Card show finds - Miscellaneous dollar box pulls

For card shows I have to pay some type of entrance fee / premium for upfront, before even spending money at actual seller tables - is it a failure to dig around for smaller types of purchases?

I get self-conscious about having to think a little more 'big time' in order to justify a card show day - maybe it's just a case where I still have do my thing, even if I might not have clearly defined goals other than being loosey-goosey wandering and rummaging around.

The following were a results of a rummage in mostly a dollar box except for one card - in a case where I have to pay to gain admittance to a card show, maybe a game I want to play is staying away from sellers I know I've bought from before and end up seeing at the more typical 'free' card shows I go to.

As it goes however, that idea only lasts so long when I end up looking for that first accessible table where I start digging around bins - I ended up being charged $20 for about $26 worth of cards off a seller who puts out bins of $1, $2, $5 cards among other things he might tease at his table [maybe other odds and ends, a higher end showcase].

I've bought from this seller multiple times over the past two or three years at different places - though at the same card show event the year before, I was trying to be smart about staying away from someone relatively local.

1999 Topps Finest Split Screen Refractor Right Alex Rodriguez / Ken Griffey Jr. #SS2 [$2] - I'll pick up the occasional A-Rod card where there might be lingering nostaglia over the player, regardless of his mistakes in his professional baseball career and regardless of the things he is up to now to try and stay relevant, like working in the media and trying to own a professional sports team, etc.

I am not familiar with these Topps Finest inserts, though looking them up - there might be versions where the Griffey Jr. side is a refractor or a version where both sides are refractors.

I'm the peculiar collector who spends an hour rummaging through value box cards at one table where I have my game face on - I might not be digging through high brow stuff, I might be flagging odds and ends, but it's a thing to kind of keep going card-by-card, stack-by-stack and row-by-row.

While the seller has probably combed over his value boxes, I like the idea where I find all sorts of stuff - oddballs, shiny, old-school player card (s) and even newer retro cards of Hall of Fame legends.

Some of the odder stuff for me includes - a 1993 Upper Deck World Cup 94 Preview English / Spanish From The Sidelines Tony Meola #149, where he is signing for Reggie Jackson, 1992 Sports Illustrated for Kids Series 2 Dawn Staley #67 and a 2005-06 Topps Chrome Christie Brinkley #216.

I really have no lingering sentiment for the player, but I grabbed a 1999 Fleer Mystique Pat Burrell RC #134 - Serial #’d 2486/2999 - since it might have been his 'hot' mainstream rookie when he may have gotten hobby hype 25 years ago.

Making the odd Angels cards keepers is still fun, where I need that one MLB team to bang the drum for - idly digging where I was ready to check out, the 1964 Topps Angel Backstops Buck Rodgers (Bob Rodgers) / Ed Sadowski #61 might have been a last minute find.

I fished out these cards out of a vintage set-filler portion of mostly commons - 1970 Topps Jim Kaat #75, 1970 Topps Juan Marichal #210 and 1970 Topps Tony Oliva #510.

Besides baseball, the seller really has all sort of odds and ends where it's not jumbled up like a tub or bucket - but you never know what you might find.

I want to be narrow minded where I'm picking up baseball cards I'm familiar with for the most part - but to add some more wrinkles to my stack, I made a 1995 Panini Smash Hits Album Stickers Steven Tyler #3, a 1995 Panini Smash Hits Album Stickers Bono #137 and a 1995 Panini Smash Hits Album Stickers Madonna #79 keepers.

Card show finds - Miscellaneous vintage #2

I'm not so well versed in vintage cards, where it is sort of a 'no-context' collecting theme for me - but to follow in other collector's footsteps, I want to dabble in picking up random cards, so it's not always the new stuff I end up with in card show hauls.

Even if I'm never getting close to possessing particularly valuable and/or the coveted vintage that are slabbed up and rest in serious collectors' hands - I want to able to say that I can tease some old school / vintage baseball cards that adds some character to my collections.

Doing some blind digs in a vintage bin at a card show booth - it is hard to figure out what I am looking for, but maybe I try to see if there are cards that catch my eye or really players and/or specific cards other collectors have talked about.

I decided to splurge on a 1954 Bowman Larry Doby card #84 - I liked how he is posed on the dugout steps on a bright, sunny day with the stadium behind him.

The only thing was I did not bother to pay closer attention to the back of the card - I did not realize there were some writing that may have had me putting card back.

1954 Topps Ed O'Brien & Johnny O'Brien #139 - a unique twin brother duo who played on the same Pittsburgh Pirates teams in the big leagues.

1955 Topps Harry Agganis #152 - I was scrolling on Instagram two or three years ago when I learned about this card and the player, a two-sport athlete who ended up passing away prematurely.

1963 Fleer Albie Pearson #19 and 1962 Topps Baseball Bob Rodgers #431 - it may depend on what I find, but I might be apt to make keepers out of vintage cards of one-time Angels players, either to fill out my Angels Opening Day Starters collection or my all-time Angels register project.

Dollar vintage - the 1961 Topps Zorro 'Zoilo' Versalles RC #21 goes into my award winners collection, while the 1967 Topps Jose Cardenal #193 and 1967 Topps George Brunet #122 probably end up in my Angels Opening Day Starters collection or my all-time Angels register project.

2023 Topps Chrome Lids pack break with $50 hat

During a stop at an outlet mall, maybe I wanted to see if I can look for a blaster box of cards - I was gifted some cash money [$40] and maybe I go to one the specialty places that sells sports stuff like hats or jerseys, where I've seen they usually have a card display.

I ended up at a Lids and seeing their promotion with Topps, where you can get a bonus pack of special Topps Chrome cards with a purchase of themed Mitchell and Ness hat - figured I had the money that partially covered a purchase of a fitted cap without feeling as self-conscious because I don't wear hats, especially ones that cost $50.

The designs vary by MLB team and also by different Topps themed graphics - I got a California Angels version and while it's not a traditional looking cap, it ends up being kind of funky looking sort of in a stylish way.

The side of the cap features a stylized 1993 Topps patch

Topps Major League Baseball button of sorts affixed on top of the cap

I like the big old-school 'CA' logo

I was looking forward to at least a five-card pack, but Topps ends up being a little stingy with only a three-card bonus pack - it's hard to strike gold with one lousy pack, where I only ended up with Gabriel Moreno, some kind of rookie for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Bryce Harper and another rookie in Jordan Walker.

Card show pickups - Angels material

Off a seller, these are [dollar] Angel cards are ones I ended up making keepers - maybe I'm content to squirrel a few Angels here and there into my card show pile depending on the player and type of card, but even if I don't have them, I get picky just adding random Angels cards left and right.

I don't think I've ever had a Erstad 1996 Upper Deck SP RC #4 [which may have been special for a little bit when he was a top prospect] - Erstad's big league totals ended up being rather modest for a No. 1 overall pick, but he fit the mold of a 100 percent player / zero percent BS type fans ate up.

Maybe my favorite non-RC Mike Trout ends up being his 2016 Topps #1 and the version I picked up looks to be a Rainbow Foil parallel - I'm not focused enough to seek out a rainbow for a specific player or from a specific year, I might be on the look out for as many versions of the Trout when available.

I ended up picking up a 1969 Topps Hoyt Wilhelm for my 'all-time team register' collection last year but the no-team airbrushed cap doesn't make the card the most attractive - this 1969 Topps Decals Wilhelm actually has the Angels logo plastered on the cap, so it ends up popping a little more [even though it's not really a traditional trading card].

TTM autographs received: Joe Redfield

I was able to round up some cards and get the one-time big leaguer to sign in about a couple of months - maybe I saw a success posted with Redfield on an autograph forum and by chance, looked him up.

I saw he had made his big league debut with the 1988 California Angels - that spanned all of two hitless at-bats and 1 game.

Maybe as a pro baseball player, he was strictly a 4A guy - but put up some decent numbers in the minors and as a reward, got a cup of coffee for two big league teams.

Angels all-time team register collection

Team collecting like I've seen others do it [trying to collect card-by-card, set by set, year by year] is not quite a thing for me where I only care so much to really want to track everything and anything - but that doesn't mean I have local team interests where I'd like to play up cards featuring my home team Angels.

These non-Angel cards do not quite fit within the team related umbrella - but will likely be added into my all-time team register collection as guys who end up having these obscure stints with the team as bit players before moving on.

My team register collection is basically one more way for me to do something with loose cards that come my way and see how many different subjects I can add up - maybe completion isn't a realistic goal, but it might be good enough where I can add assorted cards of different players and see where I have 200-300 different subjects.

Maybe I'm spreading my interests too thin where this overlaps with my Angels all-time autograph collection - but maybe my all-time register is more of a side project.

Matt Duffy [2022] seems to have devolved from upstart big leaguer at the beginning of his career into basically being a replacement player - it probably will be the case where if I end up with an Angels Duffy card [he does have at least one in 2022 Topps Update], the non-Angels card gets bumped off somewhere else.

Austin Romine [2022] has bounced around in the big leagues, but like Duffy, ends up being a veteran who will still have cards made as long as they are in the big leagues and part of the MLBPA - however I don't think his three game stint with the Angels this past year will be immortalized on cardboard.

Elliot Soto [2020] ends up being the most obscure of the three, where he is more of a longtime infielder in the minors - who was basically rewarded with a big league call up during the 2020 pandemic season.

While Soto has some draft pick cards with the Chicago [Cubs] from 2011 - it was like a reward to do a random search off a seller's ebay store and find a team set card of his I made a keeper for a dollar.

Featured autographs - Tony Armas

Through a Facebook post, I picked up a pair of extras [$12.50 each] from a signing featuring the Venezuelan slugger who peaked in the 1980s as sort of Dave Kingman / Rob Deer lite - I had to get a 1984 Donruss, where I'm trying to chase down signed cards from the set and a 1990 Score, which goes into my Angels all-time autograph collection.

1995 Topps R&N China J.T. Snow

I think this a 'porcelain' version of a 1995 Topps J.T. Snow card produced as a collector's issue rather than something issued like a traditional baseball card product [in packs and/or boxes] - it was too odd to pass up at my LCS even though it's more of a non-card knick knack that includes what I assume is a stand for display.

TTM autographs received: Frank Tanana

The former big league lefty signed my cards and added a personal tract card in about a couple of weeks - I might remember Tanana at the tail end of his career as a junk wax era guy, whose cards were strictly common fodder.

However, the Tanana that pitched through the 1980s and early 1990s was way different from the one that paired up with Nolan Ryan in the 1970s as California Angels' aces - it might be fascinating to look back at how great Tanana was for a time, before injuries sidelined his career and he had to reinvent himself as both a person and a player.

TTM autographs received: Floyd Bannister

The former big league lefty signed my cards in about three weeks - there are guys who 'sign' autographs and there are guys who 'pen' signatures and Bannister's fits in the among the rarer pro athletes who really makes the effort to scribble out something easy to read.

Bannister maybe the type of big leaguer who gets obscured by history once their careers are over, but it's fun for me to give these guys a second look - despite a losing W-L record, the one-time Angel pitched more than 200 innings in 6 of his 15 years in the Major Leagues and had a double digits wins in 8 of those 15 years.

The Angels, In Order Jim Abbotts

He shuttered his blog a while ago, but Tom, at The Angels, In Order blog made a couple of recent posts to give away cards - I was able to snag some of the unfamiliar Abbott cards, notably the Classic branded issues including the 1989 rookie year card picturing a heralded, but unproven Abbott wearing No. 60 in spring training.

I like the mid 1990s cards [1996 Circa x2 and 1996 Fleer] - even though that time really symbolized the end of Abbott's run as an viable big league pitcher.

TTM autographs received: Tom Walker

The former big league pitcher from the 1970s signed my two cards in three weeks - I wanted to send a request because of the 'beyond the glory' story he shared about nearly joining Roberto Clemente in the legend's fatal plane flight in December 1972.

There is a bloodlines tie where the elder Walker is the father of a former big leaguer [Neil], who played for 12 seasons through 2020 - I added an extra card of Neil to my request for Tom to keep.

Looking up his stats, it just happens he pitched in one game for the Angels back in 1977 - so he was a retired player I needed in my Angels all-time autograph collection.

TTM autograph received: Orlando Pena

I had a SASE come back and someone actually wrote [his name] on it, even though I had trouble reading it at first and thought it might have been something from the post office - it turned out to be one-time Angel Orlando Pena who signed a 1975 Topps buyback mailed out at the end of August 2020.

Maybe after a calendar year, requests I haven't gotten back are as good as gone in my book, but its better late than never when I get one back - especially from a guy I need in my Angels all-time autograph collection.

Featured autograph - Rene Gonzalez

Off a Facebook f/s listing, maybe it was easier to pick up a signed card [$5] of the one-time Angels utility infielder from the early 1990s - without worrying about sending an autograph request to some address and not getting a response, where I have to look somewhere else to add to my all-time Angels autograph collection.

Whether certain guys would actually sign if I just took the time to send them a request - there are countless rank-and-file guys that don’t seem to get any TTM traffic reported over the years, so I assume they don't sign or perhaps might do so through an autograph middleman of sorts.

TTM autograph received: Dick Drago

I got an return to send earlier in the year even as other collectors seemed to report regular successes with the former big league righthander - there are a couple of addresses posted for him in collecting forums I belong to and I guess the one I used in my first request was the wrong one.

I waited a little bit and took another shot, using the other address and finally - got my card signed in about a month or so arriving a couple of days before Christmas.

I only had a 1970 Topps card in my collection, featuring a cleaner cut Drago, who was a dependable starter early in his big league career with the Kansas City Royals - through the late 1970s, he became a reliever who bounced around several MLB teams and had started to grow out some prominent facial hair for for his era.

TTM autographs received: Sherman Corbett

The former big league reliever and one time Angel from the late 1980s through early 1990s signed my cards and added a tract business card in about a month - even for rank-and-file guys like Corbett, who may not get as many requests and can take the time, I really appreciate it when cards I've sent comes back with clean, bold signatures.

TTM autographs received: Ken Tatum

The former big league reliever and one time Angel from the late 1960s through early 1970s signed my card and added a signed postcard in about a month - though only the card will be tallied for my Angels all-time autograph collection, it's nice to get something extra such as personal response or extra item enclosed.

Featured autograph - Vic Davalillo

To add another autograph to my Angels all-time collection, I grabbed this autographed card from Facebook - Davalillo was a Venezuelan outfielder who played 16 years in the big leagues and spent parts of 2 seasons with the Angels back in the 1960s.

The card was descibed as a custom but looks a little fancier with an actual, detailed card back - I'm not sure what the details spell out, but there is a serial #'d notation on the back [36/80] and the cards may have been whipped up by a collector in Venezuela specifically for a card show event.

More contemporary Angels pick-ups

At times there is no rhyme or reason for picking up random Angels cards because frankly the idea of being a team collector seems overwhelming - I'm not ever going to be hyper focused trying to keep track of all the releases [past, present and future] and working around [trades, purchases, etc] to see if I can have ownership of a perpetual number of team sets.

As is, I do consider the Angels my team and one of my ideals is to have that one big league team to focus on - where it's fun to have new team related cards to go through, even if they don't go towards team sets other collectors may boast about completing at some point.

The lone Mike Trout is 2019 Bowman Sterling Continuity insert #BS-20 - I like to imagine the card is a harder to find pull, but it's a $2 card at best.

I mentioned picking up the trio of quarter century old Garret Anderson cards last year - they are probably binder material that helps make collection of 'GA' cards pop.

I picked up a couple of random Topps On-Demand issues featuring pitcher Griffin Canning and infielder David Fletcher - while they might not be outright stars, each gives a couple of current 'second tier' Angels players to collect.

There was some uncertainty about the health of Canning's arm during spring training - but the righty seemed good to go for much of the shortened 2020 season and was awarded a Gold Glove at his position.

Fletcher has established himself as this generation's David Eckstein as a runty looking guy - who can play all over the diamond and can be a spark plug at the plate or on the bases.

I picked up a Shohei Ohtani is a 2019 Donruss Action All-Stars insert / Pink Fireworks parallel No. AA4 because it pops nicely without costing much - though it may get confusing describing what these alternate versions of non-base set cards are supposed to be.

Finally I picked up a 2020 Finest Flashback Anthony Rendon #58 - I might only have 2-3 Angels cards of the third baseman and maybe they mean a bit more at the moment.

While the original 1993 Topps Finest was never a thing in my collecting universe - after the fact, it's nice to travel back in time to see a re-imagined version of the first Topps Finest cards, featuring current players.

Some vintage Angels pick-ups for TTMs

These were more 'here and now' finds off COMC when I tried to get my cards shipped last month - digging around collecting forums I browse, I've seen random autograph successes by mail with these former players and hope to get their autograph in my collection while they are still signing.

As it goes, I've already gotten back Billy Moran and Leo Burke, both signing the card I sent to each one - due to the lack of familiarity and the passage of time, I feel like I'm not really in a position to add autographs of the countless old-timers [1960s, 1970s for example] from my favorite team's history, but I need to find a way to try.