Saturday Card Show Pickups

I spent yesterday morning at the local card show and I have to say this was probably one of my best scores...at least since last month's show.

Usually the show is on Sundays, but Saturdays are actually better for me, so I was pretty happy with this. I was afraid that a certain dealer wasn't going to be there because of the different day, but I was pleased to see that he was. More on that later.

I did my usual walking around once to get a quick glimpse of what was being offered. Things that caught my eye the first time around?

1991 Topps Stadium Club Series 1 and Series 2 boxes - $15 bucks each.
Cheap auto and memorabilia cards.
50 cent vintage.

I ended up passing on the Stadium Club boxes, but began my adventure at the table that had the cheap autos and memorabilia cards. I'm not looking for myself, but for another blogger who so generously sent me a really cool trade package. I won't be able to reciprocate with something as good as what I got, but I would like to send him something in return even though he sent me the cards with no strings attached.

So I looked through all of the stacks. Curses, foiled again! Lots of great cards, but no Pirates! I've been to three shows since I received the cards and have come up empty. Apparently NH and MA are completely void of Pittsburgh Pirate "hits".

So instead, I spent a buck (yes, I'm a big spender) on these:

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Steven Strasburg. Nope, still haven't finished this set yet.                                                               

The last five cards that I needed to finish my 2014 Topps Series 1 set. I now have officially broken my first New Year's resolution.

The next table I stopped at was the home of the 50 cent vintage. First though, I noticed a box next to it that had a sign that said "$2 each or 3 for $5". I looked at the first few cards and saw an auto.

Now I must survey the entire box.

I did manage to find a Pirates auto from 2012 Bowman Platinum of somebody I've never heard of, but I'm sure the Pirates collector that I'm sending it to has.

Next to that I saw some stacks of cards labeled "$5 or 3 for $10". From this I was able to find a Topps 2012 Golden Moments bat relic of a Pittsburgh Pirate that everybody's heard of.

I also picked him up a couple of 1970 Topps singles and for the time being I was done buying for other people. For now it was all about me.

I was only going to spend a few more dollars at this table because I wanted to have a good portion of my budget left for my last stop. I rifled through the two boxes of vintage rather quickly because I didn't have my sights on anything in particular because I'm not currently doing any of these sets, but at 50 cents a card (and in pretty decent condition) YOU CANNOT PASS THIS UP!

I did however have my first Woody Held sighting. I've seen his cards on blogs but I've never (for lack of a better word) held one. I almost grabbed it (OK, I'll stop), but instead I settled for these:

1958 Topps Gene Green.

1961 Topps Curt Simmons.

1961 Topps Joe Jay.

1961 Topps Chuck Cottier.

1969 Topps Jim Campanis.

1969 Topps Lew Krausse.

I spent a total of $10 at this table, and went to my third and final stop. There was a handwritten sign by a couple of stacks of cards that said "10 cents each". There were also several binders next to these stacks of cards, and I asked if the cards in these binders were ten cents each as well. When he said yes they were, I opened up one and started pulling out pages.

These were all from either the 1976, 1977, 1978 or 1979 Hostess sets. I wanted all of these cards when I was a kid, but there was no way my mom would let me eat enough Twinkies to get them.

She also wouldn't let me eat enough sugary cereal to get all of the Kellogg's 3-D cards I wanted, so I had to wait decades before I could finally get a decent amount.

These are all from either the 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 or 1983 sets.

Next I made a serious dent in the thirty card 1992 Post set that I've been working on.

I'm about four-fifths of the way done now.

About a month ago, I debuted a new feature on this blog titled "One Card Challenged". The purpose of this was to show sets in my collection that I only had one card of. The first set I wrote about was the forty-eight card 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes, and I only had Wally Joyner. Wouldn't you know I found stacks of this set on his table as well. I picked up six, so now Mr. Joyner has some company in his plastic case.

I also picked up fifteen baseball card discs from 1976.

Twelve were from Isaly's...

...two were distributed through Towne Club Pop Centers...

...and one was through Crane Potato Chips.

All three of these distributors had 70 card sets released in 1976. Since they look pretty much identical, and correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like all three of these companies distributed the same set, albeit with their company logo on the back.

I also picked up seven of the 1978 Big T Restaurant disc set. Unlike the previous discs I bought, these are numbered and part of a twenty-six disc set.

The last cards that I picked up from this table were from the 1987 Hygrade Baseball All-Time Greats set. My father-in-law had gotten me a bunch of cards at an estate sale some time back, and there were plenty of these cards included. The set wasn't complete, and I've been searching for singles since then. Of course, this dealer had two big stacks of these cards and I had no want list to reference. So I ended up picking up two cards that I knew I needed:

Babe Ruth...

...and Hank Aaron.

These two cards were on a different part of the table, and he wanted 50 cents a piece for them, which still was not bad.

Oscar from "All Trade Bait, All The Time" is trying to complete this set as well, so I took a chance and bought an extra copy of the Ruth and Aaron just in case. After checking his want list when I got home, I found out he didn't need them. Oh well, next time I'll be sure to bring both want lists, so I can hopefully knock off both sets.

I spent $14 at this table (and $25 total), so while I went over my normal budget a bit, this was much more rewarding then buying a box of newer stuff.

It always is.