First Dime Box Haul in a While; Card Show Recap #23 Part 2

Despite how much I prioritize my ~250 player collections as the center point of my card collecting habits, it's been many months since I've come back from the card show with a dime box haul.

Though they used to be a common feature on the blog, my card collecting habits over the last several months simply haven't allowed for a proper all-dime card purchase. I took many weeks off leading up to and following the National, and I didn't make the dime bins a priority while I was in Chicago.

I know I have access to terrific dime boxes at my local shows, so I wanted to branch out at the NSCC. Even upon returning, however, I found it challenging to return to my old ways. Thankfully, a trip to my weekly card show, much smaller than the one in Mansfield, allowed for just that.

After all, it's hard to beat coming home with a bag full of dime cards following a card show, just waiting to be sorted, categorized, and properly stored.

Within a few minutes of scanning through the dime boxes, I always get a reasonable idea of what player, on this particular day, is going to appear frequently. Almost right off the bat, while searching through the bins on Sunday, I concluded that one of those players was Ken Griffey Jr.

The 13-time All-Star currently trails Greg Maddux by 8 cards for the #2 spot on my list of largest player collections, and these cards will definitely help to close that gap. I did, however, pick up a few Maddux cards, so we'll have to see where the chips fall, though I doubt anyone will ever catch Nolan Ryan (474).

I don't know when or if I'll ever bite the bullet and add the iconic 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr card to my collection. I know that I either want the card to be graded or in good enough condition to come back at an 8.5 or above.

With that being said, my collection, per usual, is all over the place, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to commit myself to add this prized piece to my collection.

Following my complete reorganization of the Red Sox and Cubs PCs over the summer, I'm now able to actively collect cards of my 2 favorite teams besides my player collections.

I don't have a PC for Heyward, nor Ty Buttrey, but these refractors were only a dime each, and I figured they'd be perfect for the PCs. The way I organized the various binders allows me to find any card I want fairly quickly. The next step? Categorize them all online.

Another of my projects from over the summer was the creation of new player collections to add to my already extensive list. Most of the newcomers are rookies from 2018, like Ozzie Albies and Rhys Hoskins, though it also includes superstars like Alex Bregman, Freddie Freeman, and Javier Baez.

Though I haven't made these new player collections official yet, I'm working to accumulate as many cards as I can just like any other PC. For a dime each, these 2 rookies are a heck of a deal.

Though I try to sample almost every available retail product as it's released, I still miss out on the majority of player collection cards. As a result, I frequently depend on the dime bins so I can hunt these cards down, whether it's a set that I buy a fair amount of (Archives) or a product that I've never opened a pack from (Diamond Kings).

Even though I purchased and opened a fair share of 2019 Topps Stadium Club upon its release, I still missed out on a few key cards for my player collections. Before the show, I wasn't familiar with Rivera nor Bank's card from this beautiful set.

I can sufficiently say that if I had known of the Banks card back when I first opened 2019 Stadium Club in June, it would've been strongly considered for the top 10.

As I mentioned, some players are simply more common than others when it comes to a given dime box haul, and this trip to the show was no different. In addition to Ken Griffey Jr, Padres legend Tony Gwynn showed up several times.

I haven't been collecting cards of the 15-time All-Star for all that long, but Gwynn seems to show up in dime boxes no matter where I go. I've only been collecting his cards for a few months, but he's already surpassed 30, not bad considering my hiatus from dime cards.

There's something so drastically different about each of these Roberto Clemente cards that makes me like them all the more. On one end, you have a classic black and white photo paired with a simple design, reminiscent of a fairly high-end product.

On the other hand, you have a retro-style card all about the 1970s. The design, uniform, and even the set name emulate the era incredibly well.

Oddly enough, these 2 cards were produced by the same company, Upper Deck, in the same year, 2001.

After not making much progress for a little while, I'm back on track to reach 500 cards of Nolan Ryan, my largest player collection, by the end of this year. Taking Sunday's purchase into account, I should be hovering around 480 cards, leaving 20 for the next 3 months.

I hope, obviously, to reach this goal and reach the 500-card mark for the first time, but I hope to get there with something besides Texas Rangers cards. Though the best years of his HOF career were spent in California, Topps loves to depict the all-time strikeout leader with the Rangers at every chance they get.

Even with the surplus of Nolan Ryan cards on the Texas Rangers, it felt great to pay the dime bins a visit again. After all, I don't know if I can go this long without them ever again.