The Card Show Dime Boxes, Part 1

As I mentioned in my cursory post from last night, today I went to a card show. It was and is called the "Atlanta Sportacular."  When I pulled in to the parking lot at the venue this morning about 5 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin, I was a little surprised to see a line of about 40 or 50 people waiting for the doors to open.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a line was not it.

The reality of the line, though, was that people were wanting to get in line early to get autographs from Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, and Julio Teheran, who all signed today. After those guys signed, Jarvis Jones and Desmond Trufant also signed. While I've paid for autographs in my life, I just have an aversion to paying $49 (for a card for Simmons or Jones) or $59 (for Freeman or Teheran) for an autograph.  I would have considered the $20 for Trufant, but I really didn't even notice he was there, to be honest.

I was busy digging.

Now, last night and in preparation for the show today, I actually spent time to put together my checklist of cards that I need from 2014.  I never looked at it -- no one was really selling any 2014 cards...well, maybe a few of the high-end sets like Museum Collection.  But there just weren't that many dealers generally, and, I'd say half of the vendors focused entirely on high-end memorabilia like photos, signed football helmets, bats, and the like.  I stayed away from those -- I'm good with what I have -- and looked for the guys and gals with the boxes of stuff to look through.

The very first vendors I stopped at had huge tubs filled with random stuff just chucked into them -- and everything in the bins were $1 a piece.  It was haphazard, and I loved it.  I picked through the items and found a few things I liked and bought them.

Since all of them are oddballs, let's start with the Robin Yount oddballs.

A three-card panel of Robin Yount's 3000 hits card from Post cereal

I did not know that three-card panels of the Post Collector Series card from 1993 existed, so I snagged that one right away.  Heck, 3 months ago I'm not sure I even knew this card existed -- now I have the single and the three-card panel.

In the very same bin, I came across two of these colorful beauties:

1986 O-Pee-Chee Tattoo Sheet 9.  I got two of these -- one for the Yount collection and one for the Gantner collection

In 1986, O-Pee-Chee borrowed the tattoos that Topps had printed in the United States and printed a set of 24 sheets of their own.  I do not believe I have ever seen these before in person.  What can I say -- I've lived a sheltered life.

The next group of items I got from the bins were probably overpriced at a dollar a piece, but I liked them.  I got three cards from the 1993 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes set.  These oddly shaped cards are in tri-folded groups with a larger photo in the middle and two smaller pieces flanking the large photo.  The three I got all feature former Milwaukee Braves:

I really like the one with Warren Spahn and Christy Mathewson since it features a group painting of the "complete pitchers" -- Spahn, Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Cy Young.  Don't get me wrong -- the one with Aaron, Mays, and Ruth is nice, but I feel like both Mathewson and Walter Johnson get the short-shrift from card companies (probably a licensing issue from their estates) so getting that card was a great addition.

The final pickup from the $1 bins were the Brewers team sets from two large-sized (5"x7") Topps products from the early 1980s.  In 1980, Topps released a 60-card set called the "Topps Superstar Photos."  The sets were released both with gray backs and white backs.  I only found the gray version, but I picked up all three Brewers -- Sixto Lezcano, Gorman Thomas, and Cecil Cooper -- and a Gary Carter.

Here's what the back looks like.

I also picked up the two Brewers -- Cooper and Ted Simmons -- from the 1981 Topps "Home Team Photos" National Set.  Here's Simba:

Oh, and I also picked up a Warren Spahn Cooperstown postcard in one of the bins for a buck as well:

And that was just the first vendor.

I went back to this vendor later in the show after I had picked up some other items, and I was going to dig more through some of the bins.  As it turned out, he had replaced his bins with about 6 of those 5000-count boxes in which the cards cost 25 cents each, but once you got to 80 cards, you could get 120 more basically free because after $20 every cards was a dime.  So, I paid my $20 and picked up some fantastic cards...which I must hold off on sharing until at least tomorrow.

Not to drag the spoils from this show out, but I spent about $100 and came home with well over 350 cards, so I am going to continue this and show more tomorrow and during the week this coming week.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you are enjoying the World Cup -- the shock result of the Netherlands destroying defending champion Spain 5-1 has been just one in a number of very enjoyable games.