Is the dollar boxes where it's at?

A sentiment echoed by collectors through forums, YouTube clips and Twitter is digging through the dollar boxes at shows is where you can find great material and/or the most value - maybe it's a little bit of fluff where guys who have a social media following exaggerate their low end finds for an audience and sellers are only eager to make it where a dollar is where they want their most cheapest cards at, even the most basic cards of rank and file guys.

Maybe dollar boxes are glorified grab bags where you do know what is infront of you, but a good seller has probably leafed through the cards you are rummaging through one-by-one and the odds of finding good impulse purchases based on value - might already be predetermined as opposed to an opportunity for a true treasure hunt.

On the other hand, this doesn't mean it's pointless to dig around at random tables - I'm not a high end guy, I rummage around like I've always done to see if there are keepers to fish out.

I deal with small sample sizes as far as going to random tables at random show dates, but I've come to expect no discounts on dollar cards [so far] - I guess the cards are already a dollar as opposed to more.

These ended up being my dollar value finds at a card show, off one seller I stumbled on - maybe in the 'here and now' there are tables just devoid of good 'ole baseball cards, where I feel like an old head, because I want to build finds off baseball to start off with and I don't think it's that prime time sport anymore.

1972 Topps Hank Aaron IA #300 - this beater has a crease running vertically and could have been a wallet card from decades past; it has Aaron pictured, it’s a vintage card and for a dollar, it's a keeper.

1984 Donruss Robin Yount #48 - passed this over but I want 1984 Donruss to be a set where I chase down cards of notable players, even if it means not really having a chance to get them signed otherwise due to cost for the living Hall of Famers.

1984 Fleer Cal Ripken Jr. #17 - I sort of want to build up a run of 1980s, pre junk wax era cards of decade / binder guys who played through the 1990s, just to add some depth to all the junk wax era cards I do have.

Topps was fairly common, but maybe by the mid 1980s, Fleer and Donruss had put out better, more valued flagship sets - tickling my fancy as faux nostalgia for a time I never got to experience as a collector.

This copy had little blemishes over the text on the back and the bottom portion maybe a little rougher than at first glance - so this might have been more of a quarter than a true dollar card.

1986 Donruss Cecil Fielder RC #512 - maybe it’s fun to finally just grab a rookie of a player who was a larger than life figure when I was starting out collecting baseball cards.

I have had copies of 1986 Topps rookie, but I don’t think the 1986 Donruss was ever a card that ended up in my hands over the past 30 years - might as well scratch the itch when I can.

2003 Donruss Diamond Kings Hall of Fame Heroes Reprints Duke Snider #4 - I’m not really familiar with the originals, maybe printed more as a ‘collector’s issue’ for novelty, featuring legends of the game.

I do like the textured surfaces of the contemporary [yet nearly 20 year old] inserts - rather than that thin, early 1980s cardboard Donruss used.

2004 Fleer Authentix Ticket Studs Albert Pujols #5TS - maybe not a hard to find card but it was a keeper because it was on my want list as a 'retro uniform' card and I found it in the wild.

I’m trying to remember where I originally saw this card, maybe off a blog post - I try not to deal with odd sized cards, but this is a neat one that folds out.

Having seen the card online, I intend to leave ‘as is,’ just so it remains just about regular size - where it fits alongside other cards stored loosely, where the wear and tear won’t be as obvious.

2004 Playoff Prime Cuts II Dale Murphy #93 - this was considered a base card in a high end product, serial #’d 672/699.

2005 Donruss Classics Classic Combos Ernie Banks / Reggie Jackson #CC-49 - this is a dual sided insert, serial #’d 113/400.

2005 Donruss Classics Home Run Heroes Ted Williams #HR-9 - insert, serial #’d 0113/1000

2013 Topps The Elite Willie Mays #TE15 - I thought this was from a high end product with a thicker stock.

2020 Bowman's Best Orange Refractor J.D. Martinez - this was a parallel, serial #’d 20/25; I don't collect him at all, though he's been featured a couple of times already.

Maybe it's more binder material than showcase material but I have to adjust my expectations and see what cards I find - the cards I found for a dollar end up being random cards to add to my collections and it's not a bad thing.

Maybe the seller was collecting 2005 Donruss Studio at some point and he had a whole box of them for a quarter - the base cards are kind of dull a little boring, but I tossed in five random ones for a quarter each.

These three are from 2005 Donruss Zenith and I grabbed them for a quarter because they were interesting enough - Miguel Olivo Artist's Proof parallel is a 'catching' card, the Mark Kotsay Artist's Proof parallel is a 'retro uniform' card and the Brian Roberts base card has him breaking his bat wearing a Baltimore Orioles 'retro uniform.'

Go figure, I don't think this post would exist if I hadn't found this card and it was in the seller's $2 box - I thought I knew my cards where maybe I'm still vaguely aware of cards I really don't know much about [if that makes sense], but I don't think I've ever seen a Fleer card that had a 3D / lenticular effect.

Maybe I wish the player was better and wasn't involved in using steroids / PEDs - but McGwire is still among the stars featured in my decade / binder stars, so I had to make this card a keeper.