Quality Over Quantity; Card Show Recap #22

With all the breaks that I've taken before and after my trip to the 2019 National in Chicago, it's been just over 3 months since I last purchased cards at one of the local Baseball card shows.

My last time at one of these shows was the Memorial Day Mansfield show, so it's rather fitting that my first show back is the same, only on Labor Day. Even though I haven't taken a break from collecting, it's odd to go such a long period without interacting with the vendors that I've come to know.

I visited my local show (about 25 minutes from my house) a couple of weeks back, but the purpose of that trip was to get supplies at an unbeatable price. This time around, I was ready to buy cards once again after I took a month-long break following The National.

As soon as I arrived, however, I knew that simply purchasing cards would prove a challenge. The show was more crowded than I'd ever seen before, so much so that moving around and looking at a vendor's cards was difficult.

I came to the show hoping to buy some singles, particularly from the new 2019 Panini Chronicles set, so I maneuvered my way to the show's case breaker and began talking to him about the recently released product.

Though I'd watched a couple of Chronicles box breaks before heading to the show, there's a lot to see when it comes to this set, so I loved being able to search through the stacks at my leisure. With over 25 brands featured in this product, there's a lot of ground to cover.

Ultimately, I picked up a few singles to start my 2019 Chronicles collection. I don't foresee myself doing anything with this product except buying and opening packs. I absolutely loved this set back in 2018, and I don't expect the 2019 release to change that.

Being that members of the 2018 rookie class are in their sophomore years, it's easier to acquire cards of stars like Rafael Devers and Shohei Ohtani from any of 2019 Chronicles brands, from the retail exclusive Unparalleled to Timeless Treasures.

I realized early on that my best bet was to stick primarily to veterans so that I could sample as many sets as possible. From the online breaks that I watched, I knew some of the brands I wanted to buy from before I even got to the show.

One of those sets was the all-black Obsidian cards, a Football release that Panini plans to use for Basketball as well. The cards are heavy given that they're not very thick, and they feature an all-black background and modern design.

The Obsidian card that I chose is actually a purple parallel (more noticeable in-person) of the 2018 NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, serial numbered out of 99.

Spectra was one of my favorite products in last year's Chronicles set, so I knew that I was on the lookout for inexpensive cards from this brand as well.

Because these cards are a 2 per box hobby exclusive, I didn't know if this was possible, but this neon pink parallel of Max Scherzer (#/75) proved me wrong.

2 serial numbered cards of 2 NL Cy Young award winners all for just $4. When I say you can't beat Chronicles for value, I'm not kidding.

Although I wanted to avoid the rookies due solely to the prices, I couldn't pass up this gorgeous Titan card of Fernando Tatis Jr. Having this card in-hand confirms that Titan is one of the most beautiful brands in this year's set.

For the same price as the deGrom and Scherzer cards, I couldn't pass up this gorgeous card of my favorite rookie from this year's class.

I haven't made a decision on this yet, but I'm thinking about starting a PC of Tatis Jr like I have for Craig Kimbrel once the 2020 season starts and non-rookie cards of his will be available.

I could've spent all of my time and money buying singles from Chronicles and discussing the set, but with almost 100 vendor tables at this show, I knew I had to move around.

I had in mind that I wanted to buy some Ozzie Albies rookies given that he's one of the most underrated rookies from the 2018 class, and I was able to do just that thanks to another vendor that I recognized from past shows.

Albies is currently hitting .287 with 19 homers, 71 RBI, and 14 stolen bases in his 2nd full MLB season, but he's being overshadowed by quite possibly the hottest player in Baseball, his teammate Ronald Acuña Jr.

I don't know if Albies will ever have a chance to shine playing alongside Acuña, but I do know that he's one of the youngest and most talented all-around players in the game. At just 22 years old, he has the potential to be great.

The first 2 cards will go into the Ozzie Albies player collection that I'm working on creating, but the 2018 Topps Archives insert above will go towards that set. 

I don't remember which Topps set these Coming Attraction cards originally appeared in, but Topps dynamically recreated them with all the talented rookies from last season. Slowly but surely, I can see myself completing this insert set as well as last year's Archives base set.

When I crafted my card collecting goals for 2019, I listed, among other things, that I wanted to reach 500 cards in my Nolan Ryan PC by the end of the year. Well, today is September 3rd, and I've just now crossed the halfway mark.

The Fleer All-Star card above is my 475th Nolan Ryan card, meaning I have roughly 4 months to add 25 new cards if I want to meet that goal. I guess I thought this goal would be a lot easier to accomplish, so it looks like I'll have to hunt through the dime boxes quite a lot if I want to make this happen.

At this moment, one could make a strong case that Mookie Betts and Mike Trout are the faces of MLB given that they're both young, generational talents. 

While I would rank Trout above Mookie, Betts has been climbing the ranks ever since his 2016 AL MVP runner-up season, and I don't see him stopping anytime soon.

This is why I need to add Mookie Betts cards to my collection whenever it's convenient, for you never know when the prices for his cards could soar just like Mike Trout's.

Red Sox cards are always on my radar wherever I go, especially their young and talented players like Betts, Devers, and Andrew Benintendi. At the last show, I splurged on some monster hits for the Red Sox PC and while I didn't spring for any super expensive cards this time around, I added a nice Benintendi card to the PC.

I've always loved Benintendi's 2018 Topps Heritage card; the pink circle and the rookie cup, in particular, give it a very vintage feel. I was actually surprised to see this card (#/999) for just $3, but I didn't have any complaints as I gladly added this card to the stack I was amassing. 

And for the same price as the Benny chrome card, I picked up a nice fan favorites auto of an integral part of the late 60s and early 70s Chicago Cubs teams. Don Kessinger, who has a beautiful signature, by the way, made the All-Star team 6 times as a member of the Chicago Cubs.

The autograph is from last year's set and uses the 1971 Topps design effectively. This fan favorites signature comes after an extremely successful 2019 Topps Archives purchase that I also made over the weekend.

Not a single card included in this post cost me more than $3, but I was still careful about which ones I chose. At one point, I tried to search through the dime bins, but I wasn't feeling very inspired. I guess, at yesterday's show, I cared more about quality than quantity.