Let's start with the most expensive card from the show. I paid $20 for this, and I am okay with having done that because it is my first Ryan Braun autograph:
The fact that it is a Topps Tribute card serial numbered 9 of 99 is a pretty big bonus to me. Now, for the "lesser" hits, none of which cost more than $5 and most of which were $2 or $3:
Yovani Gallardo Gypsy Queen Auto |
Zack Greinke Gypsy Queen Relic |
Yovani Gallardo Topps Tier One Crowd-Pleaser Autograph SN/99 |
Ben Sheets Upper Deck Decades Autograph |
Jean Segura Topps Tier One On the Rise Autograph SN/399 |
So, by this point, I finished all the other tables and circled back to the dime boxes. As I mentioned before, the guy had about six or seven of those 5000-count boxes packed with cards in addition to the 1000-card box of vintage. Here are some samplers of what I picked out of the dime boxes that was newer than 1976. To be honest, I don't even know what set some of these cards come from (some are obvious, others are not):
Two final stories from that show. When I first got back to the dime box table, there was another guy there talking to the dealer at whose table I took up residence. The new guy was from St. Louis, and was commiserating with the table holder about how slow Saturday afternoon had been. The St. Louis guy said that they have decent shows there, but they tend to revolve around autograph signers as this one did.
When I started talking to them, I realized that I am rather spoiled for choices when it comes to card shows -- there's the monthly show an hour south of town, and then there are the three monthly shows that are just about on my doorstep around the northern suburbs of Atlanta. To top it off, the guy who actually promoted the show this past week has a card shop in Marietta and occasionally runs autograph and other memorabilia shows. I didn't realize how lucky I am.
Anyway, Mr. St. Louis guy starts poking around the table and finds a complete set of the Squirt soda bottle hanger cards that Topps put together for Squirt in 1982. They did a set in 1981 as well. The St. Louis guy turned out to be a Detroit collector who wanted the Alan Trammell and Kirk Gibson out of the set, and paid $4 for the whole set to get those. He looked through the set, and it had both a Cecil Cooper and a Rollie Fingers card in it. I said I'd give him a buck for those two -- which, considering it was an 11-panel set, was a good deal for him. He thought about it, hemmed and hawed a bit, and ended up finally agreeing to it. So, I left with these:
I didn't win $1,000 in groceries, but I'll take these two panels.
Mr. St. Louis wasn't done. He saw a packaged-up set of Classic 1990 cards there and bought those for $1. I was a bit ticked that I didn't get those cards -- I mean, that would have been great oddball trade bait. He opened the set and there was not a single Detroit Tiger in the entire package. He was upset, but then gave me the one Brewer he found in it...who just happens to be one of my late 1980s PC guys, Greg Vaughn:
Not wanting to stick around too much longer, I went into one bin that had caught my eye earlier in the day. It was filled with round things -- discs, coins, marbles, what have you. I was hoping to find some of those MSA discs from 1977, whether labeled with Isaly, Chilly Willee, Zip'z, or what have you. And what do you know -- I did:
This is just one that was nice to have:
That's a Sal Bando Chilly Willee disc. These next two -- well, they were awesome to find and one of them goes right into the BIG collection. First, let's start with the Isaly's disc of a legend.
When I found it, it had a sticker on the front of it. It turned out to be a fairly new sticker, and it came off without leaving any residue behind or even a scratch mark from me getting the sticker off.
Finally, here's the one I felt best about. I would pay between $2 and $3 at least on the multi-colored Bay for this one, but I got it here for basically a dime:
And that is the Chilly Willee variety of those crazy discs of Robin Yount. It brought my total number of Robin Yount Items to 560, of which I think I got about 80% since I got back into collecting early this year!
Thanks again for reading, and to those of you I owe packages, please be patient with me!
Nice oddball finds! I'd never seen what those Squirt hangers looked like intact before.
ReplyDeleteI like the Tribute autos. They always have a nice look. Also, those Squirt cards are awesome.
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