Trade With Nick From Dime Boxes

Very original title, huh? I worked overtime on that one.

But it does describe the contents of this post. Nick from the blog Dime Boxes (one of my favorite blogs by the way), mentioned a while back that he'd like to acquire some Topps Stadium Club. Now being of legal age at the time Stadium Club's first issue was released, I have to take responsibility for the superfluous amount of dupes that I have of the early 90's releases (meaning I can't blame it on being young and stupid. It won't hold up in court.).

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy Stadium Club. It was quite impressive considering what was available at the time. Putting it in perspective, take a look at a card from 1991 Stadium Club. Then compare it to Leaf, Upper Deck, Fleer and the rest the releases from 1991. Pretty groundbreaking stuff, if you ask me.

Yes I even tried to complete that monstrocity of the 900 (or 9000, I don't remember) card set of 1992 Stadium Club as well as the 893 card Score set, the 800 card Upper Deck set, etc.

I tried to collect them all!

So I sent Nick a smattering of Stadium Club. Ask and you shall receive.

In return, he sent me all this great stuff.

Here's a few of the 15 cards he sent me that I needed from 2004 Fleer Tradition.

Here's four of the six that he sent me from my 2010 Topps want list.

A trio of Topps Series II needs.

10 more crossed off of my 2012 Gypsy Queen want list.

Ditto with 2013 Topps Series 1. I only need 16 cards to finish this set. I had hoped to get it done before Series II came out, but I don't think it's going to happen.

A nice odball card featuring Tiant and Fisk from Sunoco.

I can't look at a 1977 Topps card without being happy. Especially when it's a Red Sox card.

 

I actually have a few of these, but I don't think I have the Yaz.

Funny, I was just reading about Rick Ferrell the other day. A lifetime .281 hitter, he hit 28 home runs and 734 runs batted in over an 18 year career. Hall of Fame numbers? Apparently so, as he was voted in by the Veterans Committee in 1984.

Tony Pena from the 1992 French's Mustard 18 card set. Bring back food issues!

I posted this card for two reasons.

First, I was a huge Canseco fan while he was with the Red Sox.

Secondly, seeing Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick reminds me of Sportscenter in the 1990's. That in turn reminds me of the ESPN baseball game I used to play on my Sega Genesis in the 1990's. I'm not afraid to admit it, but I really sucked at that game. Whenever I see Dan Patrick, I hear him say "The whiff", in my head, which I heard numerous times while playing that game.

I love the Topps American Pie sets. Don't have many cards from the releases, which I hope to remedy at some point.

 

As you may have noticed, more than half of my "favorites" feature players from the 70's. The '78 team was my favorite, and as a 9 year old, I had no idea about all of the turmoil that was going on during their collpase late in the season. It's interesting to read about it now and just makes the fact that they were able to win the last 8 games and tie the Yankees that much more amazing.

 

 

 

 

However, I've saved the best card for last.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill "Spaceman" Lee, who after seeing the Green Monster for the first time said, "Do they leave it up there during games?" Suposedly, that was how he earned his nickname.

 

This was before he became the leader of the "Buffalo Heads", which eventually got him traded, and now the second 1971 Topps card I have. Consequently, I've got a ways to go to finish this set.

 

Much appreciated, Nick! Looking forward to trading with you again!

 

 

 

 

Weekend Card Show

For the first time since I started writing this blog, I actually attended a card show. It had been a few months since I had been to one, so I was quite anxious and looking forward to it.

One of the reason I was excited about this months show was that because I started blogging....

I NOW HAVE SOME LISTS!

You can't trade with other bloggers unless they know what you need. So over the past few months I've put together a few lists of cards that I need. Armed with this new information, I made my way to the show.

The show was about 20 minutes from my house, but when I got there it was typical of most shows that I had been to in the past few years.

The dealers outnumbered the customers.

I would have liked to see more people there, but it also meant there was no one else at the tables I was interested in.

I went from table to table looking for cards from my wantlists. I didn't buy any packs, boxes or supplies....just single cards. I was there for a good hour and only stopped when I reached my budget, and ended up with 148 cards.

So let's start with what I purchased the most of...2012 Gypsy Queen.

I knocked 56 cards of my want list at the first table I stopped at...and I got them for less than the price of two packs.

This next card would be what you youngsters call a "fail". Strangely enough, I saw very little 2013 Topps. I don't need very many cards fom this set and I was hoping to finish it off at the show. The only card I could find that was on my list was the Bryce Harper card that you see above.

There were two disturbing things about this card:

1.) It was the most expensive card I purchased that day.
2.) It was also a card I already had.

FAIL.

I also bought a lot of random Red Sox for sets that I am collecting. I don't have lists made for the majority of them, but I knew I didn't have these cards.

2011 Bowman Chrome Draft Pick Garin Cecchini

2008 Bowman Chrome Prospects Ryan Khoury

2007 Topps Heritage David Ortiz

2007 Bowman Heritage Curt Schilling
2007 Bowman Heritage J.D. Drew

2008 Upper Deck Piece of History David Ortiz

2010 Topps Jeremy Hermida

2003 Granstand Jorge De La Rosa

1980 O-Pee-Chee Dennis Eckersley. I got this because I don't have any of these and it was cheap. You can't tell from the front that it is the Canadian version, so I scanned the back as well.

I took 3 years of french in junior high and high school. About all I can say now in french is that I don't speak french.

1975 Topps Rick Burleson

1973 Topps Luis Tiant

...and the oldest card I got, a 1970 Topps Mike Andrews.

I also knocked 32 cards off of my 2012 Topps Series II wantlist.

Since I've been unintentionally collecting the 1984 Topps Purina set due to repacks, I picked up a Pedro Guerrero, Fred Lynn and Dan Quisenberry.

I also picked up 11 1981 Donruss. They were mostly Red Sox, as well as the future President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics.

Now the majority of the rest of these cards were found in....a dime box.

Yes, I have now experienced the wonders of the dime box.

I've been reading about these "dime boxes" for quite some time at Nick's outstanding blog "Dime Boxes - The Low End Baseball Card Collector's Journey". Now I didn't know if dime boxes were real, or if they were just regional but I was surprised to see several at this show. Who knows, they may have been there all the time.

One of the dealers even only charged you a dollar if you bought 20 cards from one his dime boxes. So I guess I also found the elusive "nickel box".

This guy though, had a lot of miscut cards. Way too many in my opinion. I even checked a perfectly centered one with a miscut one while he wasn't looking just in case they were trimmed instead of miscut. The reason I did that was because when I purchased my Collector's Cache Box a few weeks ago, I found a decent amount of miscut cards in it. I checked the "miscut" 1977 Ross Grimsley that I got from that box about a week ago, and found out it was actually trimmed, not miscut. You can read the posts here, here and here.

However, the two cards from his dime box lined up, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I ended up buying a bunch of his non-miscut cards from his "nickel box".

(The scans do however make some of the cards look miscut.)

I picked out 4 1979 Topps.

19 cards from my favorite set, 1978 Topps.

5 from 1977 Topps...

....and 5 from 1976 Topps.

So there you have it...148 cards. I didn't even make it to all of the tables because I had already spent my budget.

So how much did it cost for all of this?

18 bucks.

Thanks, Nick. I am now an official dime box convert.