Card show trip - picking through binned singles

These were more pick ups from the last show I went to over the summer - I may have a couple of more things to show, though it might be up in the air whether future roundup posts will ever be made, where I drag things out through the end of the year.

At a pit stop at one table, there was a Todd Helton game used base card I thumbed through and put back - Helton has ended up one guy whose cards I end up looking for as a non-geographical player / Hall of Famer to collect.

Maybe a philosophy I have digging through binned singles or value boxes is never looking back, where I may have interest in a card - but I put it back and it gets lost amongst endless cards, I'm not bothering to find it again.

However it might have been a self-imposed challenge to find the table again and see whether I can dig for the unique Helton card - time is a valuable thing, but I find myself languishing at a card show where there is a little personal intermission where I'm just wandering around.

I find the table with the binned singles and start digging - I even find a Helton sticker / hologram auto that may have tempted me, but the signature was running off the label.

I eventually find the Helton I was looking for, but maybe $20 was still a bit steep - there was some corner wear, though it's a thicker card, so harder to avoid such a blemish.

Instead, I settled on a Helton relic [$5], which gave me the satisfaction of picking up a unique [if decidedly low end] Helton single for my collection - while I tried to build on other odds and ends, that I ended up being charged $35 for.

I made a Johnny Cueto pack pulled autograph a keeper - he was a longtime star for sure, but it goes into my all-time Angels autograph collection, for his short, odd stint with the team in 2024.

I picked up a relic card of Dick Allen - the card maybe at least 25 years old already, which is kind of hard to believe how long ago since it was made.

Allen probably wouldn't have registered besides just another old-school / vintage player who may have had a case for the Hall of Fame - since he was eventually inducted where that certifies him as a legend, I'm more inclined to keep an eye out for his cards in general [even as others have done so, long ago].

2017 Donruss hobby two pack break

With a look inspired by an updated take on 1990 Donruss, the base cards are sharp, though still otherwise feel generic - maybe my small sample size of two packs doesn't quite tell the entire story, but it's hard to buy into these cards when they don't really stand out.

Pack one
#117 Ryan Braun

#74 Kyle Schwarber
#131 Odubel Herrera
#89 Nolan Arenado

#TP-2 Austin Meadows - The Prospects

#RV-24 Khris Davis - Retro Variation
#194 Yu Darvish

#RV-15 Mike Trout - Retro Variation

Pack two
#116 Giancarlo Stanton
#73 Jon Lester
#130 Marcus Semien

#88 Tyler Naquin

#29 Edwin Encarnacion - Diamond Kings subset
#158 Adrian Beltre

#RV-29 Johnny Cueto - Retro Variation
#149 Matt Holliday

2014 Topps Chrome two pack break

I planned to pick up supplies at my local card ship and ended up with a 3,200 count monster box [$3] and six 900 count boxes [$0.75 each] - I also mixed some loose 2014 Topps Chrome packs [$3 each] and also more 2014 Topps Heritage Minors packs [$3 each].

Pack one
#77 Robbie Erlin
#129 Johnny Cueto - X-fractor
#213 Rougned Odor

#130 Albert Pujols

Pack two
#170 David Wright
#31 Clay Buchholz

#174 Chase Utley - refractor
#158 Aramis Ramirez