What I worked through at the card show

I was able to make it out twice to a 4-day show held at a local venue - this wasn't the normal monthly show and definitely not the one held two times a week.

I think there are expectations to try and come up with some big splash purchases - especially when paying a $25 each day [at the venue] that actually takes away from what I can spend on cards.

What maybe painfully obvious is what I end up bringing ends up being play money for others - reality sets in where I maybe content to do what I've done, which is to rummage around, but maybe in a bigger setting where there is potential to see new sellers to buy odds and ends from.

I found a quarter box and thought it might be worth thumbing through for a couple of minutes - I may have found some cards to dwell on and at some point, the seller came over and said they'd be a dime each per 100 cards.

Though this was not the only seller I bought from, I know I am not just paying a quarter or a dime in quantity for these bulk cards - I have to factor in what I paid in admission fees as well.

On the other hand, I'm here and it was a welcome challenge to have some 'freedom' to see if I can come up with a brick of 100 cards - and most likely double that number, depending onf what I found.

It's not like I worked through each of the rows one by one, but would grab from a different section to see if there was anything that caught my eye - I end up being in my own world where all I care about is seeing the next stack of cards.

I do not know if I was finding anything great but I guess it's all fun stuff to take home, go through and dwell on - I've made a habit of making claims through sales on social media and/or clicking around to buy cards online, but there is nothing like making the rummages come to life when I am at a show.

I was surprised there was still interest in some of the dated non-boxes and packs displayed at the table - maybe I would have been interested as well, but was focused on making a couple of bricks.

I think another collector asked me if I found any gems in what I was dug up - maybe the guy is just trying to make small talk, but I asked myself, 'is he really talking to me?'

I do not know what to say, how to describe the cards I end up with - when they are not the higher brow material like I might assume the collector has in his carrying case he goes through for a moment.

Oddball card find - what do I have here?

I found this card in one of the $0.50 portions from my 'local' stack sale seller - I claimed it because I knew it was kind of odd off the bat, featuring not a baseball player, but an author who has written his fair share of baseball books.

I keep thinking he is one of the experts they kept showing in Ken Burns' Baseball miniseries from the 1990s - the authority figures that look to be at least in their late 70s or older that share an anecdote about an old-timey player and/or talk about the good old days.

I'm not sure how the card came to be to be - I assume it was a custom card printed professionally, so the cards can be casually passed around at various book signings and other events.

I wasn't even really paying attention the the idea that it looks like it was signed on the back of the card - that's kind of a nice bonus.

While it's not the strangest card printed, it's just not like a regular card - maybe having it in hand, takes me different places in my collecting mind.

Feeling down and out with Ohtani and the Angels

I got these cards from a purchase a day after news broke Shohei Ohtani’s UCL crapped out - I'll probably continue picking up random cards that catch my eyes, but there might be less FOMO over Ohtani's real high end cards or at least some of the nicer ones that might have been a little easier to get when he got hurt the first go-around.

Ohtani's future on the mound seems murky at best and it's buyer beware for the impending free agent - where the Angels probably got his best years as a two-way player.

I guess it's just how the passage of time all goes, where maybe it's not our reality to be a pro athlete of the highest magnitude - but it’s fleeting to be this larger than life figure, only to be broken [again] and perhaps the great times don't last.

Unless Ohtani just won’t be allowed to, I still see him DH’ing and finishing possibly his last season as an Angel - but it’s likely that Ohtani is going to have his arm rebuilt, where there will be uncertainty whether he makes it back to the mound in 2024 or even through 2025.

Unless proven otherwise, I'm just as convinced that the Angels franchise is nothing but hexed or cursed - it's laughable and depressing where the Angels end up being this big league franchise that can’t get anything right, where everyone hates the owner now and every misstep is magnified.

Mike Trout is back on the injured list and it is probably realistic that he might as well be out for the season - where whatever is lingering with him drags on and the only real solution is putting him on the shelf for rest.

Some random Ted Williams pick ups

Maybe retro cards of legends end up being like junk wax era cards for me, where they are stlll everywhere and kind of redundant - however I'll still make many of them keepers just, because I like to think of myself as being able to appreciate the all-time greats, rather just than the 'here and now' guys.

Scrolling through some social media sales, I ended up picking up a couple of retro Ted Williams cards - the Project 2020 cards are $2-$4 paperweights in their magnetic one-touch holders after being originally $20 a pop from the Topps.com Web Site back through the pandemic.

I wouldn't go out of my way to seek these cards because they are the Beanie Babies of the pandemic - but may end up being nice enough finds at the right price.

For a $1 and change, I'll make a keeper out of a 2022 Topps Stadium Club Williams refractor - it maybe anachronistic, where a card from 2022 just isn't like an old-school vintage Topps card that would cost so much more, but it is fun seeing an unconventional image of an all-time great 'pop' in a modern card.

To amuse myself, I snuck in a different Ted Williams' card for $0.15 as part of my first [in four years] and only order I've received so far [out of three or four made] from a Web site - at times, I'm looking for the dumbest reasons to make miscellaneous cards keepers and a card of a guy sharing the same name as an all-time great maybe just what I'm looking for.

Showing off some dollar bin gettings

The monthly card show I usually attend has not had an 'event' in a few months and their latest show date was at a venue further than I normally venture to - go figure, I had a reason to be in within five miles of the area and was able to be at this card show for several hours.

I ended up really digging for my usual value box and/or bulk quality cards - I'm semi-pro compared to the big time wheeler and dealer speculator types, but going through cards that are accessible and can make keepers out of gives me some satisfaction reguardless.

These were my notable hauls from a dollar bin I rummaged through - I think I was able to round up 25 cards and get five of them for free.

I didn't really know much about Topps' MLB / Garbage Pail Kids mashup, though I remember briefly seeing preview images last year - I like baseball cards to picture real life ballplayers and not caricatures or parody images that tend to be off-color, but these cards were too odd to pass up, where stupid ends up being cool.

Maybe it wasn't my intention but I wanted to grab the loose 2023 Topps All Aces inserts I could find [sans a Gerrit Cole I left behind] - I probably want the Shohei Ohtani but have to settle for these guys, plus Sonny Gray [not pictured].

2023 Topps International Trading Card Day Angels SGA

My niece got some of the team specific, stadium giveaway cards from the 2023 Topps International Card Day promotion on Aug. 5 - she was showing them off to me the following day, but insisted on keeping them and was planning to give one Shohei Ohtani dupe to her friend.

Before a recent visit for some babysitting duties, I wondered if I should bother bringing along the random Disney cards I bought from a card show months ago - I felt like my cards was going to be no brainer trade ammo for the ones she had.

When I got to her house, I told her about having my own cards to show off and as we leafed through cards with images of different Disney characters, she really liked them - I was now certain I was getting my SGA Angels cards, though we still had to get some breakfast.

After getting back to her house, she brought down the cards and while I didn't know if they were a complete set where counted out eight - there was still an Ohtani, Mike Trout and Logan O’Hoppe rookie.

Showing off a random stack purchase

Maybe there is a little existential crisis where I wonder what I can really do with my cards and whether I can go on moving forward - I like going through assorted cardboard, whether they are new cards or stuff that is a little more dated.

I do feel it's sham on my end if I cannot talk about my pick ups, take some card pictures and finally be able to put cards away for some closure - I need to catch myself at times and flesh out the card-by-card narrative when possible, but it's hard to make stuff up that means something.

As it goes, I need to avoid invalidating my experiences - where I'm not down and out and there is always a part of me always enthused, especially when getting something in the mail like this haul of odds and ends.

Taylor Ward was not having a great season, but his bat had heated up in July before he got beaned with an Alek Manoah pitch - effectively ending his 2023 season.I grabbed a dual bat or jersey card that looks to be player worn and/or used - I'm not sure there is much demand for Los Angeles [Angels] cards besides Shohei Ohtani and maybe Mike Trout, but it's kind of a reward to find a more random 'hit.'

To front load things with more Los Angeles [Angels] content, here is a Trout card from a couple of years ago - it's an unlicensed Panini issue and the boring picture looks as if Trout is watching a fly ball out, but the see-through acetate makes the card almost worth the $3 and change I paid.

Out in the wild, I'll make bulk, common cards of visiting players for my stadium project instant keepers when that might not have been originally the case - but it's fun to really focus on snatching up cards featuring star players and better.

I do not really get nostalgic about MLB teams that don't exist anymore like the Montreal Expos - but the pair of HOFer cards look good paired up.

The fandom over Ken Griffey Jr. is a little dated when he is closer to 60 than he is to 20 - but I'll chase his random cardboard because he is an all-time great.

This might be one lousy card, but maybe I've been tempted to build on little runs of four to five cards for any number of players from 30-40 years ago - that I have some lingering sentiment or nostalgia over, even when it's a disgraced PED slugger Mark McGwire.

I've dismissed relic cards are not being 'real enough' with no real historicity, but this post features a micro-mini flood of four or five memorablia cards - I'll take a flyer where they still have some novelty, even if the swatches used have iffy provenance more often than not.

I didn't know what this Trot Nixon jersey card was and thought it could have been from the 2001 Fleer 100th Anniversary set - looking closer, it looks like it was a specially made card for the Boston Red Sox kids club back in 2005.

Usually all MLB teams have this fan club package you can purchase for kids that comes with some game tickets and other team branded knick knacks - I'm not sure if this cards was distributed randomly with those packages or it came with each one.

With a PED suspension through 2022 and generally immaturity issues in past seasons, Fernando Tatis Jr. ends up being an iffy player, where I might not consider collecting him - on the other hand, he's played relatively well [for an underachieving San Diego Padres team], where it may be fun to go against the grain and look for cards of unpopular baseball players.

I'll claim the occasional non-playing era cards of retired players, where it gives my stack some star power - when other collectors may not be focused on the retro player content in here and now product, maybe I am able to swoop in and snatch some neat looking cards, notably the occasional inserts and parallels.

Finally, I ended up seeing this packed pulled signed rookie card and made an offer to pick it up for $10 - maybe this card ends up being a little no-context now, but I wouldn't have minded adding this card to my collection when McCann as a star catcher in his prime, 15-20 years ago.

Looking for some PWE cheap thrills

I have not been at an in-person card show in two months but that doesn't mean there has been a stoppage in fiending out on picking up cardboard - it's gotten to a point where everything just sits once I get it in-hand and maybe there has not been the ability to make sense of it all, much less blog about any hauls from social media commerce.

The cards I picked up [for $3 shipped] might just be the least important out of things I've bought lately - but gives me seemingly an easy task to talk about or to show off as proof of life goes.

I thought this was a real 2001 Bowman Heritage Miguel Cabrera peeking out from a seller's sale picture - I figured it wasn't a rookie card, but maybe early career prospect cards of eventual big league greats have some novelty where it's a cool find.

Go figure, the seller asked me if I was still OK claiming the card since it was actually a reprint - it might have been $0.50 or a dollar, so I just went with it since I didn't want to seem like I just had no idea what I was looking at.

A shiny foil card of Shohei Ohtani is never a bad thing to make a keeper out of - the Panini issue from a couple of years ago might be unlicensed by MLB, but he might be changing teams in the off-season, where that 'Los Angeles' on the card could mean the Angels or the Dodgers.

I like Vladimir Guerrero [Sr.] as much as the other guy and he actually played for my home team, so it's more natural for me to gravitate towards any of his cards with lingering nostalgia - this shiny card is from his Montreal Expos days is a loud one and and before he played for the Angels, I used to follow him a little bit because he was a fun player to watch.

I'm not sure I like how Fleer / Skybox mirrored Guerrero's image on the front with a reversed image on the back of the card - but maybe that just adds some fun to a card that is nearly 25 years old.

A retail value pack of 2023 Donruss

Without any licensing from either MLB or the MLBPA, Panini went ahead and made a 2023 Donruss set featuring only retired players and prospects - it's basically a flood of legends' cards that has served as boring evergreen content over the years and redundant prospect cards that are not ever going to be first year cards or true rookie cards.

The design is pretty basic, but kind of upbeat and colorful - the shiny parallels and inserts within a random pack makes these cards fun, where I guess I don't mind seeing the same old guys on newish cards.

Seeing retired player cards of guys like Ryan Zimmerman and Dustin Pedroia makes me feel older than ever - but it's not like I've kept up with them in years and that is how the passage of time goes I guess.

I haven't bothered to keep up with prospects where I don't know what to do with these cards - it might still be dime box fodder, but there is a Jordan Walker '90 Retro subset card and the St. Louis [Cardinals] outfielder is having a solid big league rookie season.

Showing off a $5 card show duo

I pulled these and added them to a separate pile from my last post - I do not know much about either card, but the Barry Bonds insert was too loud to put back and the vintage minor league card pictures a Veterans Committee Hall of Famer.

Showing off my $2 card show hauls

These cards were my pick ups from a table with $2 bins off a show I go to once a month - from a father and college age son seller duo, who wouldn't have a reason to recognize me, but I've seen them set up around over the past couple of years.

From what I may have overheard and assumed, with the son going to school, the pair ends up spacing out in their card show selling appearances - until the son has the free time to help out.

I've looked forward to seeing what they might tease in their value boxes when they've shown up - maybe due to rising costs all around, maybe their cheap stuff was mostly $2 boxes and up, where it was mainly dollar bin set ups through the past two years.

Because I was trying to rummage for keepers out of the $2 boxes in a limited amount of time, I didn't even realize they did have a dollar box - which seemed otherwise hidden or out of view.

Oddball action - the Wally Joyner card caught my eye, picturing him in college.

The card may not be a true pre-rookie issue, but likely from a smaller set - producted during his rookie season in 1986 to capitalize on his Wally World fame.

I grabbed the magazine insert card of Kirk Gibson because it's a little different than his mainstream junk wax era issues - even though it could be easily a card probably weeded out at the final stage of my rummage, I'll give myself a high five for making it a keeper.

Old-school and vintage mix - I found a copy of the infamous 1972 Topps Billy Martin finger card a couple of years ago and it made sense to pair it with the In Action subset, where he's in his element as a manager.

1975 SSPC Superstars and 1976 SSPC mix - I didn't realize these cards came from different sets until I started looking them up.

These basic cards are unlicensed, but are relatively nice looking - where singles of notable players might be keepers as a complement to same-year or same-era Topps cards.

Other sport / non sport - collecting anything other than baseball cards has never been my thing, but I had to grab the card of Ke Huy Quan [Short Round] since he won an Academy Award for best supporting actor in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Centerfield contemporaries - 1990s edition - Ken Griffey Jr. was an all-time great, but Bernie Williams was a great part of the New York Yankees dynasty from the late-1990s through the early 2000s.

Card show odds and ends

Beforehand I had these FOMO thoughts of possibly seeing three or four more familiar sellers at a show date teasing these value boxes [$2 and under] - where it was going to be a challenge to divide and conquer each table, to take ownership of cards that tempt me.

At a particular show I go to, maybe the vibe gets disorienting where the bumper to bumper foot traffic makes it hard to move around, especially with the aisles so narrow - maybe it's just business, where the promoter tends to overbook the rooom, but with the scattered tables jumbling together, it’s hard to find a landing spot to really start rummaging.

Go figure, at least a couple sellers I might have anticipated showing up are not there this time around - I didn’t know if I was going to be able to spot and count on the familiar sellers that have had me going in a routine of sorts.

As is, I ended up at a familiar seller's table and a there was a portion where his non-showcase cards were two for $1 and then a portion where it was priced as is marked or $2 for anything unmarked - I ended up being charged $10 for the following, where the top loaded cards were $2 each and the rest below were the '2 for $1' cards.

It's hard to imagine this seller's main focus is on baseball - but I assume he breaks boxes from all sorts of sports, where there might be leftovers from newer products not so long ago.

Free Stuff Tuesdays/Fridays hauls

Jon over at A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts had some card giveaway posts I was able to claim cards from - besides the cards themselves, I appreciate the note written, which was a nice personal touch to tie together the pair of PWEs sent.

I also liked the careful means to ship my claims - as well as the shiny cracked ice Cal Ripken Jr. parallel he sent as an extra.