A Dime Box Search to End 2018

Well, 2018 hasn't officially ended quite yet, but a shortage of supplies prompted a quick trip to my LCS earlier today where I found myself in a familiar spot; searching through the owner's dime boxes.

In the past, the dime bins at this card shop have rivaled even the best of the boxes that I see at the show. Low numbered cards, high-end base, and major players that I collect are all typically found within these boxes. 

This time around, the owner had replenished the boxes, big time, along with an entirely new box being added to the group.

There are a lot of posts that I'd like to do over the next few days, meaning some will carry over into 2019. The last 2 decades of ranking Topps sets, a recap of my 2018 collecting goals, and a general end of year post featuring my thoughts on 2018 cards and best pulls are all posts that are on the radar for the next few days.

Even with all those posts left to do, I prefer posting highlights from the dime boxes as soon as I possibly can. With the cards still fresh in my mind, I express my thoughts on the cards in a much clearer way.

Oddballs aren't necessarily a strength of these dime boxes, but that didn't stop me from tracking down a few of them, consisting mostly of big-name player collections. I'm a huge fan of the A-Rod Donruss Originals card as well as the Mantle from 2007 Topps Chrome.

On the other hand, the Ken Griffey Jr. Member's Choice and whatever parallel this is of Joey Votto from 2018 Donruss Optic are nice additions to 2 of my fastest growing player collections.

Topps has been running the Bowman Holiday promotion for a little over a month now if I remember correctly. Like last year, I still don't see the appeal of these "holiday" cards that have nothing more than a new logo thrown in the upper right corner. 

Still, it's hard to complain about the set with big names like Trout and Kershaw winding up in the dime boxes. 

Topps has made a point to include no shortage of retired players in many of their sets today, but they haven't necessarily featured names like Vida Blue or Ken Griffey Sr. It seems like the same group of Hall of Famers can be found in year after year of Stadium Club and various high-end sets, but it's a lot more exciting to find cards of sometimes forgotten stars from back in the day.

Tony Gwynn is one of the recently-formed player collections that I created a couple weeks ago along with Corey Kluber, Max Scherzer, David Price, and Robin Yount. Gwynn isn't a guy I see too often at the card show or shop, which is part of what makes finding this Panini Donruss variation card so rewarding, even if it is unlicensed. 

It's been a few months since I've gone through the dime boxes at this shop, so I didn't really have an idea of what to expect out of the bins. While I've seen high-end in these boxes before, I can't say I've seen a selection this strong with 2018 Topps Museum being thoroughly represented. 

I hadn't seen this set design before today, but I'm more interested in the players I found, specifically the Hank Aaron card from his days in Atlanta.

With my Anthony Rizzo player collection hovering around the 90-card mark, any card I'll take almost any card I can find to bring that player collection closer and closer to 100 cards. If nothing else, the collection grew by a card today, thanks to a bronze parallel from the same 2018 Topps Museum product.

It may be from a couple years ago (2014), but I got a similar feeling when I found the Will Clark card to when I spotted the Griffey Sr. and Vida Blue. I was pleased to add to player collections of guys I believe to be underrepresented by card companies, mainly Topps, today. 

It's pretty easy to find a card of a guy like Greg Maddux card in the dime bins if I looked hard enough. Will Clark, now that's a bit more of a challenge.

The duo of cards shown above from 2018 Topps Triple Threads was my very first look at this product entirely just like I saw my first cards from 2018 Topps Museum as well. Even with just 2 cards of drastically different players, I was able to get a sense of what this years' set is like. 

I'm especially fond of the matte finish to the cards, something that could help the surface stay in better shape than having a glossy finish on the front of the cards.

But the biggest surprise of the entire search of the dime boxes was finding 2 original 1965 Topps cards, both in reasonable shape. Granted, I'm not familiar with Mike De La Hoz nor Russ Nixon, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to add 2 cards to my collection from one of my favorite sets of all-time.

The Nixon will be added to my Red Sox binders while the Braves card will have a spot in my older vintage card binders. I've always loved the mini pennants of the 1965 set, and the classic Red Sox logo is another plus. 

And if there's any hope of me completing the 1965 Topps set someday many, many years from now, I'll need every card I can get.