Apparently, the card collectibles hobby is thriving down here in the Shenandoah Valley. After attending my first card show since high school back in July, I had a chance to attend a second one last month. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to spend there, only about an hour and a half or so. With over 80 tables, it was a race against the clock to find some cool card at good deals! How did I do? Well, I ended up making purchase at 5 tables.
Table #1
My primary goal was to hopefully find some cards to help me complete the 1977 Topps and 1971 Fleer World Series sets. Unfortunately I struck out on that end, but this one dealer had a lot of vintage cards, including a small box of 1956 Topps he had labeled 3 for $5. I went through and found three Red Sox I needed at least!
Table #2
This next table caught my eye not because of the cards, but because he had a bin of publications, with the one on top featuring the favorite team of another blogger who I thought appreciate it. As for cards, he didn't have much but I did find a couple I could use.
He also had a few "team bags" including the Red Sox one.
I already had the top card, but when I flipped it over I saw a card worthy of taking a shot:
The pack itself wasn't great, mostly 2024 base cards, but there were a few good cards I needed so no huge loss. I found it funny that after picking up the Ice Foilboard parallel of that J.D. Martinez card, the base was among the cards in the team pack.
Table #3
This table had what I am always looking for - cards 10/$1! Fortunately they were grouped by team too, making it easy to rummage through. Again, I found some cards for another blogger, but the rest were purely for me! Had I more time, I'm sure I would have spent half the day at this table.
Table #4
My time was running short, so after a quick perimeter check I settled on this table. Ultimately, I'm very glad I did, but the dealer did leave a sour taste in my mouth. His setup was obviously geared to the high end guys, with most of his table space dedicated to graded cards. In a small section to my left, he had some boxes of ungraded cards, with a nice sign stating quite clearly that the penny-sleeved cards were 3/$1, while the ones in top loaders were $2. I concentrated on the penny-sleeved cards obviously, and found some cards from this year that otherwise bypassed my local retail store when they first came out.
I wasn't going to thumb through the $2 cards, as it looked like they were all parallels of modern sets that don't really move the needle for me, but there did seem to a small section of older cards hidden in the box. I flipped through those, and found a very beat up but otherwise glorious vintage Red ox card i just had to have. That's where the sour taste comes in. As I handed him the cards I wanted to purchase, he looked at this vintage card and asked for $5! After seeing the look on my face, he held the card up again, inspected it closer, acknowledged the creasing on it and said "How about $4?". That's when I called him out on his sign. Top loaded cards $2. This wasn't a case of a card getting misplaced in the wrong section of the table. Penny-sleeves, top loaders, graded cards - that's all he had. I didn't want to walk away from the card, so I met him a little and offered $3, which he took begrudgingly, mumbling about how he didn't have time to check his cards before the show. Dude's looking for people to buy his $100 graded cards and he's trying to squeeze $3 from me. it doesn't matter anymore, because I now this beauty:
This is my second card from this set, one of the few affordable playing-era ted Williams cards out there!
Table #5
OK, I'm down to about 5 minutes left, and I still haven't done the one thing I have always done at card shows since I was in grade school - find some packs to rip! Fortunately, I found a guy with some cheap $1 junk wax era packs for sale.
That'll scratch the itch for awhile! I'll have to do something fun with these like another pack war or something.
I only spent about $25 there, which is fine by me. It would have been nice to be there longer and really hunt for deals, but I had to pick up something special for the family:
Meet Cannoli, the latest addition to the family!
