i took a handful at my will

one month ago was the monthly twin cities collector's club show. i wonder how many collectors told their significant others that they were going shopping for valentine's cards, not baseball cards. i was able to get to the show without issue as my spouse was working. 

if you're wondering, the post title comes from the replacements' song "valentine". i did, however, take a handful (handfuls, really) of cards from three different sellers, including one that i hadn't really spent much time with in the past.

that seller, or sellers (they are a couple), have had a large number of monster boxes at the past couple shows i've attended. they mark these boxes as "dig boxes" and price the cards at a quarter apiece/five for a dollar. this time i noticed set prices for larger quantities, including 500 for $100 which represents no real savings from their regular pricing.

anyway, there was a vacancy at one spot at their table and i took it. i was pleased to immediately see a wide variety of card releases represented, with most cards being inserts or parallels or oddballs. i found some of each type, including the only card i have ever seen that features an escalator

that is a 2003 topps factory set exclusive draft picks card of ryan wagner. chad billingsley of the dodgers has one of these cards, but his photo is boring. here's the back:

i took a quick look at comc, and wagner has by far the most interesting card in this ten card set.

i got pretty excited when i hit a vein of these cards

that's the back of the 1985 hey hey cubs jack brickhouse playing card set. i currently feature one of these cards on my most wanted (non-dodgers) card list, and i was hoping to find it at this show. i did find one of the joker cards, but not the one i wanted

still, jack brickhouse and harry caray make for a fun card. i also grabbed the five of spades which includes a team photo of the 1984 national league eastern division champs

both ron cey and davey lopes are shown on this card - lopes is at the left (as you look at the card) end of the first row, and cey is the third person from the end of the first row, counting from the right (again, as you look at the card). cey's solo card is the one i really want from the set (lopes is not featured). i'll find another way!

these two cards really stuck out 

they are a pair of day glow orange parallels from 2013 topps archives. as i recall, this was a hobby store promotion and i remember getting a pack from three stars sportscards in minneapolis back when they were issued. or maybe it was their little canada location. anyway, i remember these cards and i can't say i've seen them in the wild before. they don't scan quite right, but i assure you they are day glow orange.

more parallel goodness was found with this 1996 pinnacle paul molitor starburst

this 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary sammy sosa blue prism refractor

and this 2024 panini donruss optic george sisler orange velocity parallel

i don't always go for panini stuff in these boxes, but i did this time. part of it is seeing cards like sisler's and new cards featuring personal favorites like bert campaneris

that's a 2025 panini donruss optic blue velocity parallel of the "other" campy. back when i was all in on the a's and "billy ball", campaneris' cards became some of my favorites as i tracked down a's cards back to 1965. and, here's the billy in billy ball, along with some other managers in parallel form

sadly, i didn't find any of tommy lasorda's panini parallels in the boxes i looked through.

i could almost forgive panini's logoless status to chase an insert set like the "numbers" from 2025 panini select as it has some congruence with my retired number mini-collection

however, in the end, i don't think i will complete the set.

i did find a few cards for my other mini-collections, though, including a 1993 upper deck sp deion sanders card

featuring dodger lurker jose offerman, and a 2007 bowman blue parallel of paul konerko's card

featuring a tatooine environment.

my big daddy vladdy also benefited 

with some new to my collection expo and angel cards.

there were dodgers to be had as well, and again i was very pleased with the variety. this is a 1991 playball usa (broder?) card of darryl strawberry

that i didn't already have. and this is a 1996 fleer ultra hideo nomo rising star insert

i have seen this card so many times, and i am sure i have at least two in my dupes box, but this one is the gold medallion edition parallel, and was a need until now. i guess fleer was an early adopter of the "parallels of inserts" phenomenon!

i didn't plan on finding cards like this 2000 bowman randey dorame retro-future parallel

or this 2002 upper deck victory kaz ishii rookie short print

(which i later found out was actually an insert in upper deck's 2002 rookie debut set) but there they were, and now they are in my collection.

same goes for this 2003 upper deck mvp odalis perez sportsnut insert

and this 2011 topps attax james loney foil parallel

just a crazy amount of variety in these boxes. this 2016 topps rainbow foil parallel

featuring dodgers zack greinke and clayton kershaw was more along the lines of what i would typically expect to find in these sorts of boxes, and it was still indicative of the majority of what i saw. still, the oddballs were ever present, like this 2022 sport kings volume 3 jackie robinson card

and these two 1977 1941 play ball reprints of pee wee reese and kirby higbe

i prefer reprints that are catalogued, but would have picked up the pee wee card regardless.

here are a couple more dodger duos from the same sets - 2025 panini select reese and don drysdale

and 2025 panini crusade gary sheffield and dalton rushing

pee wee and big d are from different subsets within the select set, and the rushing is a silver parallel of the base crusade card.

i did find a shiny card of sheffield from 2025 topps allen & ginter

that's a silver portrait parallel, plus a couple of holiday sorts of parallels. first, 2025 topps series 2 michael conforto

and then a 2025 topps holiday teoscar hernandez silver metallic parallel

i had made my way through three of the boxes at this point, with no clear path to the others, so the gentleman half of the couple handed me his "refill" box to go through. i found a couple of 2025 topps costco flagship cards

to add to my pile. actually, the pile had turned into a 600 count box. i asked him if he was going to count the cards, and he said that $100 was the max price regardless. he also noted that there was still a bit of room in my box and encouraged me to take some more cards, which i did, 

but that's enough from this seller for now.

the other seller that usually has some great stuff in his bargain boxes wasn't there. he is a snowbird and headed to arizona after the january show. he actually sold his bargain boxes to a different club member after that show, and that guy was there with the boxes. i found some cards to take, including a couple of parallels from 2023 topps holiday

a 2021 topps update yoshi gold parallel

a 2023 topps chrome update noah syndergaard sepia refractor parallel

and a 2023 topps now card featuring lebron james and mookie betts

the print run on that card was ridiculously high which explains it being in a bargain box.

as for non-dodgers, i grabbed a 2011 topps 60 years of topps rich gossage insert

because it was an original back

version, and a 2021 topps jake cronenworth card

numbered to 99 and ripped!

the last time i found a rip card in a bargain box, it was also ripped, but the interior card was still there. not the case this time. 

i stopped after developing this short stack of cards that included a few others not shown, and it was clear that i was not going to get the same sort of bargain pricing that the former owner of these boxes would have given, so i paid and moved on to another seller that i typically buy from at these shows. 

this is the dime box guy who keeps his dime boxes - one is his and one is his friend's so you have to keep the cards separate! - under his table. it's inconvenient and uncomfortable, but there are always cards that are worth more than a dime to me, like this 2025 topps allen & ginter chan ho park chrome mini parallel

and this 2017 bowman chrome minis cody bellinger card

i was never going to seek out a 2020 topps finest matt beaty "the man" insert

and now i don't have to. a lot of the cards in his box this time were chrome parallels, and i took a 2024 topps chrome tyler glasnow xfractor

and a 2020 topps chrome kevin newman sepia refractor (for the double play collection)

among others. 

very rarely, i will grab a base card out of these boxes. this time, i took jacque jones' 2004 fleer ultra card

because of its prominent featuring of rollie fingers' retired number on the wall of the oakland coliseum. i'll add this card as a header to my retired numbers collection. i just wish it were cropped slightly differently to show more of the jersey and number 34.

by the time i resurface from looking through the dime boxes, i am usually ready to move on. this time, i actually looked at his table top and saw a small box of bargain relics and autos. i picked out this 2020 topps hyun-jin ryu 1985 relic

for two bucks.

one thing i was hoping to do at the show was find some 2026 topps cards to complete my dodgers team set. there is one guy who always has new stuff, but i've vowed to never buy from him again. i once saw him at a target searching packs, and the last time i tried to buy a couple of cards from him, he wanted to reprice them. no thanks.

the only other place i saw 26 topps was at the table of the couple i mentioned first in this post. these cards did not count as part of my 600 count box haul, but that was fine with me. i added the dodgers' team card

the shohei ohtani/yoshinobu yamamoto combo card

plus the two league leader cards

i needed. i didn't see dalton rushing's card, so i'll have to find that elsewhere. i did pick up a few inserts, though, including 1991 cards of yamamoto

and mookie betts

as well as betts' titans of the game card

and ohtani's stars of mlb card

all in all, it was a pretty good day at the card show. the march show is next week, and i might just see what i can find. stay tuned.