an embarrassment of opportunity

there were three card shows in the twin cities metropolitan area last saturday. the regular monthly club show, a semi-annual regional show at a local church, and a mall show. this would be the south metro, west metro, and east metro. i made it to two of them and could have hit the third but i haven't been too impressed with the mall shows over the last couple of years.

i started off with the church show, just because it usually features some different sellers than the club show (which is a given when they are on the same day), but it was a bit underwhelming in terms of the number of tables. it wasn't too crowded, however, so i was able to belly up to a few tables pretty easily.

first stop was an older couple who i have purchased cards from before. they have a good variety of stuff in their bargain boxes, although they don't have dime boxes. i started with the 6/$1 boxes, and my favorite find was this 2004 fleer greats of the game announcing greats card of kirk gibson and ernie harwell

but a close second was this 1993 upper deck robin yount and george brett insert

celebrating their 3,000 hits. i used to have a 3k collection and i still have a hard time passing up any cards that are based on that milestone for hitters or pitchers.

i had some good luck with the few dodgers i pulled as i didn't check want lists. thankfully, these were all needs

1994 upper deck mike piazza electric diamond parallel

1995 donruss studio mike piazza

1996 upper deck collector's choice raul mondesi silver signature parallel

and 2022 topps pro debut pee wee reese milb legends insert

technically, that reese card would be a red sox card as he was a member of their organization while playing in louisville, but i am making an exception because it's the champ.

i also added a 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor double play card to my collection

courtesy of jonathan villar. in all i wound up with 42 cards for $7, and then i took a look through their 3/$1 boxes. i came away with these 45 cards 

for $15, although the seller at first just asked for $3. i told her that my california math told me it was $15, but i was happy to pay her price. after that, she would call out to me as "california" when i walked by.

i poked around at a few other tables, but didn't bite on anything. then, on my last round of the church gymnasium i spotted a table with a small box that was maybe half full, but the cards in it were being offered for a dime apiece. i saw some inserts from 2023 topps archives and dug in, taking several home with me including these 9

plus freddie freeman's 1969 single player foil insert

as well as a few others from the set.

the box was mostly base cards, but there were a lot of 2023 panini donruss parallels and inserts, too.

i grabbed a couple of dodger parallels - jim gilliam's purple holo

and michael busch's carolina blue holo

those carolina blues are pretty sharp, in my opinion. the tim raines one is really nice.

i suppose this is a parallel, too

even though it is an insert. it's a rapture parallel of the elite series card for duke snider, to be exact.

i did grab a couple of base cards from the box, including a 1995 sportflix tony gwynn card

for the name/number on the back collection. in all, i wound up with 30 cards for $3 from this seller.

it was still somewhat early, so i decided to head to the club show. i will save that haul for a separate post. stay tuned!