I'm Back (With Baseball Cards)

Hello viewers, it sure has been a while. I got back from my vacation yesterday and even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time away, it was odd to be absent from the blog for 2 weeks. 

Before this vacation, the longest I'd gone between blog posts is 2 full days which happened twice in November of 2017 when I had just begun blogging. As a result, it was strange to take such a prolonged break away from blogging and commenting.

Even now, I find myself struggling to find the proper wording for what I'm trying to say. It's been 2 weeks since I've written a post, so I'm going to be a little rusty at first.

Anyways, I'm back home for around 10 days before I head to Chicago for The National, but I fully expect to get back into my typical posting schedule immediately. 

While I was away, some new releases, most notably Allen & Ginter, hit the market. I'll likely be holding off on buying any more cards until the end of the month, but I won't rule out a 1 or 2-pack overview of the recently released A&G set.

Throughout the month or so leading up to the 2018 National, I refrained from purchasing Baseball cards, for the most part, as I wanted to save funds for the show. I've done a reasonable job with that so far this July, but I made one exception while browsing through an antique store in Asheville, NC.

There weren't any sports card shops near where I was staying in North Carolina, so my best bet for Baseball cards turned out to be one of the antique stores situated in the city. It didn't take much time for me to find one of these stores, and the same goes for the Baseball card bin located by checkout.

While the majority of the 2/$1 cards were Hockey or junk wax, I was able to find some true gems scattered throughout the box. This was my very first time shopping for Baseball cards at an antique store, so I really didn't know what to expect.

With that being said, I'm certain that I didn't expect to find 4 vintage cards of Hall of Famers who I collect, including Jim Palmer's 1973 Topps card which I hadn't seen before this trip. I initially expected to find some over-priced 90s cards, not vintage legends for only 2 quarters apiece.

The HOF cards didn't stop there, however, as I stumbled upon a couple of league leaders cards from 1969 and 1970 Topps respectively. Per my rules, the cards above will go to Willie McCovey and Harmon Killebrew so long as those 2 PCs don't already have that particular card.

At this point, this mere trip to an Asheville antique store had become a massive success. Even some Baseball card shows don't have this caliber of vintage cards for 50 cents each. While the condition of the cards is far from perfect, I don't consider that overly important given the caliber of the cards.

For 50 cents, I'm not going to let the condition (especially the upper left corner) of Joe Morgan's 1976 Topps card bother me considering that I need it to complete the '76 set. After all, I can always purchase an upgraded version if I feel it's necessary, but that's far from my #1 priority.

Out of all the cards that I purchased from this store for 50 cents apiece, the Morgan card will go down as my favorite solely because of how symbolic it is of the 1970s. Along with Johnny Bench and Dennis Eckersley, Morgan's '76 card ranks among the best from this classic Topps set, in my opinion.

While I was impressed with the sheer number of vintage cards scattered throughout the box, my purchase consisted of more than just cards from the 1970s. There were a ton of 90s cards throughout the box, and I was able to narrow them down to a select few for my player collections.

One of my newest player collections, the Tony Gwynn PC is hovering around the 15-20 card mark as I speak, and I was able to further boost that total thanks to 2 cards from the antique store. 1 of them is a colorful card from (I believe) the 1994 Topps Finest set while the other is an oddball Collect-A-Book.

Despite the negative feelings that often surround Baseball cards from the 90s, I found some awesome oddballs for my player collections. In addition to the Tony Gwynn cards, there were 2 cards from Upper Deck HoloGrFX, a criminally underrated product, featuring players that I collect.

As much as I love the Glavine card, the Griffey Jr, especially with the Seattle Mariners uniform, symbolizes the 90s just as the Joe Morgan card is a fabulous representation of 1970s Baseball.

That didn't spell the end of my Griffey Jr oddballs, however, as I found 2 more awesome cards for my 3rd largest PC (behind Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux). The Tetley oddball on the left was a last-minute pickup to bring my total number of cards to 16 and is from the 1990 season.

Conversely, the card on the right is from 1995 Pinnacle and shows The Kid blowing an enormous bubble of gum while making crazy facial expressions, because why shouldn't a photo like this end up on a Baseball card?

Suffice to say, my first ever Baseball card purchase at an antique shop was a successful endeavor. I got to add some epic cards to a few of my player collections, and that's something that I strive to accomplish almost every time I purchase cards.

So yeah, it's great to be back, especially when I've got new Baseball cards.