card shop battle!

i was out on the west coast a couple of weeks ago, and before i went i stopped at one of the card shops in the twin cities where i wound up picking up a few cards from the various bins. once i got to the west coast, i visited a couple of shops - a couple in the bay area and one further down the coast. i figured i'd share some of the cards i picked up via a card shop battle!

starting in the twin cities, i spent some time digging through the shop's nickel cards and found a few that interested me enough to take them home, including a 2022 panini donruss independence day adolis garcia card

i was disappointed to see garcia not able to play in the full world series, as he was on a tear.

here's a 2018 topps stadium club ichiro card

that fits in to my name/number on the back mini-collection.

i was surprised to find a bunch of cards from one of the 2022 topps 582 montgomery sets (set 5 to be precise)

and i spent sixty cents to bring these cards home with me. i'm not 100% sure why i did - probably just because they were different from all the other base cards in the boxes.

i moved on to the quarter and fifty cent cards which are conveniently sorted by team. somehow there was a 2022 topps now clayton kershaw card

for the taking, and i also grabbed several numbered dodger parallels. the two that surprised me the most were these two 2021 topps gallery gavin lux parallels

which are the orange and blue pattern parallels, numbered /25 and /50, respectively. they were a quarter apiece.

this shop also has a 50% off bin filled with autos and relics, and so i came away with a $1.50 auto of former dodger andre jackson

from 2022 topps stadium club.

in addition to all the singles i took, i bought a pack of 2023 topps chrome and found a base shohei ohtani card

that i may well be bringing back to the shop for a credit should he win the american league mvp.

all in all, it was a productive time spent at the local card shop!

once i got to california, i had some time to kill before getting down to the business that i was there for, so i went to a shop in san jose.  this shop had a very small box of dollar cards on a counter, and i grabbed a couple to purchase - a 2015 topps chrome corey seager perspectives insert

and a 2017 bowman walker buehler prospects yellow parallel

turns out i didn't need either.

i also bought a blaster of 2023 topps allen & ginter, and when i got the register there was a small pile of loose ginter cards. the guy said i could have them - some box breaker left them behind. i grabbed a few that interested me, like these two "only in..." minis from chicago

and kansas city

along with this ice cream sundae

dessert mini, and a new vladdy for my pc from the spotless spans insert set

the blaster wasn't too exciting, even though it did include this relic

of some guy from some thing.

i made my way down the coast, and a few days later stopped in at another card shop. this one had a couple of two-row boxes on the counter that included dollar cards. i dug through and found a few to purchase, including an infinitely better ginter relic

that joc pederson plain white swatch is from 2016 topps allen & ginter. i couldn't resist owning mitch white's crappy autograph for a buck, picking up this 2017 bowman's best best of '17 auto

brutal, but i wish him well in toronto or wherever he winds up in the future.

i probably overpaid for this yellow 2021 topps cody bellinger

and this 1994 upper deck sp bo jackson die cut

but what the heck. i was on vacation. the bo fits in to my lurker collection because rodney cline carew is in the background, even if it doesn't look that way in the scan.

of all places to find a signed 1978 topps card of the late adrian devine

i would not have picked a west coast card shop, but here we are. i am not sure if it is legit but it matches ok with some other examples i've seen. i still don't have any illusions about completing my 1978 topps autographed set, but this (and the recent long lost ttm i received) had me motivated to pick up a few more cards (future post coming).

a few more dollar cards that i settled on included a 2021 topps heritage joey votto target exclusive red border variation

a 2022 topps heritage 1973 buyback

and a 2014 topps supreme die-cut autograph of garin cecchini

i had assumed at the time of purchase that it was his brother gavin who signed, making this a nice pickup for baseball card breakdown, but alas, it is a card of the other cecchini.  still, it's the first supreme card i've seen in person and it only set me back a buck.

the last thing i took out of the dollar box was this pack of 30 cards

that is, of course, a sealed pack of the 1997 upper deck "trade" cards that were available through a wrapper redemption. eddie murray as an angel on the front, and hideki irabu

on the back. i sent away for these cards back in 1997 and busted it open to get at the todd zeile dodger card. good times.

the last purchase i made at this shop was a jumbo pack of 2023 topps series 2. not much in there other than this sticker autograph of the "other" yankee rookie, oswald peraza

at least it's the black parallel.

i actually returned to this shop a couple of days later and bought a hobby box of 2023 topps update, but i'll save that for a future post.

eventually i made my way back to the bay area and stopped at another shop not too far from the airport. like the first shop i visited in cali, this one had a small box of dollar cards on the counter and i bought this 2015 topps archives clayton kershaw 1990 #1 draft pick insert

along with a 2023 topps silver pack jose altuve

double play card, and a 2002 topps chrome ralph houk 1952 world series refractor parallel

you don't see those in refractor form too frequently.

i also bought a box of update from this shop, and will post about it later.

i should mention that i also bought a 2023 bowman mega box at a target somewhere in california, and netted this hao yu lee mojo auto

lee is the player that the phillies sent to detroit for michael lorenzen last season. he seems to have done ok in the arizona fall league over the past month.

i guess i should declare a winner in the card shop battle, but they all had their moments. i just wish those west coast shops would set up some dime boxes instead of focusing so intently on boxes and hits. but, as i realized while driving past the location of my childhood lcs that is now a parking lot for a mostly empty larger retail mall, such is progress.