A Couple of Card Show Pickups

A few weeks ago I was thumbing through a Beckett and decided to see if there were any card shows in the area besides the big CSA one that comes around a couple times of year. I needed a couple of storage boxes that I don't want to pay shipping on to buy online and thought a card show would be a good place to start.

Determined not to buy much of anything except for supplies until I finished reorganizing, I took $40 in cash and left the rest of my wallet in the car. I have no idea how much boxes and sleeves and toploaders run these days so I wanted to be safe.

The show turned out to be about 20-30 tables and after my first loop, discovered no one selling boxes. Well now what am I supposed to do a little cash in my pocket and a banquet hall in the local Best Western full of cards? Well, if you read the title of this post, you know I picked up a few things!

Everything below came from the same dealer who had a $0.50-$1 insert box and a $3 or 4 for $10 relics/autograph box. With all of the cards sorted by team, my money was spent within minutes. I pulled out a bunch of Cubs and casually sorted through some other teams looking for some trade bait. Knowing I was quite a bit off, I handed the guy my stack and said, "How close am I to getting these for $20?"

He flipped through them and said I was at about $50, which if I did the math in my head right, was around his "sticker" price. Hmmm, getting the feeling he's not going to be fun to negotiate with. I put a few things back, reshuffled the deck, handed it back and offered $30, which to my surprise, he accepted. He even gave me a 400 ct box and a couple of unused team bags because I had been asking for supplies.

I don't think I got the steal of the century, but I picked up a few cards I needed/wanted at a decent price. And it was probably still cheaper than eBay when you factor in the shipping I would have had to pay from multiple sellers to get the same stuff.

Let's start with the Cubs autographs...





2011 Tier One Tyler Colvin Autograph 336/999



Tyler Colvin isn't with the Cubs anymore but this is my first and only Tier One anything. Solid looking autograph too. Bold blue, almost every letter. Can't go wrong. 



2011 Topps Chrome Darwin Barney Autograph


I still haven't figured out how to scan Chrome cards but I promise that is what it is. This card looked so familiar to me that I couldn't decide whether I had it or it has just been sitting in one of my saved eBay searches. Remember, I was just going for supplies so I didn't bring anything resembling a list. 


2012 Bowman Prospect Mike Olt Autograph

So technically this is not a Cubs card but I couldn't pass on it. Funny how his 7-letter autograph looks longer than guys with 12+ letters. And that it looks like Matt and not Mike.

And now a bunch of Cubs inserts. I have frugally avoided 2013 cards thus far as a punishment for being unorganized/incentive to get organized but with them right in front of me I couldn't pass them up. Below you'll see a couple of Archives inserts with a Ryne Sandberg All-Star and an Anthony Rizzo tallboy? Is that what they're calling these? I don't even know the lingo, I feel like a fraud! Below those are a couple of the Home Town Heroes from this year's Bowman. I guess I should figure out which ones I still need now.

I also picked up a couple of older inserts too.

This Presidential Pastime Ronald Reagan card from 2004 Topps is now my second Cubs affiliated Reagan card to go along with my 2011 Opening Day Presidential First Pitch card.

 


2012 Topps Black Border Jairo Asencio /61

 

I picked up a couple of these black bordered cards last year so I figured I might as well keep trying to passively complete the team set.

These Welington Castillo rookie parallels were in my stack because the dealer also had one of the printing plates for this card. I thought it would be nice to pick up an instant starter rainbow but the plate was one of the ones I put back. Still good additions, and ones I needed/wanted more than the printing plate.

I also picked up this 2012 Bowman Jedd Gyorko autograph for Marcus over at all the way to the backstop, but the day after the show, he posted that he picked one up himself. Any other Padres/Gyorko fans out there want this?

So you may be thinking I got ripped off so far for $30. But keep in mind there are several more other team autographs I'm not showing off (I'll let those bloggers show off the goodies when they get them). And as usual, I saved the best (I think) for last. I've avoided a lot of Darwin Barney stuff on eBay so as to not get in to a bidding war with Paul from Wrigley Wax on something. But I didn't see him at this small card show hundreds of miles away from where he lives so I didn't feel so bad about picking this one up:

The dealer wanted $20 for this one outright because it is from the mini set, a more "in demand" set. But I successfully downplayed the horrible Cubs, Darwin Barney and the fact that he may have missed the boat on getting a high price so far away from the product release date. So either I overpaid for this and got the rest of the cards for $10 (I'm ok with that) or I talked him down on this and everything above (plus a few not shown) averages out to less than $2 per card (great for some, meh for others).

And I still had $10 in my pocket when I walked out the door...