Three Shows In A Month - Part 1: Ephrata, PA

Well, it's been another long pause between posts, and now I have a backlog of show loot and a Bat-Around to catch up on.  

The first of the three shows was on March 23.  It's the once-a-year affair in Ephrata, which sits between Lancaster and Reading.  It's a good show for vintage, as a lot of the dealers are old school and only do this show.

One of my favorite dealers there always has bindered starter lots of vintage sets in more than just baseball.  These were two of the best offerings this time.  I did NOT bring either one of these home, however.  

I did whittle down my '57 set quest by several from a couple dealers.  Ol' Granny was the most notable of this bunch, especially being in a Phillies-rich environment. 

Also snagged this Carey RC and the lone '62, both from the scarce series' in each set.

Got three more of the Golden Press cards that I started from a TCDB trade.  I thought these were interesting, but really fell into actually collecting them when they were offered from a collector who had many extras built from a few different starter sets.  These are officially from 1961, despite the labels on a couple of them here.

These two look like vintage, but are actually 2011 Heritage and 1994 Baseball: The American Epic. (The Ken Burns film tribute by Upper Deck).  Always nice to find a Jeets from my want lists.

Found this buyback of one of my more obscure player collections - hopefully cheap, since the back is way off center.

And rounding out the vintage, this Post Jell-o card of Ron Fairly.  (The Post cards' stat line divider extends far beyond the numbers and past the blue stars.  The Jell-o's line stops close to them.)

One quick hockey hit - this '81-'82 Topps Gretzky put my wants down to just some West region cards.

The ubiquitous Washington selections that I always seem to find.  This time with some mojo mixed in with the varying degrees of shiny and parallel.  That Garçon medallion thinger wasn't expensive even though it is numbered to 25.  Some of these are older than I usually get.  Typically I'll only see the last couple years', but I was confident these were all needs.

I managed to find only one of local kid Addison.  Did better with his at the other two shows.  This one is really for my co-worker who coached him in middle school.

The penultimate football acquisitions were some inserts from the last several years.  Two in die-cut form.

And finally, I got a huge starter lot of 2020 Topps XFL from a dealer who had them in a dime box.  I told him I'd love to make a set out of them, but it would take a long time to sort it out.  He said I could have the whole batch for five dollars.  SOLD!  Ended up making close to two sets out of them.  I love the spring leagues.

So that's my haul from the first show.  Stay tuned for two more....