best coast

being a west coast kid, i was happy to have found this card

in a pack of 2022 topps allen & ginter last year. i like the idea behind the famous rivals subset, and the battle of the coasts is a good one to feature. 

representing the west coast is the big sur coastline, which is probably not what most folks on the east coast think of when conjuring up images of the west coast. i would think maybe santa monica beach would be more representative? for me, the montauk lighthouse is pretty close to what i think of for an east coast image, although i would more likely choose a photo with that ubiquitous wood and wire sand fencing. i remember my first trip to massachusetts back in the 90's and i was happy to find a spot with sand, grass, and that fencing. it was everything i thought of when picturing an east coast beach.

you may recall that i am a huge fan of the big sur coastline and will drive it every chance i get. it just so happens that i will be in the area soon, but will all the rain that hit the area earlier this year, pch is closed just south of big sur, so i won't be able to do the full drive from carmel to morro bay, but i do plan to check out as much as i can.

for the record, i am not an east coast hater. i have enjoyed every trip i have taken out there and will return sometime soon to experience more of it. it's just not the best coast we have.

welcome to the hotel show in minnesota

i am pretty sure that the last time i went to a card show in a hotel i was a kid. it was actually what turned out to be the first national convention which was held near lax as i recall in 1980. the second national i went to, in 1991, was at the anaheim convention center, so i don't think i've been to a hotel show since. i've been to shows in other convention centers, malls, retail spaces, baseball stadiums, church gymansiums, warehouses, and even a national guard armory. no more hotels, though. until last friday.

that, by the way, is a 2022 panini the national card of clayton kershaw - a card that was available at last year's national convention that was held at the atlantic city convention center and not a hotel.

anyway, i found that card at a hotel card show last friday. it was a card i was very happy to find, as i received a parallel of it (yes, there are parallels) from a trading partner, and the back mentions clayton kershaw's flirtation with a perfect game in his 2022 season debut against the twins - a game that i attended.

as for the show, it was organized by a promoter who i do not believe was involved in the older semi-annual shows that used to take place at the earle brown center, and it was held at the hyatt regency hotel in downtown minneapolis. i was able to sneak away to attend on friday afternoon, and as soon as i walked in to the show space, i figured it would probably be my last hotel show. it was just too much.

i realized that because i am not working on any vintage sets at the moment, nor am i looking for the hottest rookies in any sport, most of the offerings were not geared towards me. i did a quick quarter lap and stopped at the first dime box i found. 

this dealer had dime, fifty cent, and dollar boxes, and i made it through all except the dollar boxes before i had to leave for a work call. i pulled 46 cards from the dime boxes and 49 from the fifty cent boxes. he told me that the fifty cent box would be considered a 3 for a dollar box, and i only had to pay  $20 for those 95 cards.

the haul included my first look at 2021 bowman heritage and 2022 bowman heritage

clayton beeter was traded to the yankees for joey gallo, so there is some synchronicity in that pairing.

i added a few dodgers from each set, plus a 2022 dylan carlson card

which shows dodger stadium seating in the background.

this dealer's boxes also introduced me to something called 2022 panini capstone

and there were also plenty of cards from late 2022 chrome-y releases like allen & ginter chrome, chrome sonic, and stadium club chrome

yes, that buehler in the middle is from chrome sonic and not regular ol' chrome. the andre jackson stadium club chrome card at least features a different photo than his normal stadium club card. however, brandon crawford's chrome card

is the same. still a nice double play card though!

and here's another dime box double play, courtesy of 2021 topps holiday

at the last show i attended, i bought a basketball card for my memorials collection, and i did the same here with this 2022-23 panini player of the day card of kat

he's sporting the league-wide patch for bill russell.

more pulls from these boxes included a modern card of don drysdale

a blue parallel of clayton kershaw

a metallic snowflake parallel of walker buehler

and a sampling of shiny 2022 topps chrome offerings

there we have chrome ben baller, cosmic chrome, chrome sapphire edition, and chrome update represented.

i found another joey gallo dodger card in one of the boxes, along with a silver portrait mookie betts and an a&g x mini of cody bellinger

the gallo card is from wave 5 of the 2022 topps 206 set, and is actually a piedmont back parallel. tcdb lists gallo as a yankee in the set, but i am happy to have one more card of him documenting his short time in dodger blue.

a couple more from this initial dig include a vladimir guerrero card

from 2021 topps pro debut and this jackie robinson card from 2022 topps x aaron judge

there were plenty of other nice cards for my collection, as well as the collections of some others.

after my call was done, i returned and did a full lap of the room. i only recognized one dealer from a local show, and i had just dug through their wares a couple of weeks ago so i kept going. i stopped at a nearby table where the dealer had more bargain boxes laid out.

he was offering some cards at 12 for $1, 5 for $1, and discounted "as marked". they were sorted by team, which is always super helpful.  i wound up with 36 cards from the 12 for a buck box, 46 from the 5 for a buck box, plus another 7 cards that were marked anywhere from $1 to $3 each. i got a bit of a break and paid $20.

i dug through more than just the dodgers, and found some cards for my mini-collections, including a pink wave refractor from 2022 topps chrome update

and a card showing "the catch" 

from 2020 topps heritage. i collect any and all cards that show the catch.

also going in my name/number on the back collection is this 2018 topps stadium club ryan zimmerman card

it shows zim after he hit a go-ahead home run in game two of the nlds against the cubs.  had the photo been more widely cropped, we might have been treated to a davey lopes sighting!

who was serving as the team's first base coach back then.

here's a card i found of lopes' dodger teammate don sutton

from 2015 panini cooperstown. i was very happy to find it for less than a dime.

i was also surprised to find a couple of cards from 2004 topps tribute hall of fame edition in the box. here's duke snider:

and here's snider's 2019 topps tribute card

which was also in the box, although it was in the 5 for $1 box and not the 12 for $1 box like the '04 tribute card.

these next three were marked at $1 each - a 2020 bowman's best cody bellinger refractor

a 2020 topps stadium club chrome clayton kershaw

and a 2017 topps gold label framed autograph card of andrew toles

this 2017 topps chrome rookie autograph of toles

was marked at $2. toles' story is a sad one, and i hope he is making progress in his work towards coping with his mental illness diagnoses.

dee gordon makes an appearance thanks to this 2011 topps update throwback manupatch

marked at $2, and i added another manupatch - this one of mookie betts

from 2021 topps - which was marked at $3.

by this time, it was obvious that i was only going to be looking for bargain boxes, but they seemed to be in relatively short supply compared to all of the glass cases on tables, and padded briefcases toted by many attendees.  i found one box showing cards at 5 for $1 and grabbed 5 including a 1998 fleer flair paul konerko need

and i followed that up with another 6 cards from another table for a total of $2. those cards inluded another minor league vladdy card

this one from 2022 topps heritage minor leagues.

i also paid just about "full price" for another 36 cards from a different dealer's five for $1 box - i got one free by paying $7. however, i could consider that my freebie was this 2013 topps nl stars clayton kershaw card

that i had been watching on ebay. i missed these factory sets in 2013 and will now turn my attention to the matt kemp and adrian gonzalez cards from the set.

my favorite find in these boxes, however, was this 2015 topps gypsy queen duke snider short print

wonderful.

i ended my afternoon back where i began, with the first dealer i visited. i returned to dig through his dollar boxes, and wound up with 27 cards that i obtained for $25. there was plenty of sapphire

like these from 2021 bowman chrome, 2022 bowman chrome, and 2022 topps chrome, and more shiny stuff from 2021 topps chrome ben baller

2022 topps chrome sonic

and 2022 topps stadium club chrome

i really did enjoy digging through all of these boxes, so maybe it is a "never say never" situation when it comes to hotel shows in the future.

bonus content!:

i heard some chatter at one of the tables about a release date being set for 2023 topps heritage which was good to hear. when i got home, i checked cardboard connection and saw this image

among the card examples. i can't wait!

all in a week

i went to a card show on april 15 - jackie robinson day - and my favorite purchase of the day was this 2022 topps on-demand rookie of the year 75th anniversary set card of the first rookie of the year

this show was not the regular monthly show, but rather the bi-annual show that the owner of one of the local card shops organizes in a church gymnasium. fittingly, i wore my dodger jackie robinson t-shirt

that i bought at dodger stadium back on opening day in 1997. 

the show was the end of a baseball card themed week for me, in that i stopped in at two local card shops on a couple of the days prior to the show.  on tuesday, an appointment got me close to a shop in the southwest part of the twin cities, so i stopped in for some supplies and to dig through a couple of their monster boxes of singles.

this is the card shop with a bunch of those boxes, but they are stored in such a way as to be difficult to access. the shop is so cluttered that there is really nowhere to put the boxes. it is mildly frustrating, but i still like to look through them so it isn't bad enough to keep me away. i picked out a couple of 2023 topps heritage purple refractors

and a 1994 signature rookies draft picks bonus signature jed hansen card

for the double play collection. most of the cards i pulled were for others, but these three are keepers. i picked up another double play card

but wound up selling it. it is a fairly rare "auction" card from 1998 topps gallery. it wound up covering my outlay for all of the cards i bought from this shop.

a couple of days later, i found myself near another card shop, and stopped in to see what they had to offer. this is the shop whose inventory of singles are either in display cases or part of an online inventory. the last time i was in, i heard one of the workers say that they were considering setting out some dime boxes, and sure enough, i saw some on a table. it turned out that they were quarter boxes, but still worth looking through.

it was a mish-mash of all sports, but i found a few for me and a few for others, including this 1997 fleer flair showcase row 0 brett butler

and a 2015-16 upper deck hockey card of luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc robitaille

the big story here is that i also bought a box of 2023 topps big league. i was undecided about this product when i first saw images of the cards at cardboard connection, but nick at dime boxes sent me a couple of singles, and so i figured i would add more of the cards to my collection. i had originally hoped to find singles at the aforementioned card show that was coming up later in the week, but this shop had boxes priced at $50 so i went ahead and pulled the trigger.

i think we all agree that the tier system topps applied to this set (similar to what panini has done with their select release) is dumb and annoying for a product like this. it does, however, allow for nice pulls like this:

red foil adley rutschman rookie!

my blue foil sp was jose altuve, so i will just keep going with an example of the regular foil short prints by showing this corbin burnes card

with opening day out of the picture, big league is your one-stop shop for bad photoshopping:

i would much prefer to have seen these guys as dodgers in the set. even if that meant not getting a jd martinez dodger card yet.

there's jd's card along with a few other dodger base cards.

as for non-dodgers, here's ketel marte turning two

and then there are the inserts...

i am not necessarily a fan of the idea of the city connect uniforms, but i do like some of them, including colorado's

the dodgers wore their city connect stuff in a game last weekend, although it was a mashup. they wore the blue "los dodgers" jerseys, but white pants, and the hat was not the "los dodgers" hat but rather a blue hat with the white interlocking "la" but with a black bill. it didn't look good.

bo jackson looks good on modern cardboard, though, and i was happy to find his 8 bit ballers

and roll call

cards among my inserts.

i found two of the three dodger big leaguers inserts

as well.

and then on saturday was the card show. i wound up purchasing cards from four different dealers. the first dealer was one that i had bought from at a previous show, and i was looking forward to looking through his 50 cent box.  it wasn't as fun as the last time, but i still picked out 23 cards that i got for $10.

here are some of the dodgers i pulled

that's a pretty bland batch of cards now that i look at it, but i was happy to find a few parallels and that chrome decades' best jackie robinson card.

here are some non-dodgers that were among the 23 cards i found

i guess i actually bought 24 cards because the roses were in the same penny sleeve and i didn't notice until i got home. i was really just after the framed parallel.

and yes, that is a basketball card in the scan. in fact, it's a 2021-22 panini donruss optic anthony davis insert

i had been looking at some articles about the nba play-in games earlier in the week and noticed that all players were wearing a memorial patch for bill russell (the celtics great, not the dodgers' shortstop of the team of my youth) and figured i would keep an eye out for a card showing that patch. instead, i found the davis card that shows the black band worn for former commissioner david stern, and the circular patch that the lakers wore for kobe bryant. i figured i would add it to the few non-baseball cards in my memorial collection.

the next dealer was another guy i had bought from in the past, but he was more organized this time with higher prices on his singles. i wound up buying a $10 grab bag and the jackie robinson card at the top of this post for a total of $10. the grab bag was mostly inserts and rookies, and i was guaranteed either an auto or a relic. i got a relic 

from 2017 topps tribute of xander bogaerts. i thought maybe it was a black parallel, but no, it looks like this is jus the base. i had to remind myself that i was at the show to buy cards that i could see rather than packs or bags like this. hopefully future gcrl remembers this.

next up was a dealer i hadn't seen before who had four monster boxes with cards set at 50 cents plus other dollar boxes. i wound up with 32 cards from the 50 cent boxes and 6 from the dollar boxes. he gave me a slight discount and i got them all for $20. i'll just show a couple of the more unusual cards, like this 2021 topps x mickey mantle collection card

it really looks like it is homemade. i think they tried to print it as if it were vintage but it doesn't look right. i can't believe it is a fake, but who knows.

i had never seen npb cards at a show, but this guy had a few. this is a 2021 topps npb card of former yankee zelous wheeler

it's a blue parallel, actually.

the last dealer was one that i had bought from before and provided some pretty good deals with their bargain boxes. this could have been due to some math errors since the person tracking things was keeping track of costs on a post-it note. this time, however, i think any math errors were not in my favor. 

i wound up with 52 cards from the 50 cent boxes (all came in semi-rigid holders so bonus), plus 42 cards from the 7/$1 boxes and then 29 other cards that varied in cost from 25 cents to $3 each. i spent $50 for the 113 cards so i am not really complaining.

it was nice to finally see some 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary cards in the bargain boxes, and i was able to add a few dodger base cards that i needed

the zach mckinstry parallel was not in the 7/$1 box, but was only 50 cents so still a bargain.  

i also found some 2022 topps chrome sonic parallels in the fifty cent box, including a black and white ray wave refractor of albert pujols

i wrote a short post about this set the other day. it is definitely not a necessary set, but i do like the refractor parallels.  here's a purple and yellow refractor of jorge soler

that was also just 50 cents.

this seller also had some cheap relics and autos. i found a 2020 panini chronicles classic autographs card of dodger legend terrance gore

gore appeared in 2 games for the dodgers. he played half an inning on defense in one appearance and pinch ran in the other. he doesn't have too many dodger cards as a result, although he did appear in 2020 topps update. i don't chase these sorts of autos (certified as a dodger when they were a dodger) like wrigley wax does with his cubs, but i was pretty happy to find even a sticker auto of an obscure dodger!

however, perhaps my favorite find from this dealer was this card from 2021 topps big league

it's one of those ssp home team tradition cards (the dodger dog was featured for us dodger fans), and i know bernie brewer's slide is a fairly popular thing. not a bad find for a quarter.

this post is already too long so i won't show any of the other cards i picked up. all in all, it was a good week on the card front.

and then there was the hotel show i went to this past friday.........