Better than a blaster - more vintage and old school mix

While I've gotten addicted to claiming odds and ends through sellers' sales on Elon's social media - I figured to go back to my in-person card show roots where I have not gotten to a show date in a couple of months.

I figured I'd hit up a seller I've ignored the last couple of times where I knew he has set up - just to show my face, where I haven't completely ghosted this person, who I've considered a go-to table.

I started digging through seller '3 for $5' stacks, figuring to see if he had anything that would catch my eye - maybe his table set up was a little bare and was worried the deep cuts card were not really to be found.

His seller buddy that presumably share a table came a little bit later and overhearing their chatter, said he hadn’t sold much recently - because he hasn’t gone and bought new inventory [presumably collections] to re-sell.

Maybe I spent too much time trying to figure out which cards I'd pick out without blowing my entire wad - I ended being charged $20 for odds and ends, including six old school / vintage cards from the '3 for 5' pile and a 1969 Topps Fergie Jenkins #640 [$5] and a 1972 Topps Tom Seaver #445 [$10] from the individually priced pile of cards.

Card show pickups - miscellaneous finds

I stumbled upon a table with random $2 bins I started digging through, but wasn't counting on pulling potential keepers - where the bins were a mixed bag of different sports.

I found a 2001 Leaf Rookies & Stars Dress For Success Darin Erstad bat / jersey #DFS-23 to hang onto - so maybe it was on as far as finding other odds and ends to build on.

The Vlad is a numbered Angels card, so while $2 might have been too much - it was another no-brainer keeper for me as well.

I could have been content to pick out three others cards and spend $10 where the quality wasn't particularly unique, but I relented to splurge - trying to make a game out of scrutinizing my probable keepers and cards I can put back.

Some 'junk autos' I flagged for fun and games - a rookie year Adam Eaton pack pulled auto doesn't mean much in 2023, but I guess he was a solid MLB player.

Even though it's an Arizona Diamondbacks card, it gives me an autograph to add to my Angels all-time autograph collection - without have to try and dig up cards I might have gotten signed in-person.

Jose DeLeon and Christian Arroyo might have been promising prospects at some point - but I never got an opportunity for either player to sign for me when they were coming up the minor leagues.

DeLeon came up with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but maybe injuries derailed his big league career - where he has bounced around the pro ranks as a journeyman pitcher.

Arroyo might have been a future star for the San Francisco Giants, until he wasn't in their long-term plans - he bounced around for a little bit, but has stuck in the major leagues as a rank-and-file utility guy of sorts.

I thought Richie Shaffer would be a player who would reasonably have a longer MLB career, but he lasted for only parts of two big league seasons - I picked up his card, because it's after hitting his first MLB home run, where he is playfully ignored by his teammates.

This last quartet ends up giving my stack some breadth as far as legendary players go - the Tom Seaver game card was 'scratched' but I like the fold out inserts and adds some vintage kitch to my pile.

I thought I found a nice Clemente insert from 15-20 years ago, that might be harder to find - but it's from a more recent Topps Pristine release.

I grabbed a parallel #'d to 99 of Roger Clemens and a #'d insert of Mark McGwire from the late 1990s - despite their sketchy PED histories, there is still is some lingering sentiment over their playing careers as a whole.

2023 Topps Home Run Challenge fail

I might have not seen it otherwise, but I decided to go on my Twitter 'for you' tab rather than the 'following' tab and saw Tweets about collectors getting email notifications from Topps, where their April entries were invalid - apparently you have to get your entries in by 1:00 a.m. / 4:00 a.m. the date of the game.

I entered at least several codes and won some cards in 2021, but maybe my personal interest had died down - where I may not have found as many code cards in the wild.

I was fired up when I 'won' an Austin Riley HR Challenge card last month- after learning about this news, I had to check whether my entry was affected and go figure, it was a non-winner due to this condition in their terms and conditions.

I always thought the deadline to enter a code card was anytime up to first pitch - where it was no problem entering a code the morning of or hours before a game was to begin.

Even if there was a little instinctive doubt about entering it in a timely manner as opposed to being proactive [at least the day before or before the deadline] - I didn't think I was canceling out a potential winning prize card by having entered the code when I did.

Despite the complaints on Twitter, I don't think Topps is going retroactively do anything - I had a code card for Adley Rutschman I was thinking on entering for Opening Day, but got lazy.

I'm not sure the time I entered the Rutschman code for another game and wondered if I would have had a non-winner even if he'd hit a home run - where I probably would have entered the code the day of the game, past the 1 a.m. / 4 a.m. deadline.

I am bummed I'm not going to be getting a winning HR Challenge card, but it was going to take 4-6 months to get one lousy card that maybe worth $4 of a player I'm not as emotionally invested in - because they sent this mean email invalidating winning Topps Home Run Challenge entries for April, I wonder whether I stop buying anymore Topps product, even though they are the only game in town for baseball cards.

TTM autographs received: Zach Neto

When Neto got called up to the big leagues, there was a little FOMO, because I hadn't really paid much attention to him other than the obvious, where he was the Angels first round pick in 2022 - I didn't have any of his cards except for the ones I picked up and sent to him at the tail end of the past off-season.

I wasn't sure if I was going to get back what I'd sent anytime soon after seeing he was already playing in spring training games with the big league club - I was pleasantly surprised to randomly get an in-season response, where his autograph becomes a current player add to my all-time Angels autograph collection.