Multitudes of Modern Dime Cards; Card Show Recap #16 Part #2

It seems a given that no matter what card show I attend, I always return home later that day with a stack of dime cards, most of which goes straight to my player collections.

It also helps that I've been fortunate enough to have the dime boxes as an option at nearly every single card show I've ever attended. There's this one vendor, in particular, that exhibits at both the card shows that I regularly attend. Most of the card show dime box hauls you see here on this blog are courtesy of his well-stocked boxes.

As expected, this dealer was present at yesterday's Mansfield show, and since I've been doing business with him for many years now, he's recently allowed me to take a dime box into the hallway and look through it there to beat the large crowds that sometimes form around his dime bins. 

Per usual, there was a wide variety of cards in these boxes, but what I wasn't expecting was to find quite a few set needs in the box I searched through, particularly from Topps Heritage.

Last year was the first time since 2015 that I didn't purchase the Topps Heritage base set from one of the dealers at my nearby card show for $20-25 in hopes that I could complete the base set myself with the help of fellow bloggers and packs of the product. 

Even though the process has taken a bit longer than I originally envisioned, it helped save me money in the long run. Thanks to yesterday's show, I was able to land 4 more cards that I need for the base set, bringing the total number of missing cards down to just under 20 base cards from the 400-card product.

With 3 straight years of Topps Heritage remaining incomplete, I'm uncertain as to whether or not I'll attempt to finish the set for a 4th straight year in 2019 with the 1970 design. I still have lots of progress to make with the sets from 2016-2018, but every card I can get my hands on will help, including this New Age Performers insert of Kris Bryant from the 2016 product. 

It's pretty amazing that I was able to land cards of 4 retired players that I collect, including 3 Hall of Famers, from 2017 Topps Tribute for a dime each considering that the same cards of Red Sox players can cost over 10 times as much money. 

While I'm always trying to add more Boston cards to my collection, it's far less expensive to chase down cards of other players that I collect rather than Red Sox players because of the show's location and the Red Sox coming off a World Series victory.

Even though I've always taken a strong liking to shiny and numbered cards, it was only recently that I actually noticed how fond I am of these types of cards, including serial numbered ones specifically. One thing I love about card collecting is knowing that you one of just a few thousand, hundred, or even a couple dozen cards in the entire world.

There were a ton of shiny cards in this particular dime box, including a Holo GrFX AUsome card of Mo Vaughn and a Heritage refractor of the Late Jose Fernandez (RIP).

The original Topps Tek set was a giant product with dozens of different parallels for each player in the entire set, resulting in a checklist that consists of thousands of different cards. I picked up my first Topps Tek card of Chipper Jones a while back, and it was joined by a few more cards of players I collect, featuring all sorts of different and crazy patterns, the very thing that Topps Tek was known for.

The Vladdy card with the MLB logo background might be my favorite of the Topps Tek cards from yesterday's show due to how perfect the pattern design seems to pair with Guerrero's Expos uniform. The one thing I could do without on this card is the logo placement as I feel it could've been chosen a bit more carefully.

Both the original set and the revived product, Topps High Tek, are known for featuring many different parallels with some being slightly rarer than others. I'm not sure why the name was changed to High Tek, though it could be because the newly-revived product is a high-end set. 

Even with all the different colored parallels in addition to various pattern cards, at least the set doesn't consist of thousands of different cards like the original product from the late 1990s.

I already have one of these Omar Vizquel Bowman Chrome cards exclusive to last years' National, but that doesn't mean I won't jump at the opportunity to add another one to my collection, especially for such a low price. These prism refractors were originally wrapper redemptions that came in 4-card packs. I'm guessing Vizquel was included because of the shows' location in Cleveland, Ohio.

And then came one of the craziest cards not just from the entire dime box or card show, but maybe one of the most interesting cards that I've ever seen in my life. An insert called Dugout View Net-Fusions from 2000 Pacific Aurora, the card features Dodgers outfielder Shawn Green, but I originally thought the player shown was a Montreal Expo which is why I bought the card in the first place. 

Even though I don't collect Green or the Dodgers, I don't have a single regret buying this oddball. After all, it was only a dime, and unless anyone wants it, it'll likely earn a spot in my next frankenset.