Black Friday Card Show - The Finale!

The hobby of collecting sports cards is by no means dead.  In fact, as far as I can see it seems to be enjoying a revival the past few years.  I took this photo at the Black Friday card show I hit up, but you could just as easily believe it was from the mid-'90s based on the number of vendors and the crowded room.

For a small hotel ballroom show, I sure came out of there with a lot of great cardboard.  I've already shown some of the goods here and here; today's post has all the rest of my spoils from the day.  Again, the theme of the show for me ended up being small buys.

Like the 25 cent discount pack bin, full of loose packs from the junk wax era.  I just ripped open three more of these '93-94 Topps Premier packs from that bin.  I'm not going to show every card, but here are the highlights...

First pack was a Chris Chelios hot pack, as it contained both his base card...

...and the Gold parallel of his All-Star subset card.

Love this one, but it wasn't the best card I pulled in these three packs.

Here's my favorite.  It was fun to pull a Teemu Selanne rookie from a pack after his career has ended.

How about a quick pack of '95-96 Score as well.

Got a bunch of cards in this one of players who were among my favorites as a kid.

This Forsberg is the best card in the pack, hands down.  This is a photo that would work even on a modern day Upper Deck card.  I can't believe I'd never seen this card previously, but it really made the pack for me.

Airbrushed?  Not sure, but something doesn't look right.

Not a bad quarter pack there at all.  I've got more of these on my pack shelf that I'm stashing away for a rainy day, or a day when I'm desperate for a quick blog post.

In the last card show post I featured some of the 50 cent pick-ups of the day.  Well, here's the balance of that lot...

I'm not a huge Black Diamond fan at all, but I know enough to know that a quad diamond is a decently short-printed card.  Plus, when he's on his game Malkin is one of the most exciting players in the league to watch.  I'll actually have the pleasure of seeing Evgeni and the Penguins in person on Wednesday night at the Garden!  Cheapest copy of this card on COMC right now?  $4.23.

Here's another of the Upper Deck Exclusives parallels, this one from 2012-13.  I'm not particularly attached to Phaneuf, or the Leafs.  Pretty good piece of trade bait though for two quarters.

I'm going to snatch up decent Gretzky cards at this price all day long.  I was actually surprised by how many were still left, given that I didn't make it to these particular boxes until the show had been open a couple of hours.

I got a pair that I knew for certain I needed for my 1992-93 Hockey Heroes set.

A couple of higher-end (for the time) base cards as well with this SP...

...and this Flair.  I ended up with one other card of The Great One, which you'll see at the end of the post, to make it an even half dozen on the day.

Couple more Topps Tek cards, since I'm apparently unable to leave anything acetate behind.

This Goal Patrol insert from 1995-96 Parkhurst International is kind of cool because Patrick Roy is actually embossed to give the card a bit of a 3D effect.

Somewhat rare and shiny parallel of one of the premier set-up men of his day.

I grabbed this one just because I'm a Sakic fan, and I don't run across O-Pee-Chee Chrome cards very often.

I half collect Sergei Fedorov (132 unique cards now), and knew I didn't have this fancy-looking die-cut.

Couldn't pass up this Canvas card of Jiri Hudler rocking the Flames' fireman helmet.  This is actually my very first card from 2015-16 Upper Deck, oddly enough.

An early career Black Diamond Joe Thornton, serial numbered to /1,000.

I love, love, love these Division's Finest inserts from the '94-95 Finest set.  They're acetate, but with some light reflective coloring that really looks great when scanned or tilted in the right light.  Not the most valuable cards ever, but a tough pull and a set that I don't seem to run across very often.  I'd love to complete this 20-card set someday.

I grabbed this one because it's a perfect fit for my Stanley Cup collection, which I'll have a separate post on soon.

Next up, how about a few keepers from the "dollar box grandma"?

I got a nice pair of Red Sox rookies from the Topps '52 sets.  From the 2007 edition, Jacoby Ellsbury...

...and from the 2006 set, Jon Lester.  Lester is actually a short print and I think books at around $10, so this was a pretty good steal, especially since it can be hard to find a good bargain on Red Sox cards in New England.

Shiny minor league Red Sox parallel.

Dollar box grandma usually has an awesome array of cheap certified autos, and this trip was no different.  I grabbed any Red Sox that were in the box.

Some of the guys bounced around and never made the pros, like Brandon Jacobs here.

Others saw MLB action with Boston.

Regardless of which category they fall into, I'll grab new certified autos of my favorite team for a dollar any day.

I grabbed this Neftali Feliz, too.  I don't trade with any Rangers fans, but a nice framed Ginter auto seemed like a real steal regardless of who it was.

I couldn't pass up a relic card of a guy named Fu-Te Ni from Chinese Taipei.  He actually ended up pitching in quite a few games for the Tigers years ago, which was news to me.

I also hit up another set of dollar boxes on the complete opposite side of the room from dollar box grandma.  This is the same vendor that I got a lot of the 50 cent cards from, as well as the quarter cards from '72 Topps baseball.

Matt's now with the Canucks, but I picked up his Score auto from the Rookies and Traded box set for my Bruins collection.

I was really shocked to find this Tyler Toffoli Young Guns rookie for a buck.  Tyler had his first 20-goal season last year, and is on pace to surpass that threshold again in 2015-16.

I was even more excited about this one though.  So far, it doesn't look like the Bruins made a horrible call letting Dougie go, but count me among those that think this guy has a long, successful NHL career ahead of him.  I was crushed when the B's dealt him to Calgary for picks, but time will tell I guess.

I was very surprised to find this serial-numbered rookie right beside the Young Guns one.  Usually Bruins cards get snatched right up, to find these two in a dollar box was pretty shocking.

I showed one of these Red Lighters die-cut refractors in a previous post about this show, here's the other one I grabbed.  I guess in the end I came home with quite a few new Joe Sakic cards that day.

Members Only Marty.

Again, pretty shocked to find this Bruins card where I did.  I know it's just MVP, but there was no way I could pass up a Lucic rookie that I didn't already have.

This is some sort of super-rare "Double Diamond Premium Cut" insert of Peter Forsberg.  The kind of card I probably would have fainted and immediately put into a thick screw-down case had I pulled it as a kid, now it's relegated to the dollar box.

I've seen these Bash the Boards cards online a few times, but scans don't do them justice.  They're really impressive in hand, and I never realized until picking this one up that they're serial numbered (though to a comically high /3,500).

This one really had me baffled.  I guess this vendor hasn't been watching much NHL hockey this year, because Kane is lighting the league on fire.  I think he could have marked this card at $5 in his display case and sold it easily.

The same guy had a much smaller box of cards marked at 10% of written price.  There was a lot of racing stuff in there, which I'm just not into, but I did pluck a few baseball cards.  An under-rated pitcher, an awesome scoreboard backdrop, and the beautiful 1967 Topps design.  My cost?  40 cents!

I picked up a pair of '63 Topps cards at that same price per card...

...and the best part is both players are actually wearing their hats.

Here's my lone basketball card from the show.  While I don't collect the sport, I've amassed a very small collection of cards (maybe two dozen or so) that I just find interesting for whatever reason.  This awesome Larry Bird Super Action card was marked $8, which means it set me back all of 80 cents.  I wouldn't have guessed it walking in, but a basketball card ended up falling into my top three favorite pick-ups from the show.

Alright, last batch here, from the same vendor.  These were anywhere from $2 to $3 each if I recall.  I'm not a big Manny fan necessarily, but the combination of die-cut and relic card was irresistible I guess.

Electric Ice Gold!  These fell at just one per box in 1995-96 Upper Deck hockey, so they're relatively tough to come by.  Getting a big name HOFer was nice, and the gold foil goes well with the Penguins team colors.

Marquee Legend Gold Lindros.  I think these were inserted one per hanger pack or something like that.  Either way, I can't refuse a good bargain on a Lindros card.

One of my few mistakes on the day, turns out I already had a copy of this Goudey Mini Red Back Nolan Ryan.  It's a really nice card though, and one I'm sure I won't have any trouble trading or selling on COMC.

I was really pleased with finding this one.  The Pinnacle Masks inserts are legendary among '90s hockey collectors, and the '95-96 set might be the most loud and obnoxious of them all.  I'd love to pick up all ten of these, but I'm not sure I'll ever be willing to pay the asking price.  Nice to have this example at a bargain at least!

Last card of the day, and my single most expensive pick-up at $4.  This wasn't exactly a bargain, but rather just about a fair price compared to what you'd pay on COMC or other online sites.  I don't mind though, this particular seller was so fair and knocked an additional 15% off the already ridiculously low price of my stack.  Besides, this is an absolute beauty, instantly becomes one of my favorite Gretzky cards.

Well, that's a wrap on the Black Friday card show.  That was so much fun that I may have to make it a yearly tradition!