OK, so it wasn't that big a deal but yesterday, for the first time I can recall, I attended a card show and walked away with every dime I brought with me. Blame it on my quirky wants, blame it on the explosion of interest in shiny stuff, blame it on the pandemic. But whatever is to blame, it felt weird.
Coming home empty handed really was the result of all of the above excuses. I don't have much on my want-lists that dealers carry to small shows in the best of times.... '67 High Number SPs, '62 Post Cereal, '75 Topps Minis, and an admittedly odd selection of non-sport sets. The tables yesterday reflected the current trends in collecting. There were plenty of boxes of what I suppose are the kinds of cards people are in line for at Target these days. Display cases were generally filled with 'hits'.
Daryll, the promoter and my friend, did a great job with the show, the first hotel show since last year. COVID protocols were in place and enforced. I should note here that my wife, my mother-in-law, and myself are all fully vaccinated. If not for that I likely wouldn't have gone at all.
He cut back on tables to give plenty of room for social distancing. But some of that is the reason for my striking out. With fewer tables the dealers cut back on what they brought. I normally spend at least 75% of my time at the hotel shows at Daryll's own tables since he usually has tons of vintage stuff. But he's limited what he brings and only sets up a few tables to give more to the dealers. After all, it's table rentals that pay for the room.
I struck out card-wise but getting to chat with Daryll for a bit made the trip worthwhile. And it was nice to get out of the house for a bit. I stopped at a few stores on the way home and bought binders and other hobby supplies so that made the trip worthwhile.
Meanwhile, I have a few things that were picked up in my latest SportsLots binge and an eBay buy or two. The '62 Post Cereal McCovey up top brought me to just five remaining. There are also some variations out there which I don't plan to chase. If they fall into my lap I'd take them of course. I also added Juan Marichal. His card is a bit pricey but after a day or so of combing through eBay looking at '67 Topps SPs like the Rod Carew rookie, it doesn't seem so expensive. And it really is as nice as the scan shows. That level of condition is rare for a set that was generally cut from the backs of boxes by 10-year-olds with dull scissors.
Over on Twitter a hobby friend showed a couple of cards from a set I was unaware of, the 1968 Topps/Milton Bradley Hot Rods. I commented on them and did some digging. They reminded my of the George Barris 'Kustoms' that we loved as kids and he was gracious enough to send me the cards. Turns out I had a couple of these stashed away in a box of oddball singles and strays and had completely forgotten about them.
This turned out to be a 66 card set without any rarities so I'll work on it casually for now. I found a dozen or so being sold by an eBay dealer so I'm at 16 or so. Finding them, not cost, is the challenge. That's a much more enjoyable hobby predicament than wondering if nabbing the remaining 26 Topps 67s will take my whole stimulus check.
There are some back color variations. The story behind these is a bit murky (I've read a couple of conflicting accounts) but I'm not going to worry about any of that. They will make a nice companion to the World On Wheels binder.
There are three different backs for the Hot Rods set. I wrote about the set here: https://cardboardhistory.blogspot.com/2018/12/hot-rods-and-racing-cars.html
ReplyDeleteThere was a reissue with a pink/salmon back which is VERY hard to tell apart from the orange of the originals, at least to me. I do have both but didn't realize it when I wrote the post. The yellow backed Milton Bradley versions are much easier to tell apart. The original set was from 1966, the other two from 1968.
My inability to tell those pink & orange colors apart from sellers scans is why I'm not worrying about the backs.
DeleteNice Posts! I've not picked up any HoFers besodes Cepeda nor have I looked for them on sportlots. I'm assuming the sellers show photos?
ReplyDeleteSome do. There's a little camera icon for the cards that have pix. With the Posts i just nab the cheapest one they have listed. This is one set where I'm not concerned with condition. Most in my binder are OK. As long as the stats are all there I'm good.
DeleteOh I can't wait to get vaccinated so I can confidently and safely flip through cards again at a shop or a show! Always good to hear when folks have been able to get theirs.
ReplyDeleteThe Hot Rods set looks like a fun project.
There was another show going on over the weekend but I don't know who ran it and it was in a hotel attached to the huge-ass shopping Galleria. I didn't consider going. Not really ready to navigate those sorts of crowds just yet. Especially since half the folks down here thing COVID is a hoax. I was sure of Daryll's precautions so I went to his.
DeleteHaven't been to a card show in 17 months. When I do go, I'm sure I will be depressed by what I find. But I will make damn sure I don't leave empty-handed.
ReplyDeleteYup, prepare to be disappointed.
DeleteWhen I finally make it back to a card show, I honestly won't be surprised if I walk away empty-handed myself. But who knows... maybe the hobby will have settled by then and there will be plenty of dime boxes to dig through.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I have some 75T Minis for you. I sent you an email verifying your address.
As always, your generosity is much appreciated.
DeleteI suspect big shows like the TriStar show (once they start up again) will still have more variety i.e. more than just boxes of Bowman and there will be the usual crop of older dealers selling vintage. But who knows. The hobby has changed for sure.
The possibility of leaving empty-handed is the only thing that's keeping away from the Nashville shows right now. Getting nothing after almost four hours of total drive time would not be cool.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you. Traveling that far on the off chance there's something good wedged in between the Tatis refractors just isn't worth it now.
DeleteNice to hear from you about the first card show you went after all this madness started.
ReplyDeleteNot so good to hear that you brought nothing home...
Is there a shiny-thing-madness going on? And here we are bad-mouthing Panini for cutting on the shiny stickers for the Euro collection lol
Don't know a dime about cars, but the cards look pretty nice!