My First Time At This Show: Card Show Recap #5

Card shows have always been my favorite way to collect and pursue the hobby. You never quite know what you'll be able to find at a show, which is certainly part of the fun. There are just so many possibilities of what you can get that there's something for nearly every collector at a card show.

All of those possibilities are what caused my dad and I to decided to go try the Mansfield card show in Mansfield, MA. We've never gone to this show before despite constantly hearing about it and speculating on whether to go or not. Today's show promised over 90 vendor tables and was on a day that both my dad and I had off, so we decided to try this card show out. And I was certainly pleased with what we got.

I started out by looking at the dependable dime cards. Dime bins always deliver something exciting and this one was no exception. It featured a Mo Vaughn from a Fleer set commemorating the Red Sox's 100th anniversary. There was also a Bowman Chrome Rick Porcello in a throwback jersey. I even decided to get 2 different Topps Heritage cards of former Red Sox Jacoby Ellsbury simply because they are stunning cards, and are a dime each.

However, it became increasingly clear that the most prominent player in these bins was Mo Vaughn as I went on to find 9 more cards of the 1995 AL MVP. This vendor I bought from had dime bins of Red Sox and a bin or 2 of other teams. However, I decided that sticking mostly with the Red Sox would be a good idea because that would allow me to build those Red Sox player collections, even more, case and point, Mo Vaughn. I would never be able to find Mo Vaughn cards for a dime just anywhere, much less this many, which proved to me from the start that this would be a good show.

After looking through the dime bins for a while, I moved on to see what he had for a quarter each. Some of the highlights of this vendor's quarter bins included a couple of Blake Swihart cards, a Luis Tiant from 1994 Ted Williams Memories insert, and my very first silver pack card from 2017 Topps. These cards came in 4 card silver packs with Topps hobby box purchases, and since I never purchased one of those boxes I never got any silver pack cards. And while David Price isn't my favorite player, I couldn't resist adding this card to my collection for 25 cents. 

The 25 cent bins had a huge variety of Red Sox players, from Yaz to Manny Ramirez. I was able to find a bunch of cards for player collections including a David Ortiz from 2017 Allen & Ginter that I was unable to pull in packs last year. Others included a 2012 Topps Archives 1977 Felt card of Jacoby Ellsbury and a 1981 Donruss Carl Yastrzemski. 

As I continued looking through this vendor's table, I moved on to the 50 cent cards where I landed a trio of Red Sox cards and an Anthony Rizzo Power Players insert from 2014 Topps. This was the first card of the day I got that wasn't a Red Sox player, but don't worry, it wasn't the last. After looking through mainly-modern cards for a while, I decided to switch it up a bit.

And in doing that, I found these 2 3D cards of Red Sox pitchers for 50 cents each as well. The Luis Tiant is from 1975 while the Jenkins is from 1977, which was the 2nd of just 2 years spent in Boston. It still seems weird to see him in a Sox jersey, but the colorful borders of this set help distract me from that. Best of all, neither card is in that bad of shape which is impressive for 3D cards considering how easily they can crack over time. 

And since I was still looking for vintage cards, I decided to wander around a bit until I could find some for the right price. After wandering for a few minutes, I came across a vendor selling these for $1 each. I have no clue what the set is, all I know is I found Frank Howard, Willie Horton, and Boog Powell vintage cards for a grand total of $3. I've never seen something like this before, because of how thin the cardstock is and how it has no number on the back, so if anyone has an idea of what this could be please let me know.

I began looking at what else this vendor had until I came across a card with a price I was astonished to see, in a good way.

I didn't care that it was miscut, I didn't care that it had a crease. This 1971 Topps Al Kaline card was available for just $2, the biggest steal of the show so far. Other than the crease, the card is in pretty good condition and is one of my favorite sets of all-time and a player who I collect and who I don't usually see at the show, much less a vintage card. Vintage cards aren't going to be around forever considering that they are constantly being purchased by collectors and not being put for sale again. So getting this card of Al Kaline was definitely something I was more than happy to get. Which proves to me something I had thought about for a long time, it's hard to beat getting vintage cards, especially for prices like this.