All For Half the Cost of a Blaster; Card Show Recap #24

Ever since I got back from The National, I've felt torn when it comes to where and how I'd like to buy my cards, and I've yet to find a solution to this newfound confusion.

Usually, whether I come home with a stack of dime cards or a hobby box, I'm thrilled with what I've purchased, but that hasn't always been the case as of late. I haven't had the best luck with packs, but when I switch over to individual cards, I don't find as much value as I would like.

The internet, moreover, is a double-edged sword. Sure, you can find something super specific that's been on your radar, but you can also find virtually every card out there, so the rationale of "I can only find this online" applies to such a wide range of inventory that it becomes slightly overwhelming.

Apart from whichever box I choose for myself on my birthday this upcoming week, I think I'll be taking a break from packs until Bowman's Best is released just before Christmas.

After today's spontaneous visit to the card show, I realized that, even at smaller shows, I can be more than content with purchasing individual cards, something that hasn't been the case for several weeks; I just have to look a little more closely.

I spent the majority of my time at the show today searching through bins, picking out cards for player collections. Though I was tempted by a couple of inexpensive hobby boxes, as soon as I left the show, I knew I made the right choice.

For starters, I found a ton of cards for my 2019 Panini Prizm project, something that I wasn't able to accomplish at The National believe it or not. I relied on the Google Sheets app on my phone which, with such a large inventory, was a little challenging to maneuver.

Nonetheless, I made progress with this set for the first time in months by adding 20 new cards to the collection, half of which were the hyper blue Prizm parallels showcased above.

I wouldn't be attempting this crazy project if I didn't love all the shiny parallels, but I especially like the contrast between the bright jerseys and the hyper refractor. Mancini, Heaney, and Correa's cards certainly do the trick.

The silvers a fairly hard to come by (3 per hobby box), so I enjoyed finding 2 in one of the dealer's bins this morning, especially of well-respected sluggers like Schwarber and Donaldson.

Before today, I'd never done business with this vendor before, and he didn't have prices on the majority of his stuff. Usually, these would be 2 strikes against this dealer, but he said that he'd make reasonable offers on whatever I brought over to him.

As you'll see, all the cards in this post cost me less than half the price of a blaster box.

I opened 2 hobby boxes plus a retail mega box of 2019 Prizm before I stopped buying packs as I was beginning to accumulate duplicates. Since both of my hobby boxes were hot boxes, I came across a ton of parallels which inspired me to begin this crazy project in the first place.

The 2 lowest-numbered parallels are the blue and red mojos, and I absolutely love the look of these refractors. In addition to the 2 above, I picked up a blue mojo of Joey Wendle (#/399).

While it wasn't unusual to see the blue and red mojos (since they have a higher print run), I was shocked to see 2 power plaid parallels, each of which is serial numbered out of just 75 copies.

Better known as x-fractors in Topps Chrome, these cards were fairly hard to come by when I opened my packs (I believe I pulled just 1-2), yet if I want to complete this unfathomable project, I'll need all 300 of them.

But it wasn't just 2019 Panini Prizm, the vendor had a ton of other cards (which I'll showcase over the next few days), including one of the greatest things to find at a low price; Kellogg's 3D cards.

Just like my last trip to the show, I was able to make a purchase for one of my newly-organized PCs. Though the Dwight Evans will go to his player collection, the Bill Buckner card will go to the miscellaneous 1980s section of one of the Cubs binders.

The dealer didn't have any Hall of Famers for sale, but I found a reasonable number of semi-stars from the 1982 Kellogg's design. Better yet, he had 5 cards of players that I collect, including 2 players from the Big Red Machine who, years after the dynasty ended, were still playing in Cincinnati.

I commented last week about how thrilled I was to add a '74 Topps George Foster card to my collection, for I don't see his cards all too often. Well, I guess I'm lucking out because I picked up my 2nd in 8 days. 

Finally, a Bill Madlock card in an awesome Pittsburgh Pirates jersey caps off a selection of cards that ended up costing me half the price of a blaster box that I could've picked up at Target instead.

Combined with the fact that I haven't had great luck with hits this year, you can see why I'll be leaning more towards singles for the next few months.