Now THAT was a Card Show - Part 4 - Quarter Box Gretzkys & 100-Year-Old Cardboard

Time for the penultimate post covering last weekend's major card show.  As I was stumbling through the quarter box that I found some of the cards from yesterday's post in, I came upon an entire section of Wayne Gretzky cards.  The Great One in a quarter box?!?!  Yes please!

There weren't any super valuable or rare cards obviously, and nothing older than the '90s.  I was surprised, however, at some of the cards that were in there given what Gretzky cards typically go for.  For starters, how about this awesome shot of Wayne sporting the sweater from the 1979 WHA All-Star Game!  I can definitely say this is my one and only Gretzky card that features this obscure uniform.

There were half a dozen of these cards from the 1999-2000 Upper Deck Gretzky Living Legend set, and I grabbed all six.

I really liked this one in particular since it gives you an awesome look at an early '80s Campbell Conference All-Star jersey.  Great stuff!

On the other hand, I find it hard to believe there wasn't a better photograph to use than this one?  This might be the singles worst Gretzky card in my entire collection, but hey, for a quarter I'm still sold.

One last look at the Campbell Conference sweater.

Kind of a cool card paying homage to the 1987 "Rendez-vous" series, which pitted the Soviet national team against a team of All-Stars from the NHL.  Gretzky recorded four assists in the two-game series, with each team winning a game.

The majority of what I found were base cards from mid-'90s sets, which is great as that's just about the time where I started trailing off in my first go-round of collecting.

To me, junk wax era hockey cards are just fantastic, and to find all these cards of The Great One for just a quarter each is unheard of.  In my experience even the lowliest Gretzky commons are often dollar box material.

This '96-97 Leaf is actually a Rangers card despite Wayne being depicted with St. Louis.

Here's a set that is very foreign to me, 1995-96 Bowman.  Wayne gets card #1 on the checklist, which obviously happened quite often during his illustrious career.

Another card #1, this time from 1994-95 Upper Deck.  This is probably the one Upper Deck set from their first few releases that I have the fewest cards from, was very happy to pick up the first card in the set and a huge name for 25 cents.

Ultra Cool.  This is the epitome of junk wax era hockey cards right here.  Way too much going on with this design.

This Collector's Choice card is actually a Player's Club parallel, as noted on the left edge of the card.

Here's a great one from Upper Deck featuring two former teammates reunited.  A great photograph, and I love the added touch of the huge Rangers banner/flag serving as the background.

The next two were my favorite new Gretzky cards of the day.  I absolutely love the Metal/Metal Universe sets, and I've considered building either or both of them.  I would pick up a card of just about any player from either set for a quarter, forget Gretzky!

As it stands I was able to grab Wayne's cards from both sets out of this quarter box!  It's amazing how sometimes spending 25 cents on a card gives you just as much enjoyment as picking one up that costs $25.  That's one of the things I love most about this hobby, you can really enjoy it on just about any budget.

That's it for the Gretzky cards, 20 new additions for just a 5-spot.  I'll take those prices any day of the week, and this lot brings my Gretzky collection in total to over 150 unique cards.  Not bad for someone I don't actively collect.

Alright, to close out today's post I've got one of the two really big cards I was able to land at the show.  Combined, these two cards ate up 50% of my show budget, but I certainly have no regrets.  Here's the first one, my very first T205 Gold Border!

These cards are just awesome.  It seems many more folks collect the T206 set, but these T205s really are beautiful.  I'm a total sucker for just about any tobacco card, but to me these are just much more vibrant and colorful than their T206 counterparts.

I love the baseball diamond background, and having the player's portrait inset between the crossed bats is a great concept.  It's a small detail, but I do like that the card actually lists the Red Sox team name in the upper right corner as opposed to just "Boston baseball club" or Boston American League.

I'll always be enamored with cards that have existed for this long.  I mean Clyde Engle was around so long ago that he actually played in the Federal League for a couple of seasons!  I'm very pleased that this show afforded me the opportunity to add the first T205 to my collection.

I'll have my final show recap post up tomorrow, featuring an oddball item out of left field as well as my single greatest find of the show.  Thanks for reading as always!