Old Friends and New Additions

I'm caught up with my Flea Market Finds posts.  Now it's time to catch up with my card show hauls.  While I tend to splurge on a variety of purchases at the flea market, I'm much more selective when I shop at shows.

In fact, the only reason I attended the Santa Clara Card Show back in late June was to hang out with my buddy who was setting up at the show.  Walking in with Ben saved me the $10 admission fee... but things balanced out, because I still had to pay for parking ($10).

This show shares the same story I've read across a bunch of your blogs: some sports cards and lots of Pokemon.

I did find a few guys with quarter bins and dollar boxes, but I only made a purchase from one of them...

Purchase #1:  Quarter Bin  $2

I'll happily hand over a quarter for PCA rookie cards.  This guy is super fun to watch.

The other five cards are refractors for the binders.  Although I'm happy to add these to my collection, finding them for 25¢ is a sad reminder that Topps is flooding the hobby with these shiny parallels.  

Purchase #2:  The Greatest Auto  $200+

1992 Pro Line Portraits Autographs #NNO

This card is a huge addition to my autograph collection.  It has been on my radar since the 90's, but honestly I never thought I'd actually own a copy.  Then I saw it sitting in Ben's display case:

He had a $400 price tag, but told me I could have it for $350.  We worked out a deal where I traded him two display cases (from my card show days) and $200 cash.

This purchase had me floating like a butterfly... but stung (my wallet) like a bee.

Purchase #3:  Oversized Stuff  $5

1997-98 NBA Hoops Great Shots #13

One vendor had some oversized cards sitting in a box.  This Kobe poster caught my eye and lured me in.  But buried in the stack below was this hidden treasure: 

2006 Topps Allen and Ginter N43 Box Topper #N43-4

At the time, I just thought it was a cool card of one of the greatest hitters of all-time.

But in regards to value... this was the best deal of the day.

Freebie #1:  Oakland A's Lanyard

While walking around the show, I ran into some old friends I hadn't seen in a few years.  Some of you are familiar with my buddy Mike.  Anyways... he introduced me to Alfredo and his wife about a decade ago.  They were regular vendors at the Serramonte Mall shows.  However since Mike passed away, I hadn't seen them.

Well they were set up there and it very nice surprise.  We shared stories and caught up.  Anyways, I saw this lanyard and tried to buy it.  But they refused to take my money.

Purchase #4:  An Ohtani Rookie Card  $20

2018 Topps Now #678J

After hanging with Alfredo, I went back over to Ben's table to tell him I was going to head out.  Saw this Ohtani in his display case and grabbed it. 

I'm not actively chasing all of Ohtani's Topps Now cards, but the "kanji" was interesting.

Well... that wraps up my purchases from this particular show.  I attended a card show last weekend as well that I'll try to recap next week.

Until then...

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

Is Bigger Better?

I guess it depends on what we're talking about... and our personal preferences.  In regards to trading cards... I appreciate them in all shapes and sizes.

Let's start off with this small tobacco card I recently purchased for my Japan PC:

1887 N9 Allen & Ginter Flags of All Nations #NNO

This one hundred thirty-eight year old trading card has been on my radar for a few years, but I didn't start targeting it on eBay until a year or two ago.  I have seen a few with pretty high BIN prices, but recently one popped up in an auction.

I set an alarm on my phone (the auction was ending towards the end of my 6th period) and quickly entered a bid with about 10 seconds remaining.  A couple of hours later, I checked and discovered I won.

This card might be small in size... but it's a pretty huge addition to my collection.

Next up are a few oversized cards that John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me back in early May...

1995 Bowman's Best Jumbo Refractor #89

This shiny Nomo measures 4" x 6" and is part of a ten card set that were individually inserted into specially marked Treat packages.  John sent me the Gwynn earlier in the year... and I'm currently sitting on half of the set.

Next up is this 5" x 7" Jose Canseco:

1993 Stadium Club Master Photo #NNO

There are three different versions of this card.  One is a standard sized redemption card that was inserted into packs.  Topps also produced a 5" x 7" version for their Member's Only sets.  This one is the third version which were distributed two different ways: part of the redemption program or as a box topper.

Topps also produced oversized Master Photo cards for their Dome and Toys R Us factory sets that featured slightly different designs and photos..

The bulk of John's care package were hundreds of Tony Gwynn cards that are in the process of being sorted and integrated into my binders.  I'll show a few of these off in a future post.

In the meantime... there were two 3.5" x 5" cards that stood out from the rest:

1985 Donruss Action All-Stars #19

From 1983 to 1987 Donruss produced these oversized All-Star cards as a separate (oddball) issue.  1985 was Gwynn's first appearance.

The other Gwynn he sent me is the same size (3.5" x 5"), but was distributed as a box topper in hobby boxes of 1994 Donruss baseball:

1994 Donruss Dominators #1

This card celebrates Gwynn for having the highest batting average in the 90's (from 1990 to 1993) and was serial numbered to 10,000:

According to Statmuse, Gwynn held onto that title:

Can you guess who was #2 on the list?  Click the link to find out.  I never would have guessed that player.

Well there you have it.  Five trading cards.  One small.  Four big.  All of them are pretty darn cool as long as you don't get flustered by storing non-standard sized cards.

Feel free to leave your thoughts on small and big cards down below.  I look forward to reading and responding to them.

Until then... thank you John for another generous care package filled with cool stuff for my collection.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

I wish I would have opened John's care package a little sooner, because he sent me a bunch of Star Wars figures that would have been perfect for my May the 4th post:

It's kind of hard to see from this angle, but you're looking at an army of 2005 Star Wars Attacktix figures.  If you're not familiar with these, they were part of an action figure game with the goal of knocking over your opponent's figures.

Here's a closer look at some of my favorite figures:

These figures were sold in booster and starter packs.  I bought a bunch, but don't think I ever actually played the game.  I'll probably add most of these to my Star Wars shelf in my classroom.  However the next figures will be kept in my personal collection at home:

1977 Kenner Princess Leia

1980 Kenner Lando Calrissian

1980 Kenner Lobot

1980 Kenner IG-88

1983 Kenner Klaatu

The goal is to one day have a vintage Star Wars display like John's.  I do have three shelves in my office dedicated to my Star Wars collection, but one is for my 90's and 2000's action figures.  Another has my collection of 1990's Action Fleet ships.  And the final one has a few of my Star Wars Lego sets.  But one day... I'll have enough vintage figures to fill a shelf in my office.  The bigger... the better.