A quick pit stop at the card show #1

I usually spend at least a couple of hours at a card show date, but this time it was literally 20 minutes - where I ended up at the hosting card shop's bulk bins and dug up the following before it was time for me to go.

I do not get the art on these 2021 Topps X Keith Shore where it's basically the same guy with some modifications, but I guess that's the artist's style - out of the five or six cards I found, I grabbed a Gleyber Torres, Cody Bellinger and Cristian Pache.

The 1989 Bowman inspired cards are like the originals where they are larger than normal - so maybe it's fun they are tangibly odd [sized], it might be tricky to find an ideal place to put the cards away.

I found some black and white 'vintage' cards...from 1981 TCMA Renata Galasso - I might have skipped over them otherwise, but they are over 40 years old and feature a trio of early 20th century fan favorites to look up.

I have not kept up with prospects where I might as well be content to learn about up-and-coming players as they reach the big leagues and not before - as I found them, I did make keepers out of some random chromed up Team USA cards of a Paul Skenes and Jacob Wilson.

Skenes was the No. 1 overall pick in this past year's Major League Baseball draft - he is currently the boyfriend of social media star Olivia Dunne, a college gymnast making $3 million a year in NIL endorsments.

Wilson was the No. 6 overall pick in this past year's Major League Baseball draft - he is the son of former big leaguer Jack Wilson, who was also his head coach in college.

Topps Project 2020 Keith Shore Ken Griffey Jr. #88

I got this card in the mail from Topps and despite its notoriety, it's going into my micro-mini Ken Griffey Jr. PC - Shore's cards were probably the oddest looking Project 2020 cards early on, like he purposely dumbed his cards down to appeal to third graders, but market conditions have made his cards [Don Mattingly and Mark McGwire for example] valuable just the same.

After the boom, now everyone was going to pounce on any future Shore release and the hype was huge as Junior happened to be the next Shore card - because of FOMO I bought one just the same, but I knew there was going to be 70,000 of these cards made instead of the sub 10,000 numbers his early cards did.

Just to show I’m either not looney or maybe just not smart enough at the time, I didn’t get the other card - a Joshua Vides Nolan Ryan because while any of these Project 2020 cards might have been cash money cards, I’m only focused on the Mike Trouts [regardless of print run or future value] and a card or two that catch my eye.

After the fact, I was only off about 20,000 as there were 99,177 Shore Griffey Jr. [and 64,629 Vides Ryan] cards - the lure of the flip value brought in chumps who keyed in on the Griffey Jr., believing very new Project 2020 card was going to be a quick flip for at least $500 each.

After the Shore Griffey Jr. release, the values crashed and no one is going to be bragging about making a mint off any one particular card - I lost about $13 on the Griffey Jr. since I paid the full price [$21.44 including tax] on Topps.com for a single card.

Maybe the Vides Ryan, paired with the Griffey Jr. wasn't a serious consideration for me but I can pick one up for $10 as well.