July Card Show Booty!

I've been in the midst of a major collection overhaul here at Junkie central over the past week.  I'll go into more detail later, but for now let me tell you about this card show I attended on Saturday.

We'll go Griffey-first this time....

One gentleman always has a table of relic cards and sells them to me on the cheap.  I usually pick up one or two every time I go.  This particular day he whipped out a stack of non-relic Griffeys that widened my eyes and loosened my wallet.  I never would have bought this many as he was looking them up in a Beckett (usually a bad sign), but then he started knocking off like 80% of the list price.  I was free to indulge...

Get used to transparent and colorful.

A very shiny Stadium Club variant.

I've wanted this insert for a long time but never seen it this cheap.

Right up my alley.

Also transparent and colorful, but this one's #/331.

Dugout netting in a card.  New to me.  A little damage but the price was right.

Yeah, I was on a transparent and colorful roll....

This is a very poorly-scanning card, but looks amazing in person.

Finally, here is another insert from '95 Leaf I need to complete that Griffey checklist.  All I need now is the Statistical Standouts insert and I'm done!  This card was definitely my best find of the show.

That's it for the Griffeys.  All about quality over quantity this time.  I did also buy 2 packs each of Panini Golden Age and 2013 Topps Series 2.  Here are the goods:

 I like the design this year, I like the Bad News Bears theme, and the card subjects are pretty cool.  I even pulled an insert:

A Houdini playing card.  I just had to show the back.  It's a looker.

Here's the Topps:

Sheffield relic!  This is the first relic I've pulled from any series of 2013 Topps.  Before this I'd pulled two auto and no relics - weird.

Last but not least, I picked up this sweet Hank Aaron from one of my favorite old guys:

I knew it had to be mine.  What a beaut.

That's it for now.  Stay tuned for more design timelines (Bowman is up next) as well as a post about my collection overhaul.  The latter may be boring, but it may also make you super jealous of my awesome new system.  Until then.....

Card Show Booty! June 8th, 2013

You already read the title.  Let's jump right in:



Say it with me: YIKES.



Brian Hansen and Morten Anderson, both kickers for the Saints, got together and founded Kicks Records.  This 45, their label's premier release, is a rare and beautiful treasure.  I spun it the minute I got home. 

Have you ever seen Boogie Nights?  You know the scene where they're doing a bunch of coke and recording that song "You've got the touch....." and neither guy can really sing and the harmonies are off and the backing track is just as electro-cheesepop as can be?  Yeah, that.

We love Morten in New Orleans, but damn.

All these cards have one thing in common, and it is the subject of a huge upcoming blog post.  Stay tuned for that....

I bought these because they were dirt cheap and hilarious.....

This box of '89 Donruss was in amazing condition and only cost five bucks.  I was quick to snap it up in the hope of pulling a pristine Griffey rookie.  Sadly it didn't happen.  This is the second box of '89 Donruss I'm broken with no #33's to be had.  The cards I did pull were absolutely flawless with pristine edges and corners and perfect surfaces.  Still, it was fun tearing into all that wax.  Great smell.

This box from 1990 was another $5 find I couldn't pass up.  Plus it was something else to aid me in my pack-ripping addiction.

I was able to assemble the entire set of 200 cards with this one box with plenty of cards left over.  Here's a few to give you an idea of what they looked like:

The school mascot is Mike VI now.  One of our close friends was his vet for two years, so I've gotten to spend some close-up time with Mike in the indoor part of his enclosure.  We fed him horse meat.  It was neat.

This was a very exciting find for me as I am a big Albert Brooks fan.  If you haven't see Defending Your Life with him, Rip Torn and Meryl Streep, I highly recommend it.  The guy is hilarious.

So that's it.  I came home with zero Griffeys.  Not a one.  I tried with that '89 Donruss box, but to no avail.  Maybe next month....

Why I'm Quitting Packs: Spoils from eBay and the Card Show

Let's face it: I'm addicted to opening packs.  I love it - it gets me some great trade fodder as well as great cards I didn't know I wanted.  It keeps me up-to-date on the sport and the state of the hobby in general.  Plus it gives me something to gripe about which is an essential part of blogging.

However......

One of my collecting goals of late has been a shift in focus from current packs and repack boxes to more specialized, discerning purchases that will yield more Griffeys.

And the result has been a rousing success. 

I've been spending my cash on specific cards (COMC, for example) and auction lots as opposed to busting packs.  Hence, the last few days have seen a huge influx of fresh Griffeys from multiple sources that included trades, a bit of eBay sniping, and a visit to the monthly local card show. 

Trades get their own post, but here are the card show and eBay spoils.

I skipped it last month in favor of a few big COMC purchases, but this past Saturday between shipping trade packages at the post office and my buddy's bachelor party on Bourbon St., I was able to squeeze in a few hours of card show.

First, I got this for 15 cents:

Psych!

It's not what you think - this is an advertisement card printed to look like the real deal.  The back includes a price list of different baseball card sets from the 70's and 80's.  It looks even less authentic in person, plus it is less sturdy than a real '89 UD card.  I'll cover this more when it makes its way into an oddball card post.



I nabbed a lot of oversize cards at this particular show.  Above is card #1 through 11 of some Upper Deck set showcasing memorable Griffey dingers.  Mr. Murray is there for scale....



A few more giants.  These stretch the abilities of lenticular technology to show Griffey's swing in it's entirety.

Even more big 'uns.  That one on the left is another advertisement oddball, this time for lithographs by the artist that painted that particular card.

This dealer did it right.  He had a few stacks of Griffeys with super cheap price stickers
that I couldn't pass up.  I nabbed every one I thought I may be missing.

Again, he had a ton of oddballs, and that Topps Chrome was a quarter.



He even had some King B jerky cards.  I was taken aback by these - I've never see them for sale like this anywhere, let alone down South where King B wasn't even available.  We proceeded to talk about jerky for 10 minutes.

This is an upgrade.

I already own one of these that someone once sold for 60 cents.  I know this because they stuck a price sticker right on the card front.  Sadists.....

This is my big trophy from the show.  I'd seen it at the same show two months prior but didn't have enough cash to land it.  This time I was ready.  The dealer was shocked I remembered the card two months later.

It wasn't just Griffeys, though.  Here's everything else I found to spend money on:

Vintage!



Ron Swoboda is a minor celebrity in New Orleans.  Apparently he was also a member
of the '69 Mets.  Amazin'.

 
R.I.P. Charles Muncie.  He passed away only 3 days after I bought that card....

That was not the only vintage I picked up, but everything else is slated for specific bloggers, so you'll just have to wait for them to post about it (and me to ship it which will probably take far longer).




A few of my football-minded friends call me "Hooshma-zo"
because of this guy.

 
Moving on, I've also been participating in the occassional eBay auction.  In the past week I've landed 5 smaller auctions and one kinda big one.   Without giving too much away (all of these will eventually be covered in the blog), here are a few highlights from those auction wins:

One auction contained the Finest cards from the first three years of the brand's existence.  Out of these I only had the '93 in my collection, so these were very exciting additions.



I already have this, but it's just an awesome card.  There was an autographed version of this, too - it was among the first autographed Griffeys available in packs.



This is one of those weird oversized Topps cards.  I never bothered to pick one up, but now I'm stuck with it.  You may recognize that close-up picture from another Topps card that would come out years later.....

 

Two rookie reprints, one Scoremasters rookie, and a sweet Star interview card.


Everything else listed here is from the big win which was over 250 cards.  Take a look:



Eddie is working overtime showing scale.





Sadly that PowerDeck jewel case was empty.  Still, it's got Griffey on it, so it gets to stay.





This is a picture of the 250 Griffeys that came with that auction.  The stack on the left is cards I needed - the right is cards I already had.  I was blown away by how many were new to me.  I was expecting a bunch of commons and overproduction cards, but there were tons of inserts and parallels here.  Can you spot the bunny rabbit?



On all six eBay auctions I averaged 25.5 cents per Griffey and ended up with just under 500 Griffeys total.  About 40% were new to me which is a pretty amazing ratio considering how many I have.

Busting packs is fun and exciting; but it doesn't touch eBay, COMC, my LCS, and card shows when it comes to value and average price per card.  I will admit here that I picked up a bunch of packs of '91 Studio and '94 Stadium Club for 25 cents each.  For a quarter I don't even count it as pack busting.

Card Show Booty!

I brought 60 bucks to the card show.  Then I spent 90.  Gotta feed the monkey....

I'm building quite the Don Mossi collection.

That Derrek Lee RC is a Super Refractor #/100.  Mr. Lee's career is long and distinguished, so for a quarter, this was a bargain.  That's a Javy Lopez rookie, and I recently pulled that Babe Ruth card in the form of a reprint, so getting the original for a dollar was a no-brainer.

I just can't pass up a Dave Justice pun nor that Will Clark mini for a quarter.  I learned from Curb Your Enthusiasm that Joe Pepitone is Larry David's favorite player.  Anna K belongs in my "Hot Chicks" collection....and my heart.

These are all cards I've spotted on other blogs that caught my eye.  I only had seven, so to fill that eighth spot, that's a drawing of a fish birthday party (it is up for trade, lucky reader).

Now, it's Griffey time!

 

Oh, man.  That was good, huh?  Here's my favorite scores of the day:

1995 Leaf Slideshow #8B.  I already have 8A, so this was a welcome find.  And that Pinnacle Zenith card is an "Injured All-Star" Tribute card.  It looks better IRL.

This vendor would not negotiate.  He wanted hi Beckett for everything.  After explaining to him what COMC and eBay are, I finally got him to sell me this one and a handful of other not-terribly-valuable Griffeys for still more than I wanted to pay.  Worth it, though.  Love this card.

And here's the piece de resistance.  One guy had dozens of Griffey memorabilia cards, and I went through every one.  This was the best.  A batting glove with a little wear on it.  How sweet is that?

I think I came home with as many cards for other bloggers as I did for me.  I'll have to start assembling another round of trade packages soon.

Good luck with your respective Mondays!