End of the year card show meanderings

I've probably gone to more card show dates this past year compared to the last 2 years before the pandemic - however I've gotten self-conscious about showing up to where the scene is a little more unfamiliar perhaps.

I find myself feeling too much like a rando in a room of guys in the know who are simply interested in 'here and now' concepts I'm not vaguely aware of - big time wheeling and dealing involving higher end slabs, other sports [NBA, NFL], non-sports.

Maybe there has always been something bigger, something hyped that people who might be collecting and speculating are chasing after - but maybe I'm stuck in my reality, which has me less emotionally invested in the nuts and bolts of a card show, where it’s harder to cultivate any enthusiasm.

With sellers are more focused on other things besides bringing material catering more to my interests - it takes more effort to find things I can get into.

On the other hand, keying on tables with bulk cards for a dollar and less has me looking forward to that next rummage at shows - where as much as things are different, I can still find my roots at a random card show.

At my last card show trip, I was aimlessly wandering around and found myself digging through boxes at a table in the corner of the main room in a hotel - the table didn't register to me at first glance and now that I've planted myself, it doesn't look like there is any good 'ole baseball in these parts.

I started to find clusters of some old-school and / or vintage cards to go through [even if not seriously consider] - there was some vintage 1960 Fleer Greats, but I'm not sure what to make of them because they are a retro set rather than a set with active players [circa 1960].

There was a father / son manning the table but it seemed clear to me that the adult son [probably in his 30s] - wasn't really into the cards and may have been tagging along as more of chaperone, compared to his old man who was really running the table.

The prices were half off the stickered price - though I worried the prices on the cards might be marked up.

Finding a 1996 Upper Deck V.J. Lovero Ken Griffey Jr. #VJ 10 [$4] may have actually spurred me on to find more cards - though it wasn't going to be that big splash purchase, it might have been a random scratch the itch want.

I found and set aside 1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy REV NEG #357 [$30] in a yellowed semi-rigid, which may have been interesting - the guy grabbed it for a moment and was telling his son it was some kind of error.

I occasionally see random cards that I might not flag outright but end up dwelling on after the fact - maybe the cards are not semi-definitive or definitive cards for a collection, where it's only a big deal in my head, but types of cards I shouldn't let get passed me.

There was doubt whether I should make the Murphy the centerpiece of what I might have found off these random boxes - the card was a bit more on the quirky side of the junk wax era, but I might be second-guessing myself for not grabbing this error outright.

Finally I found a 1990 Leaf Frank Thomas #300 [$10] and while it's been over 30 long years and I have a graded copy - the card was a status symbol of early 1990s collecting, so I wanted a loose copy, even if there is a tiny bit of worry about potential counterfeits that might be mixed in various collections and/or inventory.

When more borderline HOF guys get their call

As a baseball fan, I'd probably be more of a big hall kind of guy - but I thought it was a joke when I found out through scrolling through a social media post that apparently Smith and Baines were elected to the Hall of Fame through the 2019 Today's Game Era Ballot.

Baines' election to the Hall of Fame will probably cause just about every numbers oriented analysts' heads to explode - I won't begrudge or bemoan his induction to the Hall since there are too many writers messing around with someone's actual accomplishments in the guise of being objective.

Personally, I consider Baines in the middle of the pack as far as a Hall of Very Good guy, but in a roundabout way - Baines probably got some extra consideration for the 134 hits he didn't get towards that 3,000th hit club he missed out on.

The last card I touched featuring Baines was his 1991 Upper Deck [#562] - it went in my awesome action collection as a game face card; I like the image of him on the on-deck circle, about to swing while doing his high leg kick.

As far as Smith, though he once held the all-time saves record, I've always thought of him as mostly a junk wax era journeyman reliever - however, with Trevor Hoffman getting into the Hall of Fame recently and with Mariano Rivera on the way, someone had to fit Smith in-between the two in order to have a little run of modern era closers.

Maybe an obvious non-Rivera candidate in the next several years will likely be Billy Wagner - depending on who is on the ballot.

My favorite Smith card was his 1996 Upper Deck card [#266] because while it obviously shows him with the Angels - it was also a seemingly more elaborate image setup compared to a typical baseball card picture.