back to back shows

april was a pretty busy month in terms of card shows in the twin cities. the twin cities collector club had a supplemental show in the east metro the same day that one of the local card & collectible shops was having their annual warehouse sale. the following weekend, there was the big semi-annual show at the rivercentre, and the weekend after that was the semi-annual church show on the same day as the regular monthly club show. whew.

i only made it to two of those shows - the east metro show on the 11th and the convention center show on the 17th. with the first of those shows, i was out of town in the morning but was able to make a quick stop. there are fewer dealers at this show than the regular club show, but the guy who has the best bargain boxes (in my opinion) was there. i spent all of my limited time at his table, and here's a sampling of what i took.

2018 topps update ozzie albies and ronald acuna jr

i didn't need this card, but i took it anyway.

a trio of 2019 topps greatest moments/players, including a card about the pine tar incident!

the musial is a blue parallel. the pine tar card is a 150 year parallel, so it's numbered to 150. i had no idea there was a card dedicated to the most famous of baseball tantrums.

2026 silver crackle foilboard 1991 parallel of rickey henderson

2025 topps gold holofoil parallels of kyle higashioka

and austin martin

2019 topps justin smoak logoman commemorative patch gold parallel

2025 topps factory set rookie variations of dylan crews

and roki sasaki

the back denotes that this is a "complete sets" card. 

i assume that the non-variant cards from those sets do not have that text.

most of what i looked for were dodger parallels and inserts, and i found a few, like a 2025 topps holiday gold christmas lights parallel

and a freddie freeman evergreen insert from the same set

here's a 2025 topps update gold parallel of world series hero miguel rojas

and a mvp insert from that set featuring roy campanella

i was hoping to find more 2026 topps heritage, but there wasn't a lot. still, i did pick up a couple of light blue sparkle refractor parallels of jack dreyer

and jordan dean (plus three other guys)

both of those cards are short prints in the regular set, so this is a case of having a parallel before the "base".

that used up all of the time i had to spend at that show, but the following friday, i had much more time to peruse the larger show. unfortunately, it was not a bargain shopper show even when compared to the past couple of years. dollar boxes were few and far between which surprised me because the number of sellers at this show was mind boggling. they had opened up a second area of the convention center floor with 200 additional tables from what they had the last time i went to this show. it was a lot, but a lot of slabbed product all over the place.

i wound up visiting only a handful of tables, digging through dollar boxes and one fifty cent box. here's some of what i found.

a 2009 topps walmart cereal platinum jackie robinson refractor

that i didn't already have was a nice find.

2016 topps chrome refractors of frankie montas

and ross stripling

with stripling's being of the sepia variety. i've been paying more attention to refractor parallels lately.

here's a 2018 bowman's best yu darvish refractor

and a 2022 panini diamond kings clayton kershaw blue artist's proof

that were overpriced in the dollar box, but i wound up with a slight discount from every seller i visited.

i paid more than a dollar for some on card autos of oswaldo osorio

and james outman

from 2023 bowman's best. the outman was priced at $5 and it was enough for me to finally bite on one of his signed cards. i don't think he will be around much longer in minnesota, if he is still around now. he's had a rough start to the season unfortunately.

here are some more dodger parallels i found - 2024 topps gold jd martinez

a pair of xfractors from 2024 topps chrome (outman) and 2024 topps chrome update (kiermaier), respectively

a 2025 panini select manny ramirez prizm

and a 2025 topps teoscar hernandez spring training border

a couple other cards for my double play mini collections were found - this 2023 topps gunnar henderson 1988 insert

and a 2008 upper deck derek jeter "jeter chronicles" insert

these cards feature guest appearances by vladimir guerrero jr and michael cuddyer, respectively.

there were quite a few yankees cards in these boxes, and many of them caught my eye. here's a four pack of don mattingly 1984 topps rookie reprint treatments

clockwise from upper left - 2003 topps shoebox collection, 2019 topps complete sets chrome greatest cards reprints, 2021 topps doubleheaders, and 2018 topps archives rookie history. here are the backs, all jumbled up

clockwise from the upper left we have 2021 topps doubleheaders, 2018 topps archives rookie history, 2003 topps shoebox collection, and 2019 topps complete sets chrome greatest cards reprints. i think the chrome one is probably the one seen least often.

i was a fan of the 2025 topps heritage high number bicentennial stars inserts (even though don sutton was the only dodger included) and took home a mike schmidt card

from that insert set. i also have a soft spot for 2007 topps chrome color refractors which explains how this scott kazmir card made it into my stack

one of the first sellers i encountered had a bunch of old fleer cards in his dollar boxes. these are fleer prior to 1981, when there were no licenses but lots of laughlin illustrations. i found a dodger card from 1974 fleer cloth patches laughlin's wildest days and plays

that highlights a game between the pirates and dodgers (superbas, actually). here is the back:

i also took one of the quiz cards from the 1972 fleer release

i bought it because it features the dodger logo, but also because all of the answers are yankees, including babe ruth and lou gehrig. of course, question number 2 is wrong - they meant to ask about rbi, not hits. i am now thinking i should have bought more of these.

i did venture away from dodgers when it came to 1968 and 1969 fleer cloth patch emblem inserts. this one

is a "fact card" from 1969, and this one

is a team logo quiz card from 1968. each of those last three cards are blank backs.

for no real reason, i also chose a couple of 1977 hostess twinkies cards. hall of famer lou brock

and hall of pretty good member bill buckner

were the two i chose. the black bars on the back identify them as twinkies cards, and underneath that airbrushing on buckner's card is a dodger hat.

one of the more unique cards i found in these boxes was this 1999 upper deck encore gabe kapler batting practice cap relic card

these are not too abundant, and in fact, the kapler card has never been in comc's inventory. i didn't realize that until i got it home. i wonder if there is a kapler super collector out there pining for this card.

back to yankees stuff, i found a couple of intriguing babe ruth cards i hadn't seen before. the first one has his mug on a 1952 topps design

it's from the 2010 topps new york yankees 27 world series titles set. and then there was this 1995 topps card that looked familiar

except it was colorized. it turned out to be a 1995 megacards the sporting news conlon collection version of the card that was included as part of the 1995 topps flagship set. here's the back:

the "3c" number also differentiates it from card number 3 in the topps set.

the last card i will show was overpriced but i bought it anyway since it fits nicely into my name/number on the back collection

and the 2015 topps stadium club mariano rivera card makes a nice bookend with the albies/acuna card up top.

i'm not sure when i will make it to another show, but it probably won't be in back-to-back weeks like these ones. stay tuned!

the triumphant return of the mall show

i don't recall all of the details as it's been about four months, but back in february i went to a card show held in one of the many suburban twin cities malls. these locations have largely become depressing shells of their past glory, so i don't get to malls too often. the last time i was in a mall before this show, it was the mall of america in october for dinner at the twin city grill. that's good stuff and i highly recommend it if you ever venture to bloomington and the site of the twins' former ballpark.

i had been to shows at this particular mall before over the years, including recent incarnations even though the last few years have been disappointing as there seems to be more of a focus on other types of collectables (sport and non-sport) from the vendors who set up. this time, it was like the days of yore with a lot of card dealers from near and far. i recognized a couple of them and they admitted that they hadn't been to this location for a while, but they thought timing was right and they had hoped that the current status of the hobby would bring out the customers. 

one of these sellers i recognized had a nickel box of vintage-ish commons, including a bunch of miscuts. i remember buying a gloriously miscut 1977 topps davey lopes card from him several years ago. this time, i took this 1975 topps mini ken mcmullen card

that is slightly miscut and diamond cut. i will note that the mcmullen was the least miscut of the 15 miscuts i grabbed! 

the 1975 topps mini bob oliver

and 1975 topps (regular?) joe lis

are progressively worse, and then there is the star of the show - a 1980 topps larry biittner and kent tekulve mashup card

that is just ridiculous. i get vertigo just looking at that thing.

i even grabbed four football cards - three from 1973 and one from my lost love 1978 - that were fantastically miscut

the charley young card shares space with a checklist, while ed budde has the bills' dick cunningham encroaching in his neutral zone. bruce gossett's card features another kicker, or punter, actually, in bobby walden from the steelers. it's charlie harraway's card that really gets me, because that's jack younblood showing up. as a rams fan growing up, youngblood was one of my three favorite players. stud.

just before i found the seller with the miscuts, i visited a dealer who stuck to his guns and charged me $9 for 9 cards from his dollar box.

i asked him, "even austin barnes?", and he shrugged. i suggested that i should stop buying gavin lux cards and he agreed with me, but i persisted.

dollar boxes were the theme for the most part, but at least there was the opportunity to haggle, or in the case of one of the dealers the dollar (and two dollar) boxes were proactively marked as "50% off". i found some decent dodger parallels including a prism refractor

and a regular refractor

of mookie betts from the two most recent topps chrome platinum anniversary releases. i wonder if topps decided to take a break in 2024 and restart this set in 2025 with a true 70 year anniversary for the 1955 design.

these shows are a good way to pick up cards left over (i assume?) from card shop activities, like a couple of hobby rip night dodgers - yoshinobu yamamoto and shohei ohtani

this would have been one of ohtani's first dodger cards? or maybe these were series 2 rip night cards. i don't follow these sorts of things anymore.

my favorite pick up from this dealer was this 2008 upper deck yankee stadium legacy card

it's not just a roger maris 1961 season card from that expansive set, it's from his 61st home run game!

imagine the odds of pulling the card for this specific game from a pack. and then throwing the card in a $2 box and selling it for a buck.

the next seller was a guy whose tables were straining under the weight of a massive number of monster boxes with all sorts of cards jammed in them. i grabbed mostly cheap autos and relics like these four dodger autos

(that came from 2017 bowman high tek, 2017 topps finest, 2020 panini prizm, and 2023 bowman platinum, respectively), and this yankee relic from 2021 topps allen & ginter

yankee relics with a pinstripe will always make me take notice. as for luke voit, he's currently playing in mexico.

now we've made our way to cards from the first dealer i stopped at (and spent most of my time with). he had a couple of 1 and 2 dollar boxes in a corner of the second level walkway. the boxes had some good variety, and i wound up buying my very first 1965 topps embossed insert.

is that tommy davis? who knows. i had always avoided these things, even as i built the 1965 set. i may now look to track down the other dodgers now that i have a start.

2020 topps chrome dustin may refractor parallels

are sort of boring, but team collectors are slaves to the machine.

i like seeing shiny cards of players from my youth, so i picked out this 2022 panini mosaic george brett

green mosaic prizm and this 2023 panini prizm green ice prizm card

of willie stargell.

i will also happily purchase legend variation cards, such as this 2022 topps update christy mathewson

i tell you what, i would collect the heck out of a set that looked like this in its entirety. the simple 2022 flagship design works really well with tobacco card type images.

from clean and sharp to cluttered and nonsense, here are some 2024 topps parallels that i bought. this first one is the aforementioned (and recently released) austin barnes

he's got beach chairs and umbrellas behind him (reminds me of a day i spent at siesta key a couple of years ago). this series 2 holiday foil design is numbered to 50. here's the back:

jackie robinson number sighting!

i found three other, non-numbered holiday parallels, too

hot dog!

beach chairs and umbrellas, plus hot dogs? sounds like a summer cookout, and with the fourth of july in a couple of days now is the time!

happy (2021 panini donruss bo jackson) independence day (parallel)!

be safe!