Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Card Show Part 2: The Big Money Cards*

I realize yesterday's post was just as much of a tease as the first day. Nobody really cares about supplies, right? Well, the good news is that bought me some time to do some cropping.

For today's post, I have the big money cards. And by that, I mean the stuff that didn't come from a dimebox. These may go all the way up to three whole dollars. But that's a little misleading because $3 was the starting price. It was haggled down with a bulk purchase. And even the term haggle is a little misleading as you'll see.


Here's the box again and I'm going to start with the upper right corner. That particular dealer had a section of his table where everything was three dollars. It was full of oddballs, regional issues and miscellaneous team sets. I had picked out 8 items and was ready to offer $20 but before I could say anything, the dealer took the items from me, counted them up and quoted me $15. Um, ok! So let's see what I got for what ended up being less than than two bucks each.


Last year's Topps factory Cubs team set. I already had one that I picked up on eBay that I think I paid about $7-8 shipped last year when it came out. The dealer's sticker says $6.50. I really just wanted this for the extra Tony Campana card. Well worth the price to me.


Next up is a pair of mid 1980's Fleer team sets. The 1987 set on the left is the glossy version. Nice! I have most of the regular version but not a single glossy from this set. I had about half of the 1986 set on the right in my collection already with others needing an upgrade.



Finishing up this table were these five gold cards. I had no idea what they were when I picked them out and after a little research, they come from a set put out by Danbury Mint. I guess they are 22kt gold leaf covered baseball cards. Whatever that means. Based on some finished auctions on eBay, I think I did pretty well. I didn't see a complete checklist (although I didn't look very hard) but another eBay search showed at least a Moises Alou and Bill Madlock in Cubs uniforms for me to keep an eye out for. They come in a sealed plastic holder and as you can see by the dealer stickers, they were expecting a few more bucks before tossing them onto the clearance table. I tried pealing off the Sosa sticker before I just gave up.

Another table had two monster boxes of $3 relics and autographs or 10/$20. I only managed to find 5 Cubs I was interested in or didn't already have but after pulling 23 cards from his dimeboxes too, he bundled everything for $12. The dimebox stuff will come later but here are the "hits" from this table.


Two autographs. C'mon, how many of you die hard Cubs fan have even heard of these guys? Todd Noel never made it above A-ball with the Cubs despite being their first round pick in 1996. He later topped out at high-A with a Yankees affiliate in 2000. Jaye Chapman pitched 12 innings in 14 appearances for the 2012 Cubs. He is currently in an independent league.


A pair of mid-2000's Cubs relics. I like the simplistic design on the Baseball Heroes Felix Pie. The Derrek Lee is numbered 42/50. 


And finally, this Kerry Wood could have had its own "How'd That Get There?!" post because I didn't see the fine print where it shows him as a member of the Cleveland Indians. I just saw the Cubs uniform in the photo and the blue swatch. I'm still counting it for my Cubs collection.

And my final table today, in addition to 4 monster sized dime boxes, the dealer also had $2 "hits" and $.50 or 3/$1 vintage. Since we just had some hits, let's finish those off.


Two bucks for a Starlin Castro relic? Why not? I don't know what his status is in the Chicago collectible world but he has fallen off the map outside of it. Works for me. Let's hope he bounces back this season.


I had a Matt Garza Clubhouse Collection relic from 2013 so I figured I might as well pick one up from 2012. I would have ended up paying at least $2 in shipping to get it elsewhere.


And to go along with the Todd Noel autograph, here's another player that you guys might question why I bought this. My answer is simple. I didn't have cards of either of them. Sadly, two bucks is probably overpriced (especially considering the vintage I could have picked up instead), but I collect what I collect. Also like Noel, Ryan Gripp didn't make it out of the minors. Sorry Ethan, but this "gripping Gripp" stays with me! (But I did pick up a few things that will finally be headed your way for my contest a little while back.)

Ok, while this isn't "dimebox" vintage, we finally get to vintage nonetheless. As I said above, these were $.50 or 3/$1. Another bonus of this table was that every card came in a penny sleeve and toploader, even the dimebox stuff that's coming later. Let's start with the most recent and work towards the oldest. These will be presented without comment, just captioned with the year and player name. I will say, none of these cards have any creases and the only "damage" is some edge/corner wear. Even the centering on these are pretty good.

1978 Topps Bobby Murcer
1974 Topps Billy Williams
1974 Topps All-Star Reggie Jackson & Billy Williams
1973 Topps Cubs Team
1972 Topps Rookie Stars Cubs
1972 Topps NL Strikeout Leaders
1971 Topps Hoyt Wilhelm
1971 Topps Joe Pepitone
1971 Topps Ken Holtzman

1969 Topps Bill Hands
1969 Topps Rich Nye
1969 Topps Jim Hickman
1969 Topps Charlie Smith

Some of you eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that I forgot to caption the 1971 Jim Hickman and Larry Gura cards. I didn't forget. I just didn't realize until I got home and scanned them that they were actually...



...the O-Pee-Chee versions. I'm kicking myself now because there were definitely multiple copies of some of these cards and I didn't check the backs to see if there were more. I naively assumed they were just Topps cards and picked the ones with the best centering/edges/corners. Lesson learned.

While I did keep a few non-Cubs cards from the dimeboxes for my niches yesterday, almost all of the non-Cubs from the "expensive" boxes will find new homes in trade/gift packages by week's end. You'll have to look for those on other blogs in the coming weeks. The lone exceptions were these iconic cards. 


I've seen this card numerous times on blogs over the years, but shockingly, I don't think I'd ever seen one in person. And then I found two in a bargain bin.

7 comments:

  1. I don't care what is printed on the card. If the player is in the team uniform, and the relic is without a doubt a swatch from that team, then it's a relic for that team. I have a couple White Sox cards that are totally Sox uniforms, so I don't care if the card says "Phillies", it's a ChiSox card.

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  2. Nice pickups! The backs on those OPCs are so cool.

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  3. I actually remember Todd Noel. I was hoping he AND Kerry Wood were going to dominate baseball for years to come. I figured if the Cubs front office bet on Wood and won, then Noel would make it too. Boy, was I wrong.

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  4. That Billy Williams is great. Nice additions to the collection.

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  5. I've got a stack of Ryan Gripp rookie cards somewhere.

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  6. Good news, your post fixed Starlin Castro!!

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