1998 Topps Interleague Match-Ups Mystery Finest Jim Edmonds #ILM14

I tried to microwave a UV era Topps insert card from the 1990s with a mystery peel for 10 seconds - I wanted to see if I could loosen the adhesive from the peel, so I can reveal the player shown on the card, but ended up with this catastrophe.

Maybe I should have left it as is, but I remember pulling a similar type of insert over 25 years ago that revealed Mike Piazza - after figuring out what the card was back then, the adhesive was still fresh unlike the Edmonds card I picked up recently.

Making myself at home at the card show

I was digging through a sellers discount box trying to figure out how many cards I'm going to stack in my keeper pile and maybe the seller's grandson was annoyed - "are you going to buy any of those cards?"

While it's kind of a do-or-die decision for me to come up with the cards I'm picking up - maybe I've been a little idle at the seller's table and I'm probably going to seem a little off, standing directly infront of a bored teenager [behind the table] for about 30-40 minutes.

It probably didn't help the teen didn't know any better and his grandfather was telling him about random people who might show interest in certain cards and kick the tires for a little bit - only to disappear for good.

In the end, I found my 'sweet spot' of finds - that end up not being worth more than what I paid in most cases, but fun to go through after the fact.

The shiny cards from the UV era of the mid 1990s onward tend to be nice to look at in-hand - but a chore to get a good picture of.

A hard to photograph, but shinyManny Ramirez insert - Manny ends up being an 'iffy' guy for me, where do I wonder about continuing to pick up his stray cards?

I think Manny was a force despite all his misgivings as a big league superstar and if a card is remotely interesting and/or 'pops' in a certain way - I may just have to make them keepers.

The rest of the best including some old-school rookies [Darryl Strawberry, Johnny Damon and Kerry Wood], a Team USA and a relic bat card of Nomar Garciaparra - along with a 1993 Topps Finest Tim Salmon, which isn't really a rookie or a rookie year card, but was in a first-year product during Salmon's rookie year.