Card Show Pickups: Someone's "High School Hero"

Yesterday was the February edition of a local card show. I've gone to enough of these shows to know that it was going to be a small dinky show in the basement that would never really offer me anything I want. But of course I went because I wanted an autograph. Of who?

Of former Los Angeles Dodger legend, Pedro Guerrero.

Guerrero isn't exactly someone I'd normally spring to get an autograph of but there were two compelling reasons.

1). He was a free signer

Whether or not you can consider his autograph "free" when it merely comes attached to the $10 entrance fee is debatable but for now let's just say that one signature was automatically going to be "free". Sure, I'm not going to turn that down.

Of course anything beyond one autograph was going to cost $10 each, and inscriptions (if I chose to get them) were $5. But I was oddly okay with spending a little more. Not the least because I promised a certain someone an autograph for their collection too, but because I kinda wanted more than one this time.

2). I immediately knew where to turn to for cards

Back in 2017 another former Dodger named Alex Guerrero (no relation to Pedro) signed with the Chunichi Dragons, naturally I asked Night Owl Cards to send me any dupes he had. He didn't have too many of Alex but he did mention that he had a ton of Pedro dupes. Three years later I saw that Pedro was going to be a guest signer and I remembered NOC's tweet. So I asked him for dupes right off the bat and about a week afterwards two dozen cards arrived in my mailbox. This trade was basically me getting NOC a card signed in exchange for the stack. Sure, no problem.

Then came the task of picking what to get signed. I knew what I wanted to get signed for NOC as he recommended three cards, of which a '86 Topps glossy All Star card which won out because it had ample room for an inscription. You can read more about that on NOC's blog when he eventually gets to blog about it (note, NOC, I'll try and have this shipped out this weekend) here. In the meantime you can all read about how Pedro was one of the few players NOC was close to being a fanboy of during his high school years in this post from 2013. The title of today's post is a reference to that BTW.

For me though I wanted to go with NOC's other suggestions ('81 Topps and '83 Topps), but the ONE card that I had immediately saved for myself was this.

A 1984 Ralston Purina oddball issued by Topps. According to the card itself this is from a brand of cereals. I'm a sucker for seeing oddballs and cards you normally don't see signed get signed, and this obviously fit the bill. Add in how it had a ton of good real estate to house an autograph and it was a no brainer.

I also got this 1983 Topps card signed. NOC's suggestion had a lot to do with that but it more came down to how I don't really have a ton of signed 1983 Topps cards in my collection. Also I do really like the card from a visual perspective, the blue and green has no business looking as good as it actually does. The 1981 Topps card is great too, but unfortunately it lost out.

As always I gave the rest of the cards to Pedro himself as a thank you gift. After all, NOC wasn't going to necessarily need them back and I think them ending up in Pedro/Pedro's family's hands is the best case scenario.

So with two autographs of a Dodgers legend and World Series co-MVP, the 2020 IP autograph season for me begins with a tremendous bang. I'm also pretty grateful because I learned after the fact that he had suffered a stroke back in 2017. He looked pretty healthy when I met him, but of course he was also being very steady with his time and I had zero intention to rush him or anything (and I'm glad I didn't knowing what I know now).

So with the autographs out of the way it came time for the obligatory "is there anything else of note here?" search with the other tables. Normally I'd say no and shit talk the show, BUT to its credit it did have two cards I willingly paid for for myself that even I'm impressed with.

A 1/1 printing plate of soon-to-be-former New York Ranger Chris Kreider. I bought this for $15 knowing full well that Kreider was likely going to be traded not long after (Update: Kreider was not traded and instead signed an extension with the Rangers). Reason being that if there is ever a time to drop $15 and feel reasonably justified for it, it's on a 1/1 card of a player you kinda like on your favorite team.

Which is basically my way of saying that $15 is likely what this would've gone for on eBay anyway ($10 + $4 shipping sounds about right) and it really puts into perspective how I whenever I'm in Target or wherever I could spend $20 or so on a blaster box, but why should I when a 1/1 is just that cheap?

Which of course makes my final purchase, a 2019 Bowman Sterling base auto of Anthony Seigler, for $10 very hard to justify. I just picked up a printing plate for $15 and I'm immediately dishing out two-thirds of that on a base auto? Why?

Honestly it's because I fucking love Seigler. This card in particular I like because it features him in catching gear, it's on-card, and most of all it was a redemption card. I've tried and failed a lot of times to secure a copy on eBay because a lot of the time it came down to "why would I want to spend Anthony Davis 1/1 money on this?". The argument still stands here obviously but there's something about instant gratification that just grabbed me by the balls. I handed the vendor $10 in like two seconds.

Beyond that though, I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear how the show did not have any rare Luis Torrens cards, any 1/1 Anthony Davis cards, or a Filip Chytil printing plate. I did get some input on the value of my raw card reviewed Mike Trout though and it's probably about a $500 card. Great. That means I'll trade it for a Jasson Dominguez BoChro auto like an idiot.

Speaking of money, here's a breakdown of what I spent so you can all laugh at me.

$10.00 Entrance Fee
$20.00 Two Extra Pedro Guerrero Autograph Tickets
$5.00 One Pedro Guerrero Inscription
$15.00 Chris Kreider Printing Plate
$10.00 Anthony Seigler BoSter Base Auto
$1.00 One 3-for-$1 lot
$0.40 Four cards out of dime boxes
$2.00 One 8x10 Toploader

$63.40 total. Ouch.

So big thanks to Night Owl Cards for the assist and his hero Pedro Guerrero for the awesome autographs.

And as always thank you (the readers) for stopping by :). Take care.

2020 IP Auto Count: 2

Card Show Pickups: Raw Dog Review

So last week a card show happened. The main draw for the show was the large autograph guest list that featured a ton of former New York Mets, wrestlers, New York Jets and New York Giants.

So of course I went and didn't get any autographs.

They're all too expensive and they're all names that scream "nice to have, but wouldn't go out of my way for". Especially not at the prices being asked.

No the real purpose of this trip was so I could finally do this.

Yes, I finally got the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout RC graded.

Granted it's a Raw Card Review so there's no fancy slab, nor does this grade guarantee that a slabbed grade would be the same. But this at least gives me some piece of mind as this has been reviewed by someone and got the card grade equivalent of a B.

The back of the "slab" sticker notes as such (even though it scanned like shit), and that if I wanted it permanently protected I can send it in for a full BGS/BVG grading.

Needless to say that I will not be doing that. The whole reason I went down this RCR route is so I wouldn't have to deal with shipping costs and insurance. Which, BTW, is dependent on the BV of the card. I might not know what a Trout RC's BV is but I at least know that it's gonna make the insurance fee go through the roof. No thanks.

It cost me $25 to have Beckett give me back a grade of 9. Even if it's not what the final slabbed grade could be, I'll still take it as this thing can easily make back that money.

Speaking of which this also makes it a little bit more easier to sell. Granted this card is worth a lot so it would always be a fast mover, but the thing about this card is that if it's ungraded buyers only see it as an opportunity to get a card that might get a BGS 9.5 or BGS 10 that they can sell for even more money than when they bought it raw.

Of course that's why some buyers use that as a selling point and price the RC at bigger amounts saying that it "could" be a BGS 10, but most people know that nothing's guaranteed until that plastic slab from BGS arrives at your door.

Yeah at this point I know full well that whoever wants this is going to want a grade. As such they want to look at the surface, the corners, the centering, everything. When I thought about listing the Trout RC on eBay before I shuddered at having to take different shots at different angles of the corners, as well as trying to get the right amount of sheen on the surface, because that's a lot more convincing than a scan. RCR grades are kinda iffy but at the very least no one can deny that someone employed by Beckett did look at this. That's assurance in it's own right.

Anyway the raw card review took 90 minutes to complete, so during that time I took a walk around the show looking to see if the sellers had any Jasson Dominguez. Spoilers, they did not.

Dominguez has the "problem" where he's only been in unlicensed stuff put out by Panini. As of the time this post is being written he only has an autograph in 2019 Panini Prizm Draft and a non-auto and auto in 2019 Panini Donruss Elite Extra Edition. Both are products that prospectors are staying away from because while prices on Dominguez's cards are through the roof right now, they'll plummet once Topps and Bowman have their way with him.

But of course I was looking for non-auto'd Dominguez (which is just as hard), because he might be Staten Island bound next year. Who knows?

Anyway there weren't any Dominguezes so I opted to instead sell some cards to at least offset the grading costs and whatnot.

I decided to sell off my 2015 Bowman Chrome Walker Buehler refractor autograph. I sold it for less than market value because I just wanted fast cash. Plus in the end I still bought the card back when Buehler was a no-name who was still recovering from TJS, the amount I did sell it for was still a 300% return on investment.

As far as actual card pickups go I only made two of them.

One was a Vitali Kravtsov card from my go-to hockey dealer. As far as hockey stuff I want goes the only cards I was after this time were a Kravtsov base card for TTM purposes and a Filip Chytil printing plate. The show didn't produce a place, but it did produce the Kravtsov and that's good enough for me.

Note, this is also my plea to not send me too much hockey stuff. My wants are niche. So niche that it's just a non-autographed Filip Chytil printing plate now.

The other card was a Victor Oladipo base I got for 10 cents. The Malcolm Brogdon return I got had me wondering if I could maybe get something from Oladipo too via TTM. Worth a shot?

Note, this doesn't mean I've wavered from wanting basketball cards beyond Anthony Davis printing plates.

So in all I spent:
$10 on the entry fee
$25 on the RCR
$10.10 on the Kravtsov + Oladipo
$6 on supplies

While I got:
$60 for the Buehler BoChro ref auto

At least my costs were covered. This is a definite cop out to justify me spending more than $50 at a card show but if I do earn money thanks to the sale of a card, I'm willing to deduct whatever I got from my spending limit. I'm going to still track all of it but being able to hit the proverbial "reset" button at times thanks to this hobby does still help and I'm taking it. This does put me in a good position to land a Dominguez card even at inflated prices now. Whether I'd want to is another question though.

So yeah, as usual a useless card show where the only draw for me was an IP autograph Beckett because I don't care for vintage or BoChro. *Fart noise*

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Card Show Pickups: Hell of a Haul

So this past weekend a card show was hosted at a place not too far from me. Normally I wouldn't bother since it'd be the post-Thanksgiving, dinky basement show but one of the guest autograph signers was so special that even I had to attend.

Might as well cut to the chase and start from there since you could argue that's basically where the meat for this post is coming from.

Right off the bat one of the signers was John Candelaria. The Candy Man was a free signer at this show and it was pretty great getting his autograph on a card depicting him as a New York Yankee all these years after getting an inscribed 8x10 for Bob Walk The Plank (RIP).

Candelaria was also the first player I had asked to sign with black ink since, I dunno, 2014? Reason being that I've been around the blog enough to know that the blue navy sweatshirt he's got on in the picture might not go well with the blue sharpie ink, so I asked for black to help it stand out. And I think that it worked out.

John Candelaria

As cool as Candelaria was though, the real fun came courtesy of the big name that started signing an hour after Candelaria's time slot was done.

Yup, Donnie Baseball. Don The Hit Man Mattingly.
It was because of opportunities like this that I held out on buying a certified autograph, even back when I was super into getting certified autographs of notable Yankees in 2013. Ultimately this IP auto ticket cost more than the cheapest certified Mattingly on eBay, but considering how I'm meeting the man in person and everything, it's super worth it.

You'll also notice that I went with a Drake's cakes card. One might wonder "why didn't you go with something more traditional like a 1984 rookie card or a classic 1987 card? Or even your 2017 Topps SP variation?".

I did think long and hard about going with a Topps flagship card like 1987 Topps but it kinda struck me that there are a lot of signed Mattingly flagship cards out in the world, especially that one. I wanted something a little more special and less basic. Obviously the 2017 SP fits the bill but that card's charm comes from the photograph (of Mattingly signing autographs fittingly enough), and having a big signature over it seemed really counter intuitive.

My closing argument is, how many 1985 Drake's cards do you see signed by Mattingly (or really anyone in the 44 card subset) out there? I'd assume that there aren't many.

Honestly the only card that came close to serious consideration was a 1988 Topps UK mini because of the UK mini factor, but I couldn't justify spending what I did on the ticket to get a mini signed. So I went with Drake's. Except for the 2017 SP, every other Mattingly card I had left was gifted to him on the spot. I assumed that he always see's them and gets them, but he assured me that he'll make good use of them. Thanks Don.

Don Mattingly

So yeah, two kick-ass IP autographs in one day. And both were relatively reasonable prices at that. I was very happy and honestly felt good about the stuff I was taking home with me.

Other pickups of note included this Kaapo Kakko rookie. Panini has an exclusive autograph license with Kakko so Upper Deck won't be releasing any Kakko autographs anytime soon. As of now Kakko's Young Guns (the regular ones) have yet to hit the market as he'll likely be in 2019-20 Upper Deck Series 2, as of now he only has the Score rookie cards and Young Guns Canvas rookies.

This Josh Stowers is interesting as it is shoddy. It was one of the cards that was made by Blowout Cards (yes, the online card retailer) and were part of one of the bigger box breakers' promo of some sort. For now this fills the void for the Stowers autograph slot I needed to fill in my Top NYY Prospects throughout the years thing.

This Mason Williams was once worth north of $10, now it's fallen to $3. Oof. It took a long while but the 2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Yankees autos are slowly falling into my grasp.

See? Ben Gamel here further helps. Gamel was also a welcome "upgrade" for the top prospects project because until I got this BoChro the only other auto I had was a TTM of his on a card depicting him as a Mariner. Normally I'd be just fine with that, but this Gamel BoChro was on my mind for a while (can you believe that these were only available on eBay as BINs for $30 each even though the rare auctions went for barely $6.50?). The Stowers-Williams-Gamel was part of a bundle trade so I didn't spend any cash on it. Works for me.

All in all it was a really enjoyable show for me. This was one of the few card show hauls (as little as it might seem) where I went home feeling fulfilled and happy. A complete 180 from the show that took place around Thanksgiving in 2017. Two really awesome IP autos, an NBA superstar I really wanted and some key cards acquired via trade. As light as this might seem to all of you who have different tastes than me, I was on Cloud 9.

Then I ran into credit card issues involving charges I need to dispute (and a fraud charge too), which just fucking ruined my whole Saturday night. I hate life.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2019 IP Auto Count: 64

Card Show Pickups: Very Little Baseball

Earlier this month there was a card show in my local area. I wasn't originally going to go, but in the grand tradition of running into opportunities to get unique autographs for my blogging chums (like Bob Walk The Plank and Red Sox Fan in Nebraska) I lucked into a unique opportunity to give P-Town Tom something special. You can read more about that on PTT's blog.

I'm finding that another minor benefit of attending a card show is that I'm always going to bring my trade bait (or at least the "good stuff") in the event that something I WAAAANT pops up. It rarely ever does, but it's a fantastic motivator for me to take inventory of my better trade pieces from time to time. And guess what, this show was one of the few times doing such a thing worked out pretty well for me.

I arrived at the show around the time the line for the autograph had dwindled to merely like a single family being in line before me. Because I got it for Tom, that Gregg Olson autograph isn't going towards my IP total.

After the autograph I beelined for the supplies. I needed a big 11x17 toploader for the big Detroit Lions cheerleaders autographed poster I got last year, as well as a few smaller 4x6 toploaders and one of those count boxes.

I looked at various tables and bins but at this point in my collecting life $1 per sounded like an awful deal to me for cards I didn't necessarily have much use for beyond being throw-ins. Especially if I was expected to pay with cash.

Then I found the one dealer I deem as my go-to for hockey cards. They use Beckett and they specialize in east coast teams (especially the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils). Both of these attributes suggest that their stuff is a bit overpriced/inflated compared to eBay prices and while that's true, they're my go-to because this vender usually ends up giving me a big discount anyway because I actually go the bundles (buy more to save more) route with them. This vendor also gives me the option to pick up nearly everything I want Rangers-wise in a single swoop, which not even eBay can do to be honest. And above all else, they do baseball too so I can trade my Yankees trade bait and get back some Rangers stuff. After all, the last time I met them they traded me their Henrik Lundqvist autograph for my Derek Jeter autograph. I always get significant cards from them without having to give up any cash. I consider that a win.

The card that started off the trade this time was this Russian card of Rangers goaltending prospect Igor Shestyorkin. I had this card in my eBay wantlist for basically forever but the fact that it was going to come from venders out in Eastern Europe made me uneasy for reasons that boil down to paranoia instilled inside Americans after the Cold War. And I say this as someone who's dated Eastern Europeans, they're wonderful folks, and as someone who wasn't even alive when the Soviet Union dissolved!

Still, my go-to hockey vendor came through and had this.

I can't read a lick of any of this. But at the very least I can now say that a SKA Saint Petersburg (Sports Club of the Army) card has blessed my collection. This is my first card from Russia and woof, it's a damn nice one! Now to add one from Finland, Sweden and various other countries with their own independent hockey leagues.

My go-to pulled this out of a massive box of nothing but Rangers. This was the first time they showed me this box and I took a look through, hoping to beef up a certain collection.

Yurp, my Chytil collection. Even though I have Chytil's Young Guns rookie card, I didn't really have too many of his other rookie cards.

In a matter of minutes I plucked out 10 I needed and immediately worked them into a bigger deal.

Also I was in a bit of a splurgey mood (this is what happens when you give me the option of trading as opposed to buying) and I went for this Mika Zibanejad Young Guns rookie. In the world of hockey you can never go wrong with a Young Guns.

In the world of hockey cards you can definitely go wrong with an autograph, but since I declared that Zibanejad is the star of the 2019-20 Rangers, I put my cards where my mouth is and went for his awesome Future Watch autograph. The bad part is that it features him as a Senator. The good part is that Zibanejad doesn't have any certified Rangers autographs anyway so it doesn't matter.

After the Zibanejads were thrown-in a deal was agreed upon and I ended up throwing the go-to a fat stack of Derek Jeter cards as a thank you. They responded by throwing this Kevin Hayes autograph my way. Hayes is a former winger for the Rangers who now plays for the Philadelphia Flyers. Hayes was a great player for the Rangers when he played but as of now his legacy is being the guy who got sent to the Winnepeg Jets for Brendan Lemieux and a first round pick (as well as a conditional fourth round pick), of which the first round pick got traded back to the Jets anyway in exchange for Jacob Trouba.

So half a season of Hayes and one Neal Pionk, for Lemiux and Trouba. Yes that's a fantastic trade, 10/10, would do again. The conditional pick never materialized BTW because it was contingent on the Jets winning the Stanley Cup, which... lol.

This haul pretty much made me happy with my decision to go. I got a top Rangers prospect, lots of rookie cards of my favorite Rangers and two Rangers autographs for zero cash and instead for cards I'd been looking to move for basically forever. I'll take it.

After this trade I walked around the place looking to see if I could maybe jumpstart my Knicks collection by adding a nice cheap Kevin Knox autograph since his value is nil. Unfortunately there were zero of the Knox Prizm autographs I was after, but there was this.

This is the only card I bought with cash that day that was specifically for me. Cost me a whole $3, which isn't ideal but I'd been after this a while and I can tell you for a fact that while the card itself might be available on eBay for like $2, the shipping fee's and the taxes will bring it closer to $6, so $3 it is.

So this is what happens when a card show fails to deliver Luis Torrens, Kevin Alcantara, Osiel Rodriguez, Garrett Whitlock or Michael King cards to me. I opt for NHL Young Guns and NBA Prizms instead. Go figure.

All in all I spent $35 cash at this show. I know all of you are thinking you'd blow through that at the first vendor alone. But one big difference is that I've spent way too much money on eBay (as the FOMO posts I've been blogging about didn't fucking give that away) and oooh boy does my spending spreadsheet make me more depressed with every glance.

Now I shudder to think about if I started a spending spreadsheet for what I spent on GrubHub.

As always thanks for stopping and witness me deform into a cheap bastard.

Take care.

Budgeting... Success!

We've now reached the third and final installment of the card show. Thank goodness.

At this point a good $65 had been spent at the card show. $10 went to the entrance fee, $49 went to the autographs and the remaining $6 went to the dime box bargains.

In spite of this there were some more things I wanted. Hockey things. Non-sports things.

To be more precise, I wanted some hockey stuff for myself and vintage non-sports wax packs for my collecting buds overseas. Accomplishing both in one swoop on a limited budget wasn't going to be easy. In fact I'd dare call it impossible. But I found a way.

I found one hockey vendor with a Hartford Whalers hat and shirt. They were the only hockey-focused vendor in the entire show. Other vendors had some hockey but mainly big ticket items like the Connor McDavids or Auston Matthews or Mathew Barzals. I wanted Rangers. More specifically I wanted Rangers no one particularly knows or cares about (#MyBrand).

Case in point, this Rob O'Gara Young Guns card. This had been at the top of my mental want list for no reason other than "he's a Ranger now currently playing for the Hartford Wolfpack". There it was at the card show. I quickly had an idea of how to get it in a trade, but I'd need some more stuff for myself.

The vendor had a box with some old non-sport stuff. Stuff that would cost me $20 (s/h included) if I tried buying them all on eBay separately like a moron. I had some of them included.

They offered me a fair price for a big bundle. I countered with a trade offer.

I traded away the Brock Boeser Young Guns RC.

On the surface this is a bad trade for me. Because it really is. That Boeser YG goes for $30 on a bad day and $50 on a good one. At the same time, I had no real use for it other than as trade bait. I cashed it in to get two things I really wanted in one swoop. That matters more to me than what this could've potentially gotten me on eBay.

The seller threw in some extras to make it a bit more fair for me with that Jimmy Vesey rookie card and the Ryan Spooner rookie card. Vesey recently got signed to a two year extension to show what he can do under a different system/coach and reach his ceiling. Spooner is prime trade bait material but still with the Rangers at this time.

Maybe in time I'll come to regret this trade, but as for now Boeser isn't a Ranger so I'm pretty okay. I'm sure some of you are probably thinking I'm a moron and also thinking of how to swindle me out of my better cards, but the thing with me is that most of my better cards are really just assets I'm willing to trade away when I see something I REALLY like. I got one card I really wanted, two extras, and some fun stuff for friends for one non-autographed/non-serial numbered card. That's as much as I could reasonably want in a trade. Most of all the fact that I didn't end up spending even more cash on stuff is what really helps. I'm a lot more reluctant to spend $30+ in cash as opposed to trading away $30+ in card value.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Crave The Blue Sharpie Ink

(Editor's note: Apparently every card blogger ever has been to a show recently, here's another card show post)

Last year I had a pretty mediocre experience with a local card show. Nothing awful but enough to make me put not going to one in 2018 on my New Years Resolution goal.

Well here in October I failed my second NYR goal for the year by going to one anyway.

But this year's show wasn't all that bad. I actually stuck with my initial budget and kept costs down just enough that I wouldn't curse out the show's name when I went to withdraw money from the ATM. I picked up a fair number of things and just enough that'll ensure that I have plenty of blogging material this week. You've been warned.

Anyway, today will be part of the card show haul and features the main reason I went. As you all can imagine, it was for the autograph guests. The glorious, the stupendous, the expensive, autographs! Anything I do that's hobby related nowadays comes down to "Is this a Luis Torrens card or a card I have a chance of getting signed?" and nothing more. Feel free to look at me disapprovingly, but to me nothing makes a card cooler than getting some sharpie ink courtesy of the person featured on the card on it.

The local show was doing a reunion of sorts featuring some key members of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees. As a guy who's been slowly (but surely) working on the 1979 Topps Yankees team set for years now, this was a perfect opportunity to knock some obscure ones off of my list. Unfortunately a lot of the members were expensive ($29 for Ed Figueroa?!), so I dwindled it down to two players I decided to get ink of.

The first of which was Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle.
Lyle was signed by the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent back in 1964 but later drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the MLB draft (I have no clue how things worked back then so I won't bother). He made his MLB debut in 1967 as a Red Sock and would serve as the team's closer for the late 60's and early 70's. Then in 1972 he was traded to the New York Yankees, a trade the Red Sox would really regret, as he racked up a ton of saves with the powerhouse Yankees in the 70's. During the six years Lyle was a Yankee he was named to three All Star Games, he won two World Series rings, won an AL Cy Young and was twice the league leader in saves. Lyle was eventually traded to the Texas Rangers following the 1978 trade along with several other people in exchange for Dave Righetti and several more people. After that his effectiveness started to ware off and by 1983 his career was over. He later went to be a manager for the Somerset Patriots (indy ball).

Lyle was pretty nice and the line for him was the biggest. I waited until 30 minutes before his session was due to end to get into line and it still took a line for me to finally get his signature. I attribute that to him having a friendly personality as he made conversations with pretty much all of the people looking to get his signature.
Sidenote, it doesn't surprise me at all that the show organizers scheduled Lyle and Graig Nettles on separate dates.

The second but definitely not least autograph I got was from long time journeyman MLBer, Mike Heath.
Heath was drafted by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 1973 MLB Player Draft. Originally Heath was a shortstop/infielder but in 1976 he was converted into a catcher where his strong arm could be a really useful asset. He was a pretty okay catcher offensively but with Thurman Munson behind the plate at the time he was blocked and spent most of his time in the minors. Even in 1978 when he won a World Series Ring he spent a lot of time in the minors. Heath was part of the trade I mentioned earlier that sent Lyle (and others) to Texas for Righetti (and others), and spent some time with the Rangers org before being traded again to the A's in a minor trade. With the A's he found his playing time increasing as well him being relied upon to man more than one position. He played second, third, short and all three outfield spots. Basically he was the super utility guy and that goes a long way in explaining how he managed to carve out a very nice 20 year career as a professional baseball player.

Heath was also an extremely friendly person. I gave him a card of his for him to keep and he offered to sign it for me in addition to the RC above. Of course I declined and asked him to keep it but that little gesture goes a long way.

So yeah, no "wow, I wasted money to meet a jerk" stories thank goodness. Then again Lyle has always had a reputation as a practical joker and someone who can laugh at everything in life, while Heath literally made the most of every situation he was ever thrust into. So I guess it shouldn't be too surprising.

The two signature combined cost me $49. A steep cost I know, but to be honest I'm pretty satisfied. I made huge strides with my 1979 project thanks to the Lyle autograph. And I'm only one Dave Rajsich signature away from completing my first ever tri-auto! Best of all, he's signing at another card show so I may attempt a mail in request. Fingers crossed.

So big thanks to Mr. Lyle and Mr. Heath for the awesome autographs.

Stay tuned for some more posts about the card show this week.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

2018 IP Auto Count: 83

Card Show Pickups: Eh

The first time this year I attended a card show. It was, meh and a good reminder why I don't really go to these any more.

If you like old white guys selling you vintage cards of Hank Aaron and Whitey Ford at nearly triple what Beckett prices them at, this show is for you. If you're like me and you're looking for minor leaguers and obscure oddballs, well, good luck.

Of course not everything about the show was bad.

I managed to get another card in the 1979 Topps collection signed. Billy Sample there was the free guest signer.

Sample was very nice and talked a lot with the fans who came up to him to ask for his autograph. Even took pictures with them.
Also, Sample would like to send a message to both Danny Darwin and Pat Putnam, that he is "still the best looking guy on the card" (his words not mine). I'll have to tell Mr. Darwin and Putnam if/when I ever meet them too.

Dale Berra was another signer who was supposed to come but cancelled. He had a card as part of the Pirates Prospects card in the 1979 Topps set, but I didn't have that one so no big loss on my part lol.

So with the free autograph obtained, what else is a guy to do but see if there's something worthwhile at the card show?

Presenting my token vintage Yankees card, one 1940 Play Ball card of George Alexander "Twinkletoes" Selkirk. With a name like Twinkletoes, how could I resist?
The story goes that the Canadian outfielder got his nickname due to how he ran on the bases BTW.

The back of this card says that he's now "ON SENATERS (sic) FARM." After his playing career and military career was over, Selkirk became the General Manager of the Washington Senators (the one that's currently the Texas Rangers). Which means that this card was in the possession of whoever wrote on it between 1940 and 1968 (the year Selkirk got fired). Selkirk continued working baseball related jobs like being a scout for the Yankees after that.

The same vendor had this neat Mike Gonzalez card available for a pretty nice price and I bought it.

Gonzalez's playing career was over by the time this card came out (his playing days were around the time T206es were still new), but he did have a pretty nice coaching/managing career in various parts of the baseball world. The Cuban ex-catcher won four World Series titles with the Cardinals as a coach, and went on to coach/manage various clubs in Cuba too. Gonzalez was temporarily banned from MLB after being involved with a thing that involved major leaguers going to Mexican baseball leagues or something, but he was eventually reinstated (he never returned stateside though).

At the show there was a depressing lack of any deals that could be done with coins. Because I got spoiled in the past I refuse to pay more than a quarter for 1979 Topps (unless it's Ozzie Smith in which case I'd pay a whole $1). The best I could find were some 1979 Topps singles for a quarter each :P. And maybe some older vintage for $1 each.

Although I'm on a hiatus of sorts with the 1979 Topps set, I figure I'd narrow down the focus to something manageable, like maybe completing the Dodgers team set first. I'm a closet Dodgers fan so it should make sense.

If nothing else, I was glad to finally be able to reunite the Ron Cey card I've had for a while with his three teammates in the infield. Normally this would be the part where I declare that I'm going to get all four of these signed, but then I remembered that Bill Russell doesn't sign anymore so there went that idea :P.

And there you have it. A pretty depressing haul, but I could've done a lot worse I suppose.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

2017 IP Autograph Count: 63