Speaking Of Assimilations....

Not sure if five weeks is the longest I've gone without posting, but it's probably close.  I feel like half the time I'm apologizing for my absence on here.  Well, I am sorry I haven't been around, but I'm not sorry about why.  Without going into too much detail, it's basically been a whirlwind romance.  It started late last year, took a while to get going, and then took off about April or so.  We've been dating steadily since May, and it just keeps getting better.  We match so well on so many levels, that it's been relatively easy.  It's amazing to both of us how it's gotten to this point.

But anyway, enough of the mushy stuff, you guys want to see cards!

I did manage to make the July Chantilly show on what used to be Sneak Preview Day (Friday) but is now basically a whole third (first) day.  The show now runs 1PM to 8PM, instead of starting at 5.  I got through the bulk of it all, but really just hit most of my favorite dealers.

This is an amalgamation of several purchases, all of which are for player collections.  The first things I found were the Safelon discs from '76.  I have a big list of '76 and '77 discs for my PC guys, but this flavor wasn't even on it.  Got all but three or so of the guys I seek.  

The Sutter is a '79 Hostess, which are somehow the most elusive year.  I still need about a half dozen of my guys.  Have just about all the rest except for a few SPs.   Bo Jackson was from yet another new unknown football set that just came out.  The Dusty & son is from the current Archives issue, and of course, I will snag anything Jordan Addison.

Knocked out the better part of my '62 Post HOF'ers with this batch from my man Steve B.  Still looking for a good starter lot of commons, but most of the big names are found.  I continued to strike some other vintage-ish wants with him too...

Almost finished the '69 Fleer World Series from the starter I got from the set hoard.  If I'd have started them with Steve, they might be even better.  These were nicer than any I have already.  

These aren't the ones with the team logo stickers, they're the blue backs.

Stepped over to my regular current insert guy and massacred my list of silver parallels to '24 A&G.  There were still two full snap boxes that I didn't go through, but my list was so huge, I was afraid of too many duplicates.  Still ended up with a half dozen of these that I actually didn't need.  Also got some '23 Heritage short prints and a few other misc. items.

Moved on to Stan's and filled out these '61 Golden Press'ers.  Down to Ott, Ruth, Foxx and  and Wagner.

Also got three of the four '65s from him.  The last purchase of the day was the "C. Canizzaro" flavor of the 1st Checklist from Uncle Dicks.  This completes my '65 Topps set!

Thanks for stopping by!  Can't guarantee any better frequency of posting, but I can say that I'm jumping right into the 1963 Topps set.  Stay tuned for that!

Spring Chantilly Show - Youth And Old Age

There's an old saying that I've quoted before, "There's no such thing as a bad day when you're fishing."  The same holds true for card shows.  I woke up this morning so stiff and achy after spending most of yesterday on my feet at the Chantilly card show, but it was worth it.  I got to the show about 10AM, and left as they closed at 5.  Here's what I brought home.

Started with a few more for the '65 set build.  This will be a recurring theme.

 Usually I'll start at the far end of the show floor and work my way back, but since I had to get autograph tickets from the section of the building in the other direction, I jumped in at that end.  Dave Rosen & family at All Star Sports Cards out of Levittown, PA always has a big selection of insert and parallels from the current releases.  It's a great resource for me to find player collection stuff without having to open boxes.  

Got the Stadium Club Chrome, Red Foil, Pink Foil, and Sepia Bo's....

Picked up the Prizm, Chrome SC, Refractor, and Pink Younts for my friend Eric.

The biggest rainbow was Palmer, with the base, Chrome, Refractor, Red, & Pink.

He had a couple nice bonus items too.  Torre is one of the rare Cycle Succession A&G inserts out of the three I need.  And this 2024 Impeccable auto of Luis Tiant commemorating his debut.  Numbered out of 25, he must have signed this one shortly before his passing.

Next dealer had these '65s in a book.  Only the Agee rookie was more that $2-3.  A couple of these are upgrades.  I'm hoping that Agee isn't a duplicate, since I was working from my website and a printed list at the same time and that card was only on one.  Haven't found another one yet.

Then I heard my favorite local dealer Steve say hello over into the next aisle, so I stepped up to his table.  He had several of the Steve Carlton rookies that was the last of the big money cards I needed for my set.  I picked one out that was in the middle of the range of prices, and said I needed a Uecker too.  He gave me a good discount on them and then we worked a deal for the extra '64 Uecker and the two '57 mid series duplicates that I had from previous shows.  That almost cut my cost in half.  I was very happy.

At this point, I heard the announcement for my autograph signing and headed over to the lines.

Since he's from my hometown, went to the schools I work for, and knows my coworker, I started collecting Jordan Addison's cards.  I have them all in top loaders and didn't really have a favorite, but figured I'd be putting a binder together at some point, so I made the image below and printed it out for him to sign. It will go on the binder cover.

He went to Tuscarora High School, so that was the inscription that I had him add.

Resumed my shopping after the ink dried....Came by Stan's table, who I've bought from several times before.

Andy Pafko's '50 Bowman has some staining, but would have probably been twice as much otherwise.  And Vern Stephens is #2 in the set - the lower numbers carry the premium, but this one was spot on my target price at $12.

For this show, I began a set build of 1962 Post cereal cards.  I've been picking up a few of the biggest names here and there just as a novelty over the last year or so.  So the day before the show, I went through and listed the ones I had - about a dozen - including Mantle, Clemente, Aaron, Mays, etc.  Since I was that far, why not go for it?  I wrote out the remaining HOF'ers still missing, and snagged some of them here.  I just like the look of these, and they're a cheap way to owning megastars.  I'll flip the script on the normal set build and start with the big ones and find a common starter lot later.

Found another pair at the next dealer, who I've seen at the National a couple times.  (Not sure what his name is.)  Also filled out more of my '65s.  After all was said and done, I'm down to 17 cards for the set, and the biggest names lacking are Aparicio and Lolich.

Killebrew is shown twice, but I only got one.  Knocked out one of the remaining Hostess player collection needs with the '78 Ferguson.  Most of the Hostess I can't find are from the '79 set.  Not sure why they're so elusive.  Also finally found a '58 Ollie Matson that I liked to bring that set one closer to the finish.  But that end is years away, since that guy named Brown is still on my list.  I started the 1961 Golden Press's with a database trade months ago, and they've been fun to find since.  For a moment, I thought this dealer had a couple hundred of them, but they were BEHIND the divider, not in front of it, so there were only a handful, which was still plenty.

Made it down to Barry's, who generally has tons of recent inserts and bulk base.  He had lots of Heritage High Number in the '75 design, but I'm probably just going to buy a short set rather than boxes, so I didn't need singles.  Hope to get a line on the SP's too.  Found these A&G parallels for Eric & I, as well as the Palmer 206 for this year and a surprise Dynamic Duals with Bo Jackson.  I have two of the Dusty Baker / Lou Piniella one, but didn't know about this one.

It was a lighter haul than usual, but had some bonus oversize items too.  The Prizm card shows the scale.  Went blind on the Jordan, which of course I already had, so he's available.  The Torre is a postcard, and I'm happy I didn't have the Fisk Heritage topper.  He goes with the Gene Tenace that I did own.

Late in the day, I was getting tired and could feel my heart rate rising from being on my feet most of the day.  Brother Mike was based at the farther end of the floor, and had a vacant table next to his, so it allowed me a nice break to sit in a chair and dig through one of his 8/$1 boxes.  I came up with seven, plus the Jeets mini and a couple dollar finds.  Total of $3.

The announcements for the closing of the show had begun, so I quickly moved through the last couple rows of sale tables.  One dealer had sectioned plastic boxes labeled with certain sets or themes.  There were a couple with Chrome Anniversary parallels.  Found these two PC guys.

Sutter is the Rose Gold Mini Diamonds flavor numbered out of 75.  Got a dollar off the total, so it's reasonable, I guess.  There are so many parallels of these, you gotta get 'em when you find 'em.

So that was my show.  I'm finally feeling alive again around dinner time the next day, but that's what I get for sitting around too much otherwise.  Like I said, is there any such thing as a bad day at a card show?

Ephrata Show Haul - Glitches In The Matrix

The annual Lions Club Card Show was held in Ephrata, PA this past Saturday.  Ephrata is between Lancaster and Reading.  It's always good for lots of vintage, especially Phillies if you're into them.  The show runs from 8 to 3 or so.  I got there around 10AM and stayed until about 2PM.

A quick side note: They usually have one guest signing autographs.  Steve Carlton, Jim Palmer, and Brooks Robinson were there in past years. (It may have been Brooks subbing for Palmer).  I don't even know where that happens.  This year the signer was potential top 3 NFL draft pick Abdul Carter, the Penn State linebacker.  He was scheduled to start at 11 after an interview, but didn't actually arrive until 1:30.  He "overslept".

Anyway, it was a decent show, although overall the prices were a bit higher than I expected.  Most of what I got were vintage commons from 1965, which I hoped to find for $2 each.  I paid twice that.  But let me show you what I got...

Picked up these two from "the guy at the end of the first row that has a lot of vintage hockey".  The LAD rookies card is a high number, so the price is reasonable.  Of course, I would see that card on every other dealer's table the rest of the day at slightly lower prices.  This is the theme of the show for me.

Went around to the next row and found these all marked at 50% off the listed price.  The ones you can't see are also $8.  Make a note of the blue ones for later.  Not sure what the couple unsleeved ones were quoted.  The dealer guy told me the price and I paid.  Initially, it seemed like I might have been overcharged...

But then I remembered that these two were in the mix, and I didn't realize how many $8 cards I had picked out.  So I did actually get a discount of close to 10%.  Banks is off center, but is good enough to escape the $60-100 price point I researched.  The Mets was right about where it should have been at $15 - also a short print high number.

Diverging from the vintage theme for a bit....  These were for my new collector friend Eric from the dealer I call "Brother Mike".  I get his emails about all the shows.  He doesn't have a huge table, but always has a diverse selection among what is there.  And the price tags are "just a conversation starter".  He marks them with what they go for on eBay - shipped - and you pay much less.  

I found these four for a dollar each in his stuff too.  The total was ten dollars.  For these and the two jerseys!  That's Brother Mike.

Figured I'd come across some JD5 up there.  They were from a guy on the back row that was getting ready to do a giveaway of some sort.  The sweater was $20 and the others were $5 a shot.  Daniels' stuff is like that.  There are like five more of those Topps Now cards to get.

Came back around after a hot dog lunch from the student athletic club or whoever it was selling in the other part of the building.  Went to my favorite guy at that show in the back side of the first row.  Wish I remembered his name.  Like a lot of dealers there, he really only does that show.  Got the Brewer, Shaw & Smith for a buck a shot (that's more like it), and then I "cheated with Pete" by getting this slightly well-handled but nicely centered speciment for at least ½ if not 20% of the going rate.  Figure that makes up for any overspending or mistakes I've made with this set build.  And there were some.

I also snagged these two fine examples of the last few SP mid-series '57s I need to finish my set.  Though even if I find the others, I still have Aaron, Mantle and Brooks Robinson rookies to spend on.

Left the show and decided to make a stop on the way home at the Morning Sun Marketplace in Thomasville since they would still be open.  Went to Jason's booth and found a couple more for my set build.

This shot was taken after I swapped the Briles rookie for the one I had in his PC binder.  The Jordan Addison is a Wild Card National Convention parallel numbered to 15.  Have never seen a current Wild Card card until this one.  

Almost made the mistake of buying another '57 Pyburn from there.  It was an off-center copy.  But I went back to the car and confirmed the ones I already bought at the show, so I put it back.  

But inevitably, this still happened....

They are virtually identical in centering and condition, and I paid the same price. 

But that's not the worst of it.  When I got it all home and checked off my lists, I went to put the '57s in the binder .....  and they were already there.

*Sigh*

It was a decent show overall, though.  Guess now I have a starter pile to send to COMC.

Stay tuned though - Chantilly show is this coming Saturday.  Nothing like back to back big shows....

Some Swag Among The Slabs

I made a trade last week on the TCDB with a guy named Eric.  Turns out he lives near Hagerstown, MD which is just about 20 minutes from me.  So we met up about halfway in between to swap packages.  He primarily collects Paul Molitor, Robin Yount and Travis Hafner. We had a good conversation about our collecting habits, etc. before he had to get back.

He texted me later and asked if I knew about the show going on in the Silver Spring Civic Center, which is about an hour to our south.  I knew there were shows that rotated through there, but wasn't planning to go.  I have so much to put away around Hivemind Headquarters, plus the two piles of stuff for sale, I probably didn't need to add to any of it.  But I decided to go anyway. 😀 

So we made plans to meet along the route and made our way down there.  Upon arrival, I realized that I had been there once before.  It's a smaller venue, with a main room in the middle, and two other rooms at each end, plus a hallway between with a few more tables. 

A previous year's show

There was a LOT of slabs.  And several tables - especially in the outer rooms - of Pokèmon.  But I did manage to find some treasures among them.

I should have put this at the end, so as to not give away everything I got, but here you go.  The first thing I found (that I could get into - it was wall to wall people in the narrow aisles) was some vintage singles.  I found four of my '65 commons for a buck a shot (center above).  They're nice, though I left a couple sketchier ones there. 

At the same table, I picked up this set killer / upgrade to finish my '73-74 set.  The top corners are a bit weathered, but it's half the price of similar ones on COMC right now.  I think it's much better than the one I started with.

There were a few hockey-centric tables, though I wasn't looking for much in that realm.  I came across these fancy shiny SP Authentic inserts.  For this price and the presence of a parallel Ovie, I said what the heck.

Lots of tables had rows of toploadered singles sorted by team.  This one corner dealer had some that he hadn't priced, but instead was asking customers to make him an offer.  And he was taking pretty much all of them it seemed.  I figured I'd get these Jordan Addisons for about a buck a shot or slightly less, but it worked out even better - after I also picked out these:

Jayden Daniels was very present in a lot of showcases at this show.  I saw these initially and did a quick bit of market research to see how other dealers compared - or at least one other.  I asked the guy at the table across the room what his prices on the same Mosaics and a different insert were, and he said $10 each.  I immediately went back and pulled these out.  They totaled $20 with another Terry McLaurin card.  I handed them to the dealer and he replied "Just make it an even twenty".  I had to check later to verify that I basically got the Addisons for free.  I should have gotten that guy's business card or contact....  That brings my JD5 total to ten cards so far.

And the grande finale was this, the second set killer of the day.  Mantle/Mays "Managers' Dream" is the last card I need to finish my 1962 Topps set.  I don't usually buy graded cards, but lately they have bucked the trend that I always assumed they cost three crooked numbers just for being graded.  This one was nicer than any of the same grade on COMC and fits my set very well.  For a "4", it's well centered and has nice corners and no major flaws that I can see.  

Eric had a family deadline (that we didn't quite meet), so we left the show after a little over two hours.  That was enough.  We got lucky that the winter weather forecast was wrong, so it was clear sailing all the way there and back.  My thanks to Eric for the invite and ride.

Three Shows In A Month - Part 3: Gettysburg, PA

This one will be rather brief. 

I heard about this show a mere two days before it took place.  My buddy Stuart said I needed to go, but I was hesitant since I had been spending a lot at the previous shows and other purchases recently.  (He would still go if he was dead broke and there was only one junk wax table among a hundred Pokèmon dealers).  But I actually had the time free and it was only a ten minute drive, so I gave in and went.

It was a smaller show in one of the ballrooms at the Eisenhower Hotel in Gettysburg.  It's situated right along the main road into the Battlefield.  There was a Coin show and a Civil War show also happening elsewhere in the venue.  Both of those had better signage directing attendees to them than the Card show - I parked at the far end of the building and ended up walking the length of the place to find it.

My first thought about small shows like this is that there will be almost nothing but slabs and new shiny stuff.  This one wasn't too bad in that way, but it was true that vintage was rare and the typical dealer was a young guy or guys with $1, $5 and higher boxes of singles that weren't sorted by sport, much less team.  There were also about a half dozen gaming (Pokèmon etc.) dealers.   

I did find some offerings that were sorted by sport and team, which makes it easier for me since I'm only looking for two teams in new football stuff.  

Sorry for the pale images, top loaders reflect really bad in my house.  The first couple of these are from 2013 and 2017.  The rest are from the last three years.

The other team is of course, the Vikings, for local kid Jordan Addison.  Really added some good ones this time.  I don't think Donruss was out when I first added him to my TCDB wantlist, so several of these weren't even on it.

And rounding out my selections, the Duke J is a pro uniform flavor of a Prestige rookie for my set. The Marshall is a unique addition to that player collection.  The Hernandez is the last base card of my PC guys in the latest Chrome Platinum Anniversary - now to round out the six billion parallels.  And the Ovie was a throw in to make ten $2 cards for $17 from one dealer.

It only took me from about 10AM or so until 1PM to gather all these.  I walked the whole thing twice.  I suppose I'd go back to this show again since it couldn't be much closer to my house.  Maybe there will be different dealers in the future.  (One guy had some decent vintage and whole dedicated boxes of Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan among others, but all the cards were several dollars apiece, so I passed.)

Anyway.  Now I've got a full table again the the card room to clear off and put all this stuff away from these shows.  Hope you enjoyed my hauls.

Three Shows In A Month - Part 2: Chantilly, VA

Two weeks after the Ephrata show, I attended the first of three yearly exhibits at the Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia.  This is the biggest show in my local-ish area.  It's about an hour's drive, and almost always worth it.

After dropping off my second submission to the guys at the COMC table (which was mostly from that storage hoard that I showed earlier), I dove in to shopping.

Here's the overall look at all my stacks - sorted by sport, sets, PCs, etc.  The two stacks on the left end will appear in other more famous blogs than mine.  

The first thing I attacked was my 2023 Stadium Club set.  Brought it down to one card, mostly from my favorite modern dealer.  Just couldn't get that last guy.  Just need the Ripken Triumvirates to complete the first trifecta of those as well.

This is the dude I'm missing if you have one to spare.

Scored some parallels and other player collection goodies from the past year as well.  Bo has the distinction of having all the Chrome parallels in SClub, while my other guys only have the non-shiny colors. 

Narrowed my 2023 Ginter short prints down to two (#373 Brett and another #384 Bo) with these five.  Amazing how tough it is to pull Ohtani from a pack.

Cut my needs of these Only In... minis in half with these.  Down to five (BAL, DET, ANA, SF & StL.)

Struck down a couple others from the '23 and '22 sets as well.  The mini inserts are always the most clever (and toughest to complete) of all the inserts - in Ginter and flagship.

Always adding to my Washington collection of course.  Some collectors concentrate on just one team and that's enough for them to look for.  For me, it's just one facet out of about six or eight that I chase all the time.  I'm out of control...

The never ending avalanche of shiny parallels.  I should have arranged these in a more horizontal array.  

Here's a closer look at a couple.  Blue Reactive Mosaic and Prestige Hyper flavors.

One vintage Washington insert that most people probably get for the Gale Sayers.  

Found a bunch of Addisons this time.  Believe it or not, I think the blue Select is the base, and the silver is a parallel.  At least I know there is a blue retail version.  Who knows what the hobby base flavor looks like without an image on the Database.

Some of these I got at the very last table that I bought from.  It was right by the front door and right next to YouTuber Chris Sewall, who I turned to and briefly discussed his latest video on grading data that blew my mind with the mention of two players whose Gem 10 slabs have dropped to about $10 in value (about 7 minutes in the linked video).  I never imagined a graded card would go below the cost of grading.  There may be hope for me to actually intentionally buy a slab in the future!

Here's what you really want to see, though.  Vintage!  One more off my 1950 Bowman set quest.  Though I'll probably be years waiting for Jackie Robinson et al to drop to a reasonable level.

I also started a micro player collection with these two.  As a player on the 1933 Goudey, and an umpire on the 1955 Bowman, Charlie Berry is a rather unique story.  Saw it on a YouTube video and always wanted a reason to get a '33 Goudey.

Finally knocked off two of the variation checklists from 1962 Topps...

The left one is the "no comma" version that lists #192 as Check List 3 (even though there's a dirt speck where the comma was on the other version).

The 6th series card variation is the general size and arrangement of the type.  The way you can distinguish them is the alignment of the E in Checklist.  In this one, it is lined up with the T in Topps.  On the other one, it is rather centered between the T and O.

Also coming down to the end of my 1957 Topps set quest.  The Senators and Kubek rookie are new, but the Fox is what I hope to be an upgrade.  His cards are expensive and hard to find in good shape.

Mauch, the reknowned manager later in his career, is a rookie as well.  Wilson, I don't know.

One of the two major finds was this Gene Baker error variation.  It was a lot scarcer (and expensive) than I thought.  But the guy that runs Uncle Dick's now gave me a great deal on it.

The "R" in BAKER is obscured on the back.  

The other big catch was this one from a dealer I know well and is from my area.  

It's not the greatest specimen, but the price was right.

So unless I mess it up, this will be my 750th total post on the blog.  Not all of them have been about cards, but I'd have to recalculate what that number is.  Thanks to the 50+ followers and many blog traders for your readership and support.  Resistance, after all, is futile anyway....

Next time, a quick trip for some more shiny....