April CSA Show Part 1

I know I've been neglecting this blog a bit lately, but I've been doing a bit of Spring Cleaning. I devised a yearlong plan to help streamline my move next summer and I dove in headfirst at the beginning of the month. I had a bunch of packages go out last week and have a few more almost ready to go, just waiting on the weekend to finish up. Thanks for your patience!

With that said, I did hit a fairly large card show last Friday and picked up some stuff. The scanning is coming along but it's been a few days since I posted, so I thought I'd show off some photos of other pickups.

Although it has been a while since I hit up a card show, I fell back into the routine pretty easily. The first thing I do is take a full loop around the show with my hands figuratively in my pockets, making notes on tables I'd like to come back to. Not buying, just getting a general sense of who has what. Then I compare those notes to my list of things I'm looking for, prioritize, and attack.

I ended up only buying from four different dealers so each one will get its own post because what I bought from each was distinctly different. That should buy me some more time to scan and crop when you throw in my running weekend posts.

One particular dealer that I have hit up before usually has older boxes from $5-$20. There wasn't as much this time around to my liking despite it being the first couple of hours of the first day of a three day show.

But I did eventually circle back around to him on my way out the door and walked away with what I consider a steal.

After a couple of weeks of busting a case of 2018 Opening Day (yes, I'm finally done with it, and yes here's a cheap plug for my other blog), I still had a pack ripping itch. Two 36-pack boxes with no time crunch should do the trick. The box on the left is a shrink wrapped box of 1993 Donruss. That was probably the last year I was really buying packs before other things took priority in high school life, so those names should be a nice trip down memory lane.

The box on the right, 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Special Edition was opened, but was actually 45 packs instead of the 36 that was marked. Which means its probably two cherry picked boxes together and there probably won't be a Derek Jeter or Michael Jordan.

But for a $5 sticker price on each, I'll take 'em. I doubt I will build either of these sets so if anybody has a want list for these, point me in the right direction. I'll pull Cubs/Ivy needs or condition upgrades but the rest is up for grabs.

The same dealer also had McFarlane figures for $5 each or 3/$10. Luckily this was my last stop of the day so I could just go to my car and leave. He had six Cubs.

They all had stickers on them, and the packaging looked like they had been packed and unpacked from several card shows over the years, but I intend to unbox them anyway and display them in my next place with my other memorabilia.

I'll have to look for some kind of checklist because there can't be too many Cubs I don't have now. I know I already have Carlos Zambrano, Mark Prior, Ryne Sandberg and Anthony Rizzo.

I know there is a Greg Maddux, Alfonso Soriano and Sammy Sosa out there, and some of these guys also have uniform and/or pose variations.

I was ready to give this guy $30, $10 for the boxes and $20 for the McFarlanes, but he only wanted $20 for the lot. Six McFarlanes and 72+ packs of cards for $20? That's like buying just one of the McFarlane figures new at the time!

The other tables will be recent (last year and this year) base and inserts, some slightly older inserts, and a very small vintage pickup. Stay tuned!