no national for me, but some card show and shop experiences nonetheless!

even though i am not too far from chicago, i haven't been to a national since the 1990's when it was held in anaheim. i am ok with that, although i did look in to a proxy shopper this year. what i asked this attendee to be on the lookout for were cheap dodger inserts and parallels (assuming dime and quarter boxes still exist at the national) plus a couple of specific vintage items. i exerted no pressure, of course, so have no expectations surrounding the request. i'll just wait and see!

i saw fuji post about a bba started by matt at cards over coffee and figured i would share some cards of my own as part of the exercise. i noticed in fuji's post that he showed off some autograph cards, so i'll show one that has been in my scanned folder for a while - 2022 topps archives pedro guerrero fan favorites

topps hit the nail on the head last year by including petey in the checklist. he has an attractive autograph and truly was a fan favorite for many dodger fans back in the early and mid-1980's. here's the back of the card:

his 1985 season was monstrous.

back to the card show angle, i did attend the local monthly club show back near the end of june. one of the regular dealers who has had some tremendous bargain boxes was there again, and i spent most of my time digging through his stuff. it wasn't nearly as fun as previous shows have been, as it seemed a bit picked over as far as inserts and parallels were concerned. there were a lot of clumps of cards featuring certain stars - frank thomas, ichiro, mike piazza, ken griffey jr, vladimir guerrero, etc - and i picked up a few vladdys for my collection, including these six:

it was nice to find the 2011 topps heritage all-star short print for a quarter, and the two 2007 topps cards weren't regular old base...

...they were the red text back variations

remember that lame deal?

i kept digging and found some 2006 topps rookie of the week cards

i remember getting a couple of these in real-time from a cards/magazine shop in downtown minneapolis back in '06. the brooks robinson is the worst of the bunch since they used old man brooks on his rookie 1957 card design.

it is quite possible that i have passed over this card in dime boxes many times.

it's a 1997 fleer mike piazza goudey greats insert. i always thought these were from 1998, and so there is a good chance i thought that piazza was shown as a met here. this time, i saw the "la" on his helmet and realized his blue jersey was not that of a metropolitan at all!

i did find a bunch of cards similar to those that i was hoping for my proxy to find in chicago - dodger inserts and parallels - and here is a taste

it's sort of weird to me that a.j. pollock was featured in some insert sets, but i guess that's good?

i enjoyed finding a few walgreens yellow parallels from 2019 topps update

and i continue to think it is shameful that russell martin didn't get a true final tribute in 2020.

my favorite find from the show was picked out of one of those ichiro card "clumps"

name/number on the back photo variation from 2015 topps for a quarter? yes please!

fast forward a few weeks, and i stopped at one of the lcs in a twin cities suburb one morning to dig through their bargain boxes and maybe find a pack of 2023 topps chrome. i struck out on the latter, but found a few interesting cards while looking through card singles.

the best one, in my opinion, was this 2021 topps gallery modern artists mookie betts blue parallel

it's not too often you see teeth like that on a baseball card. it's numbered to 99 and i paid $2 for it.

most of the cards i grabbed were from the nickel boxes, including a dodger stadium card - 2019 topps chrome lorenzo cain

and a 2022 topps chrome ben baller josh donaldson

those ben baller cards from 2022 are pretty sharp, but i only found donaldson and one other twin in the box. not sure what i am going to do with it - maybe send it to brian if he's still collecting - but i couldn't leave it behind for a nickel.

the second most interesting card (well, cards, really) i picked up were some sga cards featuring various kansas city royals. this one is going in my name/number on the back collection

here's the back:

i knew the cards weren't from 2012 despite the design because of the inclusion of whit merrifield as well as the reference to the 2015 world series title there on the back. it turns out these are from 2018 and are kcp&l (kansas city power & light) police cards. decent oddball.

while i was in the store, no fewer than five individuals came in to have someone look at their cards and potentially make an offer. three were pretty much turned away, while one guy said he was just looking to see if the store was interested in what he brought in because he had a bunch more at home and was looking to reduce his collection. he noted that he started rebuilding his collection after returning from vietnam and finding that his cards had been thrown out. i inferred that he had a lot of vintage - i think what he brought in were a couple of complete sets of topps football cards from the late sixties plus one from 1970.

the other guy was quickly ushered in to the shop's back office which shares a wall with where i was digging through boxes. i could hear the shop owner explaining the current market and talking about vintage - and then he started talking about a 1952 mickey mantle. the guy had either walked in to the shop with a 1952 topps mantle or a 1952 bowman mantle, but i am assuming topps because that is the definitive "'52 mantle", right? anyway, the shop owner came out of the office a few minutes later and told the other guy working that he had just bought a '52 mantle.

and to think, i didn't have to go to the national to be in the presence of the holy grail!