April CSA Show Part 4 - The Rest

I've actually had all of these cards scanned for a while now but my regular weekend series interrupted the posts. This was by far the biggest purchase of the day and it all came from the same table. Get ready for a boatload of scans!

After my initial loop, I gravitated towards this dealer for a couple of reasons. Lots of base singles from recent sets. Lots of inserts from these sets. Cheap "hits" from yesteryear.

As I mentioned previously, the drawback was that there were no prices on the boxes of singles. Were they dime boxes? Quarter boxes? Sold by the pound?

I asked and the guy said, "It depends on the player." Huh.

He saw me pulling Cubs and said, "Bryant's would be $.50, Rizzos a quarter, most others a dime."

Also, the boxes were not in order other than each set was together. It was like the dealer opened boxes and boxes, pulled the inserts and stuffed all the base in a box.

I didn't need any Cubs base cards from Series 1, Heritage, Gypsy Queen or Opening Day from this year though all of those sets were there in spades. I always hesitate going through Donruss. I know I need it, but it is just so unappealing to me.

It drew me in anyway.

I don't know much about it or whether I even ended up with a complete set or not. I'll figure it out eventually.

Mixed in with all that base were these three variations. I don't know whether they were overlooked or if the dealer didn't really care because there were others in the box, too. Had I known which were the base and which were the variations, I probably would have grabbed more.

I turned the corner of the booth and found more boxes, but with stuff from last year.

More stuff I know little about and had no interest in, but picked up anyway. Four cards out of Panini Chronicles. The idea is sound, but I find the execution lacking a bit.

The next boxes over is where I found the "good stuff" hiding.

Topps Fire didn't excite me much either. I get the appeal, just not my thing. But Cubs are Cubs and I found nine base Cubs to add to my stack.

I think the above Wade Davis is the Blue Chip parallel?

And Flame parallels? I think the dealer had as hard a time telling the difference as I did. I probably put base Happ and Banks base cards back thinking I pulled them already with these parallels.

I think this Golden Grabs Anthony Rizzo is the base version but heck if I know. And the Jon Lester is a numbered parallel out of 299. I think that makes it Orange?

This card celebrates a Walk Off win for Kris Bryant and the Cubs and again, I think it is a base version. Because Fire had parallels for everything seemingly.

I only saw one Topps Gallery I needed. The others I had picked up as filler from an online order.

Lots and lots of Gold Label and all kinds of classes. I did a double take every time I pulled a player thinking I had pulled him already, but sure enough, the photo was different and it was a different class. I'm going to have to figure out which ones I still need here. I need to try that photo/scanner app to see if I can get better photos of these. The red streaks my scanner puts on shiny cards annoy me.

I also snagged the Andrew McCutchen for the Ivy Collection as he had not been represented yet. That's probably Gold Label's first appearance as well.

A trio of Topps Inception.

A pair of Topps Museum.

A pair of Tribute.

A quintet of Triple Threads including a numbered Amethyst parallel of El Mago.

This was a box topper out of Heritage? A three-card panel with Kershaw on the back. I guess there's one with Bryant on the back that I have to track down, too.

There were probably another 20 or so cards that I had pulled as trade bait in addition to the above. I handed the dealer my stack and waited for him to tally them up.

While he was doing that, I started looking through the inserts that he had pulled aside. These were marked $5 each. He quoted me $12 on the stack I handed him (what?!?) and said he would add the three above to make an even $20.

I talked to the guy a little bit and he told me about another smaller monthly show in my area as well. I'll definitely be hitting his booth up in the future. To pick up all of these different brands of singles, I probably would have ended up spending $20 just on shipping, let alone the cards themselves!

This table proved to me no matter how prepared I think I am for a card show, there's still so much I don't know. Time to get even more prepared for the July show!