Some junk wax era finds at the card show

When I go to a card show, maybe I have delusions that I'm going to come away with an important card in either value and/or sentiment - but the reality is I haven't been about that collecting life where I do any sort of homework on targeting a bigger card.

More often that not, I get sidetracked and stick digging around more bulk / value box material - where I just like picking through cards I can actually thumb through.

At a card show date, I was digging through a dollar or '6 for $5' box off one seller - I ended up grabbing about 18 cards, none probably older than 1995, but fun to take ownership of like the following cards.

1986 Utah Sports Card Co. The Wonderful World of Wally Joyner at BYU - maybe not particularly hard to find as a set on eBay, but I ended up grabbing the ones I could find from the 14-card set since they were unfamiliar to me.

I thought I had picked up a Joyner card from the set a couple of years ago - but it turned out to be from another BYU themed set put out by the same company.

1986 Sportflics cards of Rod Carew, Don Mattingly, Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson - besides vaguely remembering buying a box of 1989 Sportlics at a toy store at an outlet 25 years ago, I've never given Sportflics cards much thought other than dated relics from the junk wax years.

However, there might renewed interest in the loose cards I find in the wild - where the illusion of motion kind of amuse me.

Something familiar - a card show trip?

I feel like I've been mostly out of collecting, but the idea of going through the most random of cards still hits the spot - I like cards and I'll continue to engage in picking up 'new' ones here and there.

I watch videos on YouTube occasionally and influenced by a YouTube card collector, I might as well see if his LCS [which is actually a card show] is viable as my LCS as well - as far as I'm concerned, my shop has been closed when the original owner retired and I've got to get my fix somewhere else.

1994 Leaf Limited Gold Ken Griffey Jr. #11 of 18, serial #’d 09132 out of 10,000 - this might have caught my eye, where I was going to see if I could pick up a few more cards from a seller who showcases mainly vintage cards

I would never mistake this person's booth as having anything 'here and now,' though there maybe some surprises in this person's 'poverty' boxes - the newest of these dollar cards is just about 25 years old, but my current interests be damned, I find myself going back through the years for certain players and cards that catch my attention.

1988 Upper Deck Wally Joyner promo #700

1994 Score Select Crown Contenders Greg Maddux #CC2 - regardless of the idea this card is worth a dollar and not any more, this card should add a certain shine to my random binder collection of his cards.

1997 Fleer Tiffany Cal Ripken Jr. #13

1996 Upper Deck Cal Ripken Jr. Ripken Collection #7 - inking it up find for my mini-collections.

1992 Upper Deck Ted Williams hologram #HH2 - not pictured

Digging through quarter boxes at the card shop - a redundant ritual practiced

I build up a stack of cards from several quarter boxes at the card shop I go to - a silly ritual I obsess over is playing which cards I'm going to whittle away from my stack.

I wonder why I just don't spend whatever it takes to pick up a whole stack of cards to flip through instead of putting cards back for whatever reason - maybe it's just one of those quirks where I don't see much value in spending more on cards that are not going to be worth anything more than what they are.

2011 Bowman Chrome Tim Hudson #58 - refractor
2011 Bowman Chrome Hunter Pence #77 - refractor
2011 Bowman Chrome Franklin Gutierrez #110 - refractor
2011 Bowman Chrome Brandon Morrow #139 - refractor
2012 Topps Casper Wells #526 x2
2012 Topps Ichiro #537
2012 Topps Brandon Dickson #559
2012 Topps Tony Campana #580 x2
2012 Topps Nelson Cruz #TM-74 - 1987 Topps Mini insert
2012 Topps Archives Ryan Braun #10
2012 Topps Archives Jim Palmer #81 - SP
2012 Topps Archives Jose Bautista #110
2012 Topps Archives Dave Kingman #206 - SP
2011 Topps Archives Wally Joyner #211 - SP
2012 Topps Archives Mitch Williams #214 - SP
2012 Topps Archives John Kruk #222 - SP
2012 Topps Archives Ron Gant #228 - SP
2012 Topps Heritage Ron Washington #102
2012 Topps Heritage Chase Headley #110
2012 Topps Heritage World Series Foes #331 - featuring Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols
2012 Topps Heritage Chipper Jones #347
2012 Topps Heritage Early Wynn #BF-EW - Baseball Flashbacks insert
2012 Topps Heritage Valentina Tereshkova #NF-VT - News Flashbacks insert

Featured autograph - Wally Joyner

I was too young to be aware of Major League Baseball when 'Wally World' hit the scene back in 1986 - though Wally Joyner was probably one of the first 'local stars' I heard about when I got into baseball card collecting back in the late 1980s through early 1990s.

Looking at his playing career, I don't think he was never really considered a star again after his first two years in 1986 and 1987 - though it doesn't mean he wasn't considered a solid Major League player who put got on-base, hit for average and hit for some power when healthy.