when the card comes second

sometimes i will give more weight to a random card at a shop or show that i am on the fence about purchasing if it is in a semi-rigid holder. in fact, there are many bloggers and friends of blogs who have cards in your collections partly because i saw a cheap vintage card of your team or player in a semi-rigid holder at a show or shop. i prefer semi-rigid holders to toploaders because they are easier to ship cards in using envelopes. back when i was doing a lot of ttm, i was always on the lookout for semi-rigid holders, and if i were vacillating about buying a card from the vintage bargain bin or not, a free semi-rigid holder would usually tip the scales in favor of the sale. heck, i even bought a binder of cards at a card show for cheap because the cards were in ultra pro platinum sheets. the cost of the thing was less than the sheets alone were worth! this opening paragraph will hopefully make sense later on...

i made an unplanned stop at one of the local card shops for a few minutes in mid-january and had just enough time to pull $42 worth of singles, for which i was charged $35. this included just over 40 nickel cards - most of which were cards from 2022 topps cosmic chrome. there was only one dodger in the bunch, however - this walker buehler

the other nickel dodger to be found was a 2022 topps holiday freddie freeman

card, who was joined by a holiday double play turn courtesy of jonathan india

i found a couple of 2022 stadium club parallels in the one nickel box i dug partway through, but was most pleased to find a regular old buster posey 

for the final tribute collection.

the majority of the other cards purchased were hall of famer singles priced at a quarter each and some dodger and braves insert and parallel singles that were also 4 for a buck. there were some highlights there, including a hank aaron insert 

numbered to 50 

and a fergie jenkins gypsy queen mini from 2013 numbered to 99

there were a good variety of dodger inserts that i brought home, but i didn't scan them all. i did scan this 2020 panini prizm numb3r5 game insert of cody bellinger

so that will have to do. i also added a fifty cent joc pederson blue chrome refractor from 2021 to my stack. big spender. those 63 cards came to a total of $16.

the rest of the cards i purchased came from the 50% off auto/relic bin. one was a dodger prospect auto, and i found a couple of 2022 dodger relics, plus a couple of triple threads relics for some trading partners. the last card i added to the stack was this one:

i did not know who jahmai jones was, and i didn't (still don't) know of anyone who is looking for a 2021 topps gold label gold framed autograph of him, but the fact that the card was in a thick one-touch convinced me to pull the trigger. it turns out that jones is in the dodger organization now, rehabbing from tommy john surgery and expected back possibly late in the 2023 season.

i didn't use one-touch cases until i started my hall of famer collection, really. now i have all of those cards in one-touches along with a few of my steve garvey cards. i know i can use this case for one of the thicker garvey cards i've acquired recently, and so the autograph card was just a bonus.

i was pretty pleased with what i walked out of the store with given the limited time i had. no cards in semi-rigid holders this time, but there's always next time. hopefully.