Card Show Goodies: Cheap and Shiny? Yes, Please!

Last week Sunday, in preparation for a week of dealing with family coming to town, I treated myself to a trip to a card show. It's one of the normal monthly shows here promoted by Frank Moiger, but I went to the East Cobb version instead of the North Fulton version.  None of that means much of anything to you, probably, but it meant a little different group of vendors for me.  

I focused on cheap for me this time around. I did pay a little more for some on-card prospect autographs...but, you know, that happens sometimes.  In fact, let's see those autographs:

Yes, another Damien Magnifico -- just days after my first one.  This one is a die-cut Magnifico, serial numbered to 100.  All of these were $3 a piece or 4 for $10.  I got a few other cards from the same guy out of some quarter boxes too; these cards included, incredibly enough, these:

I think I grabbed nearly every Brewer in the box -- mainly because I needed them, of course. But to find purple refractors, Museum Collection, a 2005 Fleer National Pastime card of Robin Yount serial numbered to 650, and even the base and gold parallels of Ryan Braun's Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects rookie card (and the 2010 Bowman Refractor) for a quarter each was just an awesome find for me.  

And now, even more shininess...

Le Disko by the band Shiny Toy Guns gets to introduce the shiny Prizms and refractors that were sold at 6 for $1 (and obviously, I cherry picked from this selection for five of the prettiest:

I'm not a huge Panini Prizm fan, if only because Prizm has so many damn parallels to track. Also, the base silver cards are, frankly, ugly. I'd prefer that Prizm make the red or the green their base cards and shelve those stupid silver ones.  I have yet to see a base Prizm card that I looked at and said, "That's a cool card." On the other hand, the Gallardo, Aoki, and Weeks cards above are cool cards due to the shiny colors.  

The 2010 Gallardo refractor and the 2014 Segura Orange Refractor are your typical Topps Chrome cards, I suppose.  I'm not a huge fan of the orange refractor mainly because I just don't like the color orange and it does not look good for the Brewers either.  Maybe for the Mets or Marlins, but not for Milwaukee.

Okay, last group of cards.  

We'll go "vintage" REM for these.

Yes, it's all about the vintage.  These 6 cards cost me a total of $30. Obviously the Mathews 1962 is the top of that chart, and the Spahn win leaders was next. It's always good to see the seller who has these cards, as he is a longtime promoter and seller in the Atlanta market. He has a great network to find good cards, and these are ones I'm glad he found.

Two more new packages came in the mail yesterday for me, so this week should be a good one for blogging if I can find the time. Thanks for reading.

Broken Record Day...eBay and trade...

It's not fair to my acquisitions today to say that it's just another day with a trade and an eBay purchase, but that's what came in the mail today.

First, the purchase.  I am hopeful that the Brewers have solidified their shortstop position by trading for Jean Segura.  Yes, he was an all-star last year, but his second trip through the league was not exactly a resounding success.  So, I'm concerned that I may be chasing cards for a guy that won't make it past year four with the Brewers.  That said, this 2014 Topps Tribute card -- signed on card -- is very pink.  And I really like it:

It is serial number 4 of 45, so at least there is some scarcity as well.  I got it for a decent price too.

The other envelope to find its way to me today came from Staten Island.  In response to my Turkey Red post, prolific trader Zippy Zappy of Cervin' Up Cards reached out to me and offered me a trade for a few of those cards.  Two of the items he offered to me were items that -- no surprise -- I had never heard of but about which ZZ is very knowledgeable and quick to explain: the Japanese Topps Sega Gen cards used to play a baseball video game in Japan.  I read up on them and, after some initial reticence which was satisfied and then some by the available resources on the internet, I agreed to the trade.

I'm very glad I did.  ZZ sent me two of those Sega cards -- Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun, both of which will find their ways into my newly being organized collections for each:

Despite appearances, the corners on these cards are intentionally rounded for inserting into the game console in the arcades.  And these cards are just cool.  Really cool.

But ZZ wasn't done there.  I also got a mid-1980s Topps Traded set surprise in the guise of later pitching coach Ray Burris:

Also making an appearance in his 2013 Topps camouflage bordered card numbered 72/99 is former Brewer and current Royal Norichika Aoki:

Nori is just happy to be shown where home plate is, I think.

Aoki was traded to Kansas City due to the late season emergence of another Brewers outfielder whose name reminded me of the 1980s movie Krush Groove -- of course, I'm talking about Khris Davis -- whose 2011 autographed Bowman caught the ferry off Staten Island:

All in all, I have to admit that I was blown away by the generosity shown once again by a fellow card blogger.  In my short time here as a blogger making trades, I am  overwhelmed consistently by the outpouring of fun, interesting cards in return for a few items that I have.  

I'm still feeling very disorganized and unorganized in my collecting at this point, and I don't know you guys well enough to know what to send to each of you.  I'm getting there, though.  I hope that you all continue offering me trades, and I'll do the same.  And, I am also starting to get a handle on things enough to see when people need what I have -- so I'm going to try to mail stuff out to people unsolicited as well. 

Thanks to all of you for a great first month back in card collecting -- here's to many more years of fun.