Small Card Show Recap - June

Whoops, forgot to publish!

Right before my trip, I took in the newfound monthly card show at my local Best Western hotel. Well, at least I thought it was monthly as I’ve been in April, May and now June. But the next one won’t be until September. I think it may have something to do with the big CSA show in the area in July and then the National. Or I could just be making that up, who knows?

Anyway, I wanted to save my money for the trip and debated even going. But I was out and about running errands so I decided to pop on by. The last two times I went, I found some great stuff and didn’t break the bank.

Huh. I just went to find links for the write ups but could only find the three parts I did for May (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). I must have missed posting the April finds. Well, that’s a post for another day.

As I started to say, the last two times, I found some great stuff. The guy from April wasn’t there in May and neither of the guys from April or May were there in June. This show was on a Sunday and I think the last two had been on a Saturday so that may have had something to do with it.

I took some time to do my cursory walk around before making any purchases and came across a table that had some pretty unorganized boxes. The dealer said he got in big on the Strasburg and Harper hype a few years ago buying all kinds of sets and boxes. He was keeping those players but got this table on a whim to try to sell off the non-Nationals cards to clear up space and try to make a little of his money back. He didn’t really know what he had and didn’t really seem to have any kind of set pricing structure. But he was organizing as he was going and said if I was going to be around, he’d pull any Cubs for me as he went. Sounded good.

He also had binders that were all grouped together with star players that he was selling by the page. One binder was made up of $1 pages, essentially a slightly more expensive dime box but you had to buy all nine cards. I think he also had $2, $3 and $5 pages. With my strict budget before the trip, I refrained from those even though there were a couple of cards I’d have probably bought individually. If he’s back in September, I may take another look through his stuff.

When I came back about a half hour later, he had a stack of 15 cards for me. Mostly parallels that I was pretty sure I didn’t have. I mentioned he didn’t seem to have any set pricing structure aside from his by-the-page binders so I immediately felt bad for making him pick out cards that I wasn’t going to be able to buy. None of them were numbered but I thought for sure he’d want at least a buck for each of them. Turns out, my five spot was good enough for all 15 cards.

Everything he picked out was from the “Bryce Harper” year in 2012 so I was priced out of most of the Chrome and Bowman stuff back then. Fast forward a couple of years, the Cubs still stink and I’m at an out of market card show. Works for me.

Among them were a bunch of International parallels out of Bowman. Maybe I should have saved these flag cards for a Fourth of July post!

Paul Hoilman, Richard Jones, Jeimer Candelario

Matthew Szczur, Dillon Maples

Geovany Soto, Starlin Castro

A trio of Topps Chrome Orange Refractors

And a trio of Bowman Chrome Green Refractors

The final two cards were Triple Threads cards of Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg that I apparently already had. Those odd 1%-er brands like Triple Threads, Tier One and Museum are hard to keep track of for me. I just always figure I haven’t picked them up yet.

Speaking of Sandberg, in between my trips to that table, I stumbled across another table that had a whole row in a monster box of just his cards. For the most part I rely on the ol’ “if I‘ve seen it, I have it” rule of thumb because back in the day, I bought anything and everything Sandberg related. So usually, when I go through a stack like that, the only cards I don’t have are newer, ridiculously low-numbered/high priced parallels, relics or autographs. And that was true with some of the cards I needed from that box. But I guess with a stack that big, the odds were in my favor of finding something.

First up is this Leaf promo(?) card that was exclusive to the 2010 National Sports Collectors Convention. Sandberg batting without a helmet? This has to be from when he won the 1990 All-Star Game Home Run Derby.

Next was a Post card. I thought I had the run of these cereal box inserts but this bilingual popup version looked familiar but not enough to pass on it for just a quarter. One of these days I’ll dig my Sandbergs out and actually make a firm list.

And finally my most expensive card of the day at a whopping half dollar. Well, it was marked a dollar and the other two Sandbergs were a quarter but the guy gave me the three of them for a buck. So fifty cents it is. Or I bought it and got the other two free. Whatever.

The Cubs team set from the 1990 Topps TV set has been out of my price range for a while but the 66-card set is my Boys of Zimmer dream set. There’s also a 66-card All-Star set that includes four Cubs (Sandberg, Mark Grace, Mitch Williams and manager Don Zimmer shares a card with Giants manager Roger Craig). The Sandberg above is the All-Star card and usually goes for a couple bucks. I had never seen one in person and didn’t want to double my costs with shipping so I’m glad this has a new home.

Not a bad haul for $6, even if you count the two duplicates I accidentally picked up.