Card Show Cards - Part 1

Last weekend I was able to hit up the semi-frequent card show that takes place at a Holiday Inn about half an hour from where I live.  My haul wasn't exactly epic, as I spent only about $25-$30 on myself, and about the same amount on cards to send out to other collectors I trade with.

Nonetheless, I certainly stretched my hard-earned dollars and found some interesting cardboard that made it worth the trip.  Like the great Fred McGriff card you see above, which I plucked from a 7 cents bin.  Certainly an interesting image of the Crime Dog in a stylish hat, taking a bit out of...well, a baseball.  The foil is a bit hard to make out in the scan but this is from a Christie Brinkley Collection insert set.  Thank you Pinnacle for this glorious bit of total randomness.

In what I would say was my dumbest purchase of the day I paid $4 for a Red Sox team set from 2016 Topps Heritage.

As a fan of '67 Topps, I like the cards well enough.  It's just that I certainly could have gotten these a little cheaper had I shopped around, but then again sometimes it's nice to knock them out easily for a few extra cents.

The other problem is that the multi-team cards like league leaders and rookies weren't included, so I still have a couple to track down.

Not only that but the Red Sox have five short printed cards in the set that I'll have to obtain at some point if I truly want to consider this one complete.  Whatever, it was a nice sampling regardless and also provided my first Red Sox card of new closer Craig Kimbrel.

On a more positive note, let's see some of the other random cardboard that came home in my stack...

A few more from the 7 cents bin that produced the McGriff here, starting with the flagship Topps RC of reliever Hideki Okajima.  I had a feeling I was missing this one, and that feeling proved to be correct.  This one will pair nicely with the Matsuzaka RC from Tony that I just showed off yesterday.

It seems crazy to say, but this Classic Canseco was probably in my top 5 pick-ups of the day if I were to rank everything.  I've always had a thing for Classic, and though Canseco's reputation has been tarnished to say the least I'd imagine this was a pretty hot card when it was released in 1987.  A great portrait of Jose and his chemically enhanced biceps, plus the yellow A's uniform is a perfect fit with the bright borders used for this set.

How about a pair of HOFers from the obnoxious 1995 Sportflix set?  This Detonators insert has a lot going on, and I'm not sure how most of the elements are supposed to tie together.  We've got an ornate column, two different loud backgrounds, rockets, and a baseball that looks like it was photo-shopped in by someone who didn't know how to cleanly remove the clouds surrounding it.

Here's one that's slightly less busy, but still screams mid-'90s.  I only wish I would have found more from this set, at a few cents per card I'd have grabbed any of these that were available.

This Topps Pristine Rolando Viera refractor came from a 3/$1 bin from the same seller.  It came encased in one of those thick holders with the Topps hologram sticker secured across the top, but it was all scratched up so I freed it from its plastic prison.

I grabbed this Dernell Stenson autograph from a dollar box because I knew he was one player I didn't have a Red Sox autograph of (even though he never actually played with Boston).  Stenson was murdered in the fall of 2003 after having made his big league debut with the Reds the previous season.

The next five cards are from a nickel box, believe it or not!  This one was a no-brainer as it's been on my Zistle want list for a couple of years.

Here's one of those Distinguished Service inserts from 2007 Topps that everyone loves so much.  A great concept for an insert set, there was no way I was leaving this card of the late, great Monte Irvin behind for someone else to scoop up.

I was right in the midst of my childhood collecting phase when Japanese pitchers like Hideo Nomo were starting to make a big splash on this side of the Pacific, so of course I grabbed this All-World Team Nomo insert.  These are super thick for some reason.

I think I was even more obsessed with Chan Ho Park in the mid-'90s than I was Nomo.  I don't recall ever having seen this All-Rookie Team insert before, certainly worth a nickel.

Same goes for this Ultra All-Star Olerud.  I didn't really care for the '94 Ultra set, too much foil and a step down from the previous sets.  The inserts are great though.

To wrap it up for today, here are three cards I grabbed from a dollar box that a different vendor had out.  This Okajima is a Chrome variant from the 2007 Topps '52 set, and is serial numbered to /1952 on the reverse.  I'm really starting to build up a nice little Okajima collection here.

I'm a total sucker for the mascot cards that have been a part of Topps' Opening Day product for a few years now.  I've now got the Wally the Green Monster cards from 2010 through 2015.  I like that Topps used a photo of Wally that has the actual Green Monster in the background as well.

In closing, one of only two hockey cards that I picked up at the show.  Though I know it's one of his least-desired cards, I couldn't resist grabbing my very first Artemi Panarin card for just a buck.

All in all a pretty good show, especially since everything you see here, including the Red Sox team set that I showed just a few cards from, set me back less than $10.  I'll have one more post coming later this week with the rest of my haul, thanks for reading!