Dollar Vintage Cards: Card Show Recap #9 Part 3

At almost every card show I attend, I try to make a point to buy at least a couple vintage cards. After all, if you buy vintage the right way you can find some excellent deals on cards, and of good players as well. It's just a matter of finding the right vendor at the right time. That way, you can do everything in your power to ensure you get the best deals possible.

On Sunday when my time at the show was winding down, I decided to briefly browse the $1 vintage bin of the same vendor that I had bought all the dime cards from. He's one of the best vendors at the card show I frequently attend due to his huge variety of inventory, specifically when it comes to vintage cards.

I had browsed that $1 vintage bin before and I had never found anything too spectacular. It usually consists of a ton of 1973 Topps commons and the occasional low-numbered 1972 card. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's not the kind of stuff I'm looking for. 

However, Sunday's card show proved to be an exception. My only guess is that the bin was recently restocked because I was incredibly surprised with the selection of cards available, all for only $1 each.

There were a few 1970 Topps cards available, 2 of which I ended up buying. 1 is a Rollie Fingers card which looks somewhat unusual since nearly every card I have of him shows his iconic mustache. The other is of fellow star pitcher of the 60's and 70's, Juan Marichal. Looking at these 2 1970 Topps cards now, I'm beginning to get excited about next years' Topps Heritage set. Granted, it's about 9 months away, but the sleek and silver 1970 Topps design is one that will definitely make 2019 Heritage a well sought after set. It may not be the flashiest 70's set, but it certainly is one of my favorites.

The $1 vintage bin was also home to a couple of 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards. While I'm on the topic of Heritage, these cards were included in the 2018 Topps Heritage set as inserts, and Topps did a very good job with them. Still, it's hard to beat the originals and the players chosen that made this set so unique. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anything quite like this set has ever been done before or since 1969. 

The black and white photos, the blue ink fake signatures, and of course, the deckled edge around the cards are what made this set so collectible. I can't say I have intentions of completing the set since I have so many other sets on my want list. However, I'll certainly buy a card or 2 from the '69 Deckle Edge set if I see them for the right price like I did at Sunday's show.

With about $10 left, I couldn't go too crazy. Therefore, I decided not to get too into set needs or anything like that, but rather, continue to find cards for player collections. My Orlando Cepeda and Paul Blair player collections don't receive new cards all that often, let alone vintage. I suppose they aren't that prominent and don't have many new cards being made of them. I suppose I understand Blair, but Orlando Cepeda is a Hall of Famer, and considering how little he's represented in modern-day cards, he's one of the most underrated Hall of Famers of all-time.

With just $1 and thus, 1 card left to go, I wanted to make it special. I was thinking maybe a 1965 Topps card of a guy I collect to cap of the purchase or something like that.

I didn't find that. But what I did find was a million times better than what I ever could have expected.

This, my friends, is an original 1950 Bowman card, now the 3rd oldest card in my collection. Not to mention the fact that the card is of a Red Sox player which made it even more sweeter.

I really wasn't expecting to see a card like this, but I knew I had to get it. This would be the perfect card to wrap up the purchase as well as the entire show. After all, it's kinda hard to beat an original 1950 Bowman card for a buck. Especially after doing a post on the oldest cards in my collection a couple weeks ago. It looks like I'll have to update that list sooner rather than later at this point. 

The Best the Dime Bins Had to Offer: Card Show Recap #9 Part 2

It began with an unexpected discovery of multiple 2018 baseball cards. But by the end of my time at the dime bins at yesterday's card show, it had turned into far more. I ended up with a grand total of 180 cards, 19 of which are from 2018. All 161 other cards are from an endless amount of brands, sets, and years. Though, most of them are from the 2010's. Then again, these dime bins are typically overflowing with 2010's baseball cards anyway.

The recent online organization of my player collections via Google sheets has truly inspired me to take my player collections to the next level. I realize that I shouldn't be looking at my player collections only by the number of cards in them, but seeing the numbers while scrolling down on each player's sheet inspires me to keep going. It gives me a realistic goal. For example, my Hank Aaron collection was at 97 cards before yesterday's show? My goal? Get that player collection to 100.

Well, I was unable to reach that goal due to the dime bins not having a single Hank Aaron card. However, I was able to achieve certain other goals such as expanding Joey Votto's collection to over 90 cards and getting new cards of players I haven't gotten to in a while such as Joe Mauer.

I was also able to pick up some set needs from the 2 dime boxes I ended up looking through. I actually picked up 4 cards from 2017 Topps Salute. 1 was from Series 2 which I am not collecting, so onto Sportlots it goes. Another was a double of Albert Pujols which will go towards his player collection. So, I ended up going 2/4 with this Brandon Belt card and the Luke Weaver card being the 2 that ended up being needs for my 2017 Salute Series 1 set.

I also found a couple cards that I needed in order to complete the 2016 100 Years of Wrigley Field insert set. With the addition of these 2 cards, I am now just 8 cards away from completing this insert set. Unlike Salute, I don't think this was continued in Series 2. But if it was, I'll definitely have to make a plan to complete this at a bit of a faster rate.

Moving on to player collection cards, these 1991 Topps Stadium Club Members Choice cards, which I can only assume are the predecessor of Members Only, were some of the many sets that, like in most dime bins, came to me in groups. There were about 6 different Members Choice cards. I only took home 2. One of Ripken and one of Ryan, and if you ask me, that's all I need from this set. 

Despite a sizeable gap in time between the 1991 and 2017 Stadium Club, the concept is still very much the same, and the execution of the set has done nothing but improve year after year. I originally thought this Bobby Abreu card was just a base card, which I knew I had. But this subtle Stadium Club black parallel was quickly spotted and added to my stack.

Like I said, Stadium Club sets come in groups. For example, I don't believe I had ever seen more than 1 or 2 of these 1995 Bowman's Best cards before Sunday. Now, I own 4 cards from the set of players I collect. The names are very hard to read, even in-hand. In fact, I had to look at the Billy Wagner in the top left corner for a good 15 seconds before discovering who it was. Thank god Topps has improved their chrome cardstock since then. I can't imagine having to squint at cards to see the name in this decade.

Actually, I take that back. Because 2015 Bowman exists.

Another set I had barely seen before Sunday's show was the DK Originals insert set from 2015 Panini Diamond Kings. I've always said that the best way to produce an unlicensed card is to not make the logoless photo quite as obvious. The Ichiro does a solid job of this. The Bumgarner, not so much. Too much cap for me. They should've cut it out a little bit more like they did for the Ichiro card.

It would be nearly impossible to do it, but I can at least dream of owning every card of Randy Johnson on the Expos ever made. The Expos jerseys are some of my favorites of all-time. Plus, Randy Johnson is a personal favorite pitcher of mine. I knew that this card existed, but when I saw it in the dime boxes yesterday, I realized I still didn't have it. Well, now I do. And it's just as amazing as the 2017 Gypsy Queen card of him on the Expos that I got a little over a month ago. Though that one was an SP, so it cost me a bit more than just a dime. 

Another card from 2017 Topps Archives that I found was this Winner variation of Whitey Herzog which was one of 3 variations of 2017 Archives. The others were grey backs for the 1960 cards and missing black plates for the 1982 cards. I don't think I own a single additional card of Herzog, but I absolutely love the powdered blue Royals jersey. Unless I can make a decent amount on the card on Sportlots, it'll probably go into a frankenset. The card is incredibly nice, especially for a dime.

I found some various Allen & Ginter inserts that I needed for player collections as well, beginning with 2017 What A Day cards. I realize some people think the set is overdone at 100 cards, and I can't disagree. But the concept behind the set is very cool, and I don't think just any Topps product could pull this kind of thing off.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure many other products could have pulled off The Numbers Game insert set from 2016 Allen & Ginter. Maybe Gypsy Queen, since this was before the product started to go downhill. But other than that, Allen & Ginter was the easy choice for this insert set.

And while we're talking about Allen & Ginter, I may as well bring up this 2008 Allen & Ginter rookie card of Evan Longoria that I found in the dime bins as well. I guess rookie cards aren't as valuable as they used to be, but you'd think this card is worth more than a dime. After all, Longoria is sure to reach well over 100 RBI in his carer, will probably get to 3,000 hits, and could finish his career with a .280 batting average if all goes right. 

Then again, that's the beauty of the dime bins. You can find steals like this if you look hard enough.

2018 Cards For Much Lower Prices: Card Show Recap #9

One of the main reasons why I haven't been all that interested in new products other than Series 1 and Heritage this year is the cost. I'm not interested in paying $10-$15 for a Gypsy Queen rack pack let alone $20 for a blaster. I was considering getting a blaster of Opening Day, but Topps decided to raise that cost to $20 a blaster as well instead of the $10 it used to be.

Yeah, no thanks.

Other than relying on the dime bins for player collection cards, I also rely on them for cards of sets I wouldn't necessarily buy. For example, I never opened a pack of 2017 Topps Fire, yet I have 30+ cards from the set. Same goes for 2017 Panini Diamond Kings, 2017 Donruss, and many more sets that appear to be joining that realm as well such as 2018 Gypsy Queen.

2018 baseball cards may not interest me all that much to buy retail or hobby, but if I can get cards from these sets through the dime bins, please sign me up.

The dime boxes were my main focus at the card show I attended today, but I originally didn't have any 2018 cards on my radar. That was until they started popping up all over the place. For example, these Retro 1984 Donruss cards from 2018 Panini Donruss were pretty plentiful throughout the 2 boxes I looked through. Even being unlicensed, I enjoyed pulling these out of my 2018 Panini Donruss rack pack as well as buying them for some of my largest modern player collections at the show.

In fact, there was a lot of 2018 Panini Donruss in general, but I didn't want to get too much of it. Panini Donruss can be like sand in your car, you can never get rid of all of it once it's there. Therefore, I was very selective with my choices, coming home with just the 4 cards shown above. Again, I'm able to see past the no logos when they pull off cards well such as this Stars in Cincinnati of Tony Perez and Dave Concepcion.

I'll admit, the Opening Day insert set, better known to me as a "messy construction site" is flawed, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to buying cards from the set, especially when they're in the dime bins. Due to the Royals falling further and further into oblivion year after year, I haven't been able to add to my Salvador Perez collection in a while, or many Royals players, for that matter.

There were also blue parallels of these Opening Day inserts included in the bin. Coincidentally, all the players I got Opening Day inserts of are catchers, no other players were found. See, if the set had a different name, I might get behind it. But I do NOT need an Opening Day insert set to confuse myself with the actual Opening Day set.

The Donruss and Topps cards may not have been my first looks at either set, but the Panini Diamond Kings cards that I picked up at today's show were the very first cards I've gotten from this years' set. I didn't like the design from last year all too much, but I have to say they took nice steps to improve the design for 2018, including a well-designed logo in the bottom right corner.

After seeing only blue and red cards from the set for a while, I began to worry that, somehow, Panini had only used 2 colors in this years' set. So, finding this Nolan Arenado and seeing the purple border and design in the background relieved my concerns and allowed me to appreciate the set even more.

Speaking of Nolan Arenado

I was able to add 2 2018 cards to my collection of the Rockies' star 3rd baseman. He's another current player who I have a pretty large player collection of. I don't have many of current players since all of my major collections are of retired players. Still, Rizzo, Votto, Posey, Longoria, and Cutch have been around long enough for me to accumulate 50 or more cards of each of them.

Andres Galarraga is one of the most forgotten players in baseball history despite being very talented and not playing all that long ago. Spending most of his career with the Expos and Rockies, Galarraga is a 5-time All-Star whose won multiple Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards and has over 2300 hits. Still, playing for small-market teams is likely what held him back. After all, as an MLB player, you can't get as much attention in Colorado is you would in New York City.

I haven't opened a pack of Opening Day since 2016 and frankly, I don't have intentions of doing so. Hell, I barely buy the cards when I see them for 10 cents each simply because the set doesn't do much for me. Still, the parallels in the 2018 Topps design look incredible and I don't care if they're from Series 1 or Opening Day, I'll still buy them of players I collect. King Felix may not be off to all that great of a start, but he's already made his Hall of Fame case pretty solid anyway. Anything else he can do will only make that case stronger. To me, he should be a Hall of Famer, though I think it'll take a couple years to get in.

But it was this last card that was the biggest 2018 card I bought all day. This 2018 Panini Diamond Kings card is my very first card of Andrew McCutchen on the Giants. After acquiring over 70 cards of him as a Pirate, It's now time for me to start getting cards of him on the Giants instead of the Pirates just as I much do for Longoria. It feels weird, but they're 2 of my largest modern player collections as I stated before. I can't just stop collecting them because they changed teams, even though I really wanted to see both of them end their careers in Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay respectively. 

Red Sox Homers and Clearance Cards

I'm very happy to say that I attended the Red Sox game last night when they took on the Orioles in the first game of a 4 game series against Baltimore. This game was originally scheduled way back on April 16th but was postponed due to weather, and in a way, I'm glad, because the weather for last night's game was perfect.

The Sox ended up winning the game 6-2 thanks to homers by Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez. But perhaps the best part of the game was David Price who was 1 strike away from a complete game shutout until Manny Machado belted a 2-run homer.

Nevertheless, Boston prevailed and after the game, I went to the team store with the friend I went to the game with, just to see if any baseball cards appealed to me. I originally didn't think so, that was, until the checkout line where I saw a package of 50 cards in the Red Sox bin instead of the all-baseball bin. As I reached to put it where it belonged, I saw that it was discounted from $10 to $5.

Suddenly, I became interested. I saw the Ty Cobb Golden Greats insert located at the top of the bag...

and a Miguel Cabrera 2018 Topps Opening Day card at the bottom. Immediately seeing cards of players I collect along with the $5 markdown was enough for me to say "why not" and spend $5 for the 50-card bag.

As I exited the store, I realized that the 2 cards were both Tigers. Nervously, I opened the bag, fearing I had somehow picked up a bag of all Tigers cards, which I knew I'd have no one to trade them to.

Thankfully, the next cards in the stack disproved my theory as I found a couple of Pinnacle cards from the 90's that included the black borders. I barely have any Time Raines cards on the White Sox, and I'm always looking to add to my Wade Boggs collection. Not to mention how well the black and white uniforms each player is wearing goes so well with the black borders on each respective Pinnacle set.

Anyway, now that I discovered the stack wasn't all Tigers, it was time to see what I was able to get in this $5 card bag.

A duo of 1997 Upper Deck cards of some of my biggest player collections was upon the first cards I pulled from the bag. The Randy Johnson card expands upon his strikeout abilities on the back of the card while the Ivan Rodriguez card shows Pudge in the Ranger's spring training St. Patricks Day jersey and an all-star game stamp.

The most surprising thing about the whole purchase was the number of cards I got of players I collect. Out of the 50 cards in the stack, I'd say around 30-35 of them were players that I collect, which will thoroughly help me boost my player collections. Furthermore, I didn't even pull many doubles. Nearly every player collection card was needed, like this Cal Ripken Jr. card from the 1990 Topps set. 

The Orioles were one of the more prominent teams out of the stack as I found multiple cards of Orioles I collect while attending a Red Sox game against Baltimore. One of those cards is shown above; this 1988 Fleer Glossy Eddie Murray from his last full season in Baltimore.

These 2 cards may be from different insert sets, but they're both from the 1996 Upper Deck set which explains why the designs and color choices are faintly reminiscent of one another. The John Smoltz is from the Strike Force insert set, which I assume is for pitchers only while the Sammy Sosa Global Impact is likely for all players who grew up in different places all around the world.

For whatever reason, there were a decent amount of 2017 Topps Yankees Factory Set cards. I don't why or how Fenway Park would have Yankees team set cards, but I must say I wasn't too annoyed to get these cards. The Jeter at the top of this post can go directly into his player collection while the others (Betances and Bird along with Sanchez) will certainly be available for trade and for sale on Sportlots, since I'm certain Yankees fans are scrambling to collect as many cards as they can of their team now that they've become a legit threat in the AL East once again.