Black Friday Card Show!

This morning, while the general public was stampeding and playing "discount TV tug of war" at Wal-Marts across the country, I killed a few hours at the local card show.  This particular show seems to get larger, and more popular, each time I make it up.  Today there were between 80 and 90 tables, the place was jammed, and money was exchanging hands everywhere you looked.  Anyone who says this hobby is dying is just plain wrong.

Anyway, for me today's show ended up being all about "the smalls".  I didn't find any big additions to the collection, and the most expensive card I picked up was $4.  The Bowman Chrome Henry Owens mini at that top of the post set me back a quarter.

Seemed like a decent price for these cards, which I'd yet to see in hand prior to today.  Enough so that I picked up a pair of Twins from the same box to send off to Brian at HSCA at some point.

These are an odd size, just as tall as a standard card but significantly slimmer.  This trio actually came from the "dollar box grandma" I've referenced in prior posts.  Of course I raided her legendary dollar boxes as well today, but that's for another post.

In the rear corner of the room I found a dealer who ended up being my favorite table of the day.  He had all kinds of heavily discounted cards from all the major sports, with most of his stuff being in the $.50 to $5.00 range.

On a side table behind his $.50 baseball boxes was a binder loaded with 1972 Topps baseball for 25 cents per card.  Sure, they were all lower series cards, and the majority of the HOFers were picked clean, but there were some gems to be found nonetheless, like this Billy Cowan halo card, which is one I've wanted to pick up for what seems like forever now.

I'd imagine there wouldn't have been much here for folks who are well on their way to completing the '72 set, but since I had probably less than 50 cards from this one before today I fared pretty well.

Condition is pretty solid on most of these.  Sure, there's a dinged corner here or there, but they are certainly good enough that I'll never feel the need to upgrade them.

I was really able to load up on that second tier of stars.  Names that may not necessarily ring a bell with a young fan nowadays, but guys that enjoyed really solid careers.

That doesn't mean I didn't end up with any HOFers from the discount binder.  Gotta love a card featuring Hammerin' Hank from his playing days for a quarter.

Look at those chops!

I was really happy to find that the Bill Buckner All-Star Rookie card was still in the binder.  I've long admired this one on other blogs, felt great finally landing my own copy.

One of my favorites has to be this Dick Williams sporting some sweet early '70s Oakland A's gear.

I've always liked the playoff/World Series subsets, and Game 6...

...Game 7...

...and the post-World Series celebration card were all available.  This one in particular is just great.  The further I got into this binder, the more I was starting to feel the way Manny Sanguillen looks in this photo.

Airbrushed Alomar.

Turns out I already had a copy of this Boots Day.  Whoops.

Same with this one.  Both are available for trade.

New Red Sox card from '72 Topps with a sweet little league field backdrop and a mystery stain in the top corner?  Sure!

The last of the '72 Topps I grabbed was this Luis Aparicio In Action card.  Filled a significant gap in my '70s Red Sox collection with this one.  If you're keeping score at home, that's 22 cards from this legendary set for a whopping $5.50

1972 Topps cards weren't the only thing going for a quarter at today's show.  A few tables down there was a guy with an entire Rubbermaid bin full of loose packs at 25 cents each.  Most of it was junk in its purest form (1990 Donruss, 1988 Topps), but with enough digging I unearthed some packs that seemed worth the gamble.

When I cracked open this 1993-94 Topps Premier pack, Hartford Whaler Yvon Corriveau was staring at me from the top, confirmation that I'd made the right move in grabbing this one.

Of course I got some scrubs in the pack, but can I really complain for a quarter?

The Whalers and the Nordiques in the same pack, I felt like I was 8 years old all over again opening this one.  Worth the price of admission just for the stroll down memory lane.

My one-per-pack Gold parallel was nothing special, center Brian Bradley of the Lightning.

HOFer Brian Leetch was easily the best player in the pack.

The lone net-minder in the pack was this Felix Potvin Super Rookie, a card I would have been beyond excited to pull back in the day.

The trio of Leetch/Potvin/Linden really saved this pack from total obscurity at the end here.

Unfortunately, this 1995-96 Score pack was a loss, as every single card had a giant ding in multiple corners.  I guess those are the risks you assume when you play the high stakes game of buying quarter packs that have been tossed around a discount bin.  Too bad too, as it had a couple of decent cards in Marty Brodeur and Dominik Hasek.

Here's another diamond in the rough from that discount bin.  I have hardly any 2000 Topps baseball in my collection, so I leaped at the chance to take home a pack of this for pocket change.

A strong start to the pack with speedster Kenny Lofton.

I'm not sure if there were a lot of them in this set, or if it's just the way the cards fell, but I seemed to pull a high percentage of multi-player cards in this pack.

I really wasn't following sports much around the turn of the century.  In the year 2000 I was too busy graduating high school and getting in all the trouble that goes along with that to pay attention to cards, so I have to say I don't recognize many of these guys by name.

Yeah, like I said, I really don't know most of these guys from a hole in the wall.

Alright, here's someone I recognize!  I liked Mike Mussina much more in his Orioles days.

This isn't an insert, Topps just used a ton of foil on the "20th Century's Best" subset.

I also got one of the two Series 1 checklists, which thankfully did not count as one of my promised cards in the pack.  I'll admit that wasn't the most exciting pack ever, but it was a fun way to see a set I know little about on the cheap.

This might be my lone head-scratching purchase of the day, as I shelled out 75 cents for this Gold parallel of Wade Miley that I'm sure I could have eventually gotten cheaper.  Oh well, my Red Sox collection count goes up by one regardless.

I was happy to find that a few different vendors had some singles from the recent Topps High Tek release available at reasonable prices.  I'm a sucker for acetate cards like these, and ended up with a handful.  This Bo Jackson is a Grass Pattern...

...as is this Jose Canseco.  A nice pair of sluggers from my youth.

A trio of Red Sox from this set came home in my stack also, Pablo Sandoval on the Dots design...

...a Matt Barnes rookie on the Grid design...

...and a Rusney Castillo rookie on the Circuit Board design.  I seem to be saying this a lot this year, but I think Topps did a great job with these.  I'll certainly be on the lookout for more singles on the secondary market.

Let's wrap up today's post with three cards from a 50 cent bin.  I was certain I didn't have this '82 Donruss Ozzie Smith, and I always enjoy picking up new cards of The Wizard, particularly from his pre-Cardinals days.

This guy really had some amazing deals in his 50 cent and dollar bins, and I spent more money with him than anywhere else as a result.  This Emotion Xcited insert of Super Mario had been on my want list for many months, and I never thought I'd find a copy for less than a buck.  I think it books at $8, so 50 cents seemed more than fair.

From Super Mario, we move to the son of one of his biggest competitors...

This one really made me smile.  I'd been looking forward to adding a baseball card of Wayne Gretzky's son to my collection, and in fact had picked one up on COMC a couple of months back.  It was nowhere near as cool as this Orange Wave Refractor though, which I couldn't toss in my pile fast enough.

I may not have landed any White Whales, or scored that long lost card that made my jaw drop, but considering everything in this entire post set me back less than $15 combined I'd say this was a successful show.  A nice enough way to spend Black Friday morning anyway.  This is also just the tip of the iceberg, I picked up a ton of cards to send out to trading partners and should also have a couple more posts of my own when I can find some more time for scanning...