This weekend we celebrated my son’s sixth birthday with a trip to a place he chose — the toy show. He’d never been to a toy show — and for that matter neither had I — but he wanted to go so we took the family and a bunch of his cousins and gave them money to pretty much buy whatever they wanted.
While this was a toy show, I held out hope that I might find a few card/sports-related items for myself. And that I did, while spending a grand total of $10.
What did I find? Here ya go.
One seller had a cigar box with vintage cards in warped top loaders. His prices weren’t bad … just not at the level that I wanted. And almost every card in the box that appealed to me — major stars from the 1960s — were ones I already owned. But he had one item I did want. This 1972 Topps Baseball wrapper. The wrapper is not in perfect shape, and from what i can tell it was folded down flat and then sealed again with wax. It now fits in a top loader. And while the “value” of said wrapper may be diminished by the fact that it is not in its original state, I have three words that best describe my feelings on that: I Don’t Care. I just think it’s a cool-ass item to have in my collection. Would I buy another at $4? Probably not. But I’d be open to owning other wrappers.
Another seller at the show is actually a tandem whom I see quite often at one of the local flea markets. And his items are usually priced really well. He had a slew of toys and a few cases of sports cards, some high-end. Then he also has these boxes of cards that he sells for $1 each and others that are $2 or three for $5.
There were quite a few cards I wanted to buy but I decided to harness my impulse and opt for just a few.
I purchased ONE card from the $1 box, this 2016 Topps Gold Jose Bautista. That bat flip is still amazing. And the price for this card was HALF of the price of a pack of cards. That’s a win.
And from the $2 each/ three for $5 boxes I selected these three:
2015 Topps Allen &Ginter Mini No Number on Back /50 Nolan Arenado, 2016 Donruss Signature Series Elias Diaz and 2016 Stadium Club Kole Calhoun autograph.
Two of the three will be headed to COMC with my next submission, but the Calhoun is a card that I really like. Good (not great) player, fantastic image and a clean, loopy signature. For $1.66 that’s a nice addition to my collection.
cardboardicons.com 