by set, but the more modern stuff is sorted in an area against the wall into the major stars.  That's not horrible, since we keep want lists with the stars names usually noted - at least when you get down to a few base or just the inserts.  But if you're looking for the other decent names or inserts, you're going to have to dig through a lot of little boxes.  Their stock is sorted by teams.

We spent from about 10AM to around 2:30 or so digging.  At one point we were both sitting on the floor by the stacks.  The owner said we looked like little kids.  We were more like old guys with bad knees or backs.  Luckily those wooden team boxes are only about 300 card size.

To be honest, I learned something after we went to this shop this time and then the others during the week.  This is the type of shop you schedule very late in the tour.  And that's because the goal would be to exhaust all the other places and then find what you didn't get here.  Because their pricing is reasonable, but you won't find stuff super cheap.  The one sign that discourages me from buying from a dealer at shows it that they get the book out when pricing things.  This owner does too, but usually it's not horrible.  I found several star cards and inserts and paid a buck or few for each one of them.

Picked up the Unitas Kellogg's just 'cuz it was there (and $4).  The other stuff, yeah Peyton Manning or Dan Marino inserts are reasonable at $3, or the rookies for a couple bucks.  No problem.  Brady for a dollar.  Sure.  I can live with that.  They've got the full retail overhead situation going, I understand.  

I did get one insert for this kind of price that I ended up duplicating later, but only for about a quarter I think.  Dang Cowboys...

Found a few baseball, including some decent but not fantastic '57s for $7.50 total. 

Then from there, we finally ate something and moved on to House Of Cards over near Silver Spring.  This is more of an auction type place (affiliated with Huggins & Scott) and a little more high end, but they have a nice store display (that last year apparently suggested an appointment to see).  Can't find any interior shots except their Facebook site, which I can't get into.  The store is located in a business park, rather than a full retail center like HOF Cards.

I didn't get a whole lot from them, but what I got was pretty sweet.  They have several boxes of half price vintage football...

The '58s and '68s are for my set builds, so it's nice to knock off a couple big names.  Lots of Unitas today!  Figured I could live with the tape stains for that much of a discount.  Got all three of the pair of '68 checklists - the second one comes in blue or green on the back - same price for all three ($10).  The Gifford was just because it was too cool to pass up.

Again, the '57s and '50s are for the sets, and the Posts were just 'cuz they were so cool.  I got another Nellie Fox later for someone else, which wasn't as cheap as this one.  Unfortunately, I didn't look at the back, which had a strip of packaging paper stuck to it.  Looked like it might have been an envelope seal or something.  I successfully removed it by dabbing water on it and lightly scraping it off, immediately drying the card as I went.  Should have documented that procedure.

House Of Cards is open until 7:30, which is the latest of any shop we visited.  Makes it nice when you can hit a couple places for hours at each place without rushing around.

Next time - A new place!  And one I'll definitely be back to often!