Pasteboard Power Tour 2022: Bel Air, MD

Tuesday brought what turned out to be the highlight of the week.  Stuart sent me a link to the Bel Air Sports Cards shop a while back and I put it on the list immediately while planning our tour.

It's about an hour and a half drive from my house, straight through Westminster and around the top of the Baltimore beltway.  It was well worth the trip.  I will be going back often.

Just inside the door, there is a big area of monster boxes of recent singles by sport, and a wall full of older sets.  Further in is the Card Bar, a long counter where you take your boxes and sift through them or break your wax.  They even offer free sodas and Gatorades, which helped me because Stuart never takes meal breaks in the middle of the day when we're in a shop.

Behind the counter (to the right in the photo above) there are several more rows of inserts and other singles, and at the far end are even more.  Vintage, 80's, 90's, 2000's +, they have it all.  They're open from 11 AM to 6:30 PM Tuesday thru Friday and 10-4 / 12-4 on the weekends.  The late close on the weekdays works well for me coming from such a distance - I don't have to get up before the sun.

Anyway, on to the loot!  I dug through mostly the insert boxes, but found a bit of everything.  And I'm sure I didn't get through all they had out.  And there is a whole back room that they can pull stuff from as well!

I attacked the big box of 1957 Topps they had early.  Most were $3 each and really nice.  

Stuart pitched in and dug me out all these baseball from 2003 Topps, 2004 Topps Fan Favorites, and 2006 Greats Of The Game.

I'm pretty sure I found these in their vintage football too.  I can't confirm that 100%, but I'm pretty confident.  I had stacked these up after the week was over and couldn't match them to the other stuff.  The price tags are similar enough to the '57s that I think I'm right.  Volney was an upgrade.  (He could be from somewhere else too).

Then I got into the football insert boxes.  I think I went through six or eight three row units.  Found a ton of this Prestige set including that Zeke insert I got before.  When I settled up, he just gave the totals to the big stacks I had, so I didn't have an itemized list, but these were most likely a quarter each.

More Prestige and then 2015 Score.  And a few of those crazy 2009 Philadelphia inserts. Knocking out listings left and right.

Some of the earlier 2000's inserts I've been after, and all the way back to the late 90's.  Plus an early 90's Joe Montana header card. Some of those E/X Centurys I put on my favorite sets list.

Among all those inserts I kept finding Washington football cards that I didn't have as well.  I actually brought my whole list binder and looked them up as I went.  Probably saved me several dollars and a few dozen dupes.

And finally, some non-sports that I got from them - but actually at the Chantilly show over the following weekend.  I've got about a dozen scans from that show, so I'll put these here.  They had every one of the remaining Charlie's Angels I had on my list.  But I messed up - #109 should have been #108, which was an upgrade anyway.  Will confirm that later.

Like I said, this is a great place to go digging for singles, which is what I like best about card shopping.  It's too bad I've shunned so much of the current year's offerings, I'd have spent a lot more time in the front area with the base cards.  But I still know that I'll have to go back a couple times before I'll have any idea that I've seen most of what they have to offer.  If you're in the area, stop in and sit at the Card Bar with Mel & the boys....