worth the price of admission

i went to the semi-annual big old card show in st. paul a couple of weeks ago. this was a hotel show last fall, but has been held in the st. paul rivercentre for the last two occurrences, which is a big improvement in terms of space.

i went on the friday - it was open on thursday to vendors and vip types - and so i am sure i missed some of the larger crowds who were likely there on saturday and sunday. still, most tables were full and some patrons were in full body odor mode.

as you might imagine, most tables seemed focused on slabbed stuff, and there were more than a couple tables that were solely pokemon, but i still found some bargain boxes to dig through, which is my card show jam. i wound up with about 200 cards in total, and i didn't pay more than $2 for any of them. in fact, the average price turned out to be around 70 cents - a bit more if you factor in the cost of admission which was $15.

for that price, i was given a paper ticket, and not a qr code

that was unexpected as i didn't know paper tickets were still a thing at any venue.

as we move to the cards, i will go straight to what was worth the price of admission. this 2024 topps chrome shohei ohtani card

is presumably worth $20 due to the anticipated mvp buyback program and ohtani's status as the national league frontrunner. the dealer i bought it from had it in a 50 cent box. that same dealer had this 2024 topps trading card day ohtani

for the same price. i wound up buying some other cards from his box just to spend a little bit more for him.

another dealer had this 2024 topps chrome black ohtani

in a dollar box. here's yoshinobu yamamoto's 2024 topps chrome card

that was in the same 50 cent box as the ohtani chrome card.

some other dodger favorites that i picked up at the show include this 2023 topps heritage bill buckner 50th (really 49th) anniversary card

and a 2015 topps heritage adrian gonzalez action variation card

from a quarter box of 70s and 80s cards came this 1984 sports design products duke snider card

and the lone card that i paid $2 for was this 2020 topps corey seager photo variation

i am always going to pull albert pujols dodger cards from these bargain boxes, and some of the ones i found were these three chrome parallels/ben baller edition cards

i also found a sheldon neuse dodger card - it's a 2022 panini donruss pink fireworks parallel autograph

of a guy who played in 33 games for the dodgers in 2021. i don't think he has a non-autograph card showing him as a dodger.

i am not going to add panini sets to my dodger want lists anymore, but i did still spend a few minutes looking through a big monster box of 2024 donruss. i was mostly looking for parallels for others but did grab a jackie robinson foil parallel

plus a couple of vladimir guerrero inserts

that first one is an homage to the 1984 action all-stars oddball release. another seller had this 1999 pacific revolution tripleheader

which was a no-brainer for me to pick up for some loose change.

i did not know that 2024 topps dynamic duals was a thing, nor that it was out, but someone was selling a few singles and i grabbed a dusty baker and lou piniella mashup

i figure we will continue to see johnnie b baker show up in future card releases which is fine by me.

speaking of mash ups, here is a 2022 topps stadium chrome bo jackson card showing him shaking hands with ronald reagan

i thought that someone might want the card, but there is a scratch on it above ronnie's head, so i put this one in my lurkers collection.

my double play collection benefitted from the show with this 2023 topps chrome josh smith sepia refractor parallel

and this 2006 topps chrome felipe lopez red refractor parallel

the lopez parallel is numbered to 90, but that's not the lowest numbered card i picked up at the show. i will probably show more of those cards in a different post, but here is a sample of the variety of parallels and serial numbered cards that i added to my stacks

i was also somewhat surprised to be able to buy a fernando tatis jr rookie card for less than a buck

even if it is from a set like 2019 topps holiday.

there was so much more to my haul, but i will stop there for now. maybe there will be another post with cards from this show, but i have another show's worth of stuff to show off so who knows.

trevor hoffman is in my hall of famer collection

i failed to get a post up this past weekend about the semi-annual show i went to recently at the st. paul rivercentre, but i will share today that i picked up an autograph card of trevor hofffman at the show to add him to my hall of famer collection:

that is a 2024 topps chrome black base autograph card. here is the back:

no bells or whistles on this puppy, that's for sure.

i had looked at hoffman autos in the past, but never pulled the trigger. i got this one from a seller who had it in a dollar (unless marked) box. the sticker on the back said $5 but i wound up with $40 worth of cards that he charged me $35 for, so you might say this was a freebee.

at the time of hoffman's retirement following the 2010 season, he was baseball's all-time leader in saves with 601 to his credit. mariano rivera passed him the following year, but he is still number 2 on the all-time list with kenley jansen the closest active pitcher to him, and he is 176 saves as of may 1, 2024 behind.

hoffman spent the vast majority of his career with the padres, and that is how i wanted him to be represented in this collection. he also pitched for the marlins to start his career and the brewers to end it, and for a while it seemed like the new hoffman autos hitting the secondary market were late career brewers cards. 

the main reason i was only going to go with a padres card is that i saw trevor hoffman pitch in person just twice. the first time was september 16, 1998 and the dodgers were playing the padres in san diego. heading into the 9th, the padres had a seven run lead, so it was definitely not a spot where i expected to hear hell's bells and see hoffman. the dodgers rallied, however, to close the gap to four runs, and with two on and two out, hoffman was summoned from the bullpen. he struck out jim eisenreich to end the game and earn career save number 156. i also saw him pick up a more traditional save on may 27, 2002 against the rockies (and their trio of todds - helton, zeile, and hollandsworth) in san diego when he set down terry shumpert, juan pierre, and juan uribe in order in the top of the 9th to complete the pads' 8-5 victory.  

hoffman made it into the hall of fame in 2018, his third year on the ballot. as a reminder, you can see hoffman and the other members of my hall of famer collection here!