Saturday, February 24, 2018

Fun Time In the Burbs

My wife likes to spend hours at a time during the winter at King Spa & Sauana in the Chicago suburbs . . . and I don't. I very much dislike the heat and the idea of sitting around sweating with a bunch of other dudes. It doesn't appeal to me at all. We've found a solution though... we go during times when there are card shows!  Woot!

Holy cow, did I have a fun time last weekend!

Bowman's Best for a dime apiece?  Yes, please!

More shiny cardboard, but this time the boys in blue!
Yes, that's Kyle Hendricks' first Bowman Chrome card... also for ten cents. That might have been the steal of the day.

The dime boxes were very good to me.  I don't have much in Mike Schmidt department, but I do now.
 Back when my sister and I started collecting cards we would get a kick out of trying to pronounce Schmidt's last name. Six consonants and one vowel... for kids who didn't yet know who Mike Schmidt was... lol! Yeah, that was similar to Harry Caray trying to pronounce "Mark Grudzielanek" after seven or eight innings of beer. I can still hear my sister cackling at our attempts!

I have a new found appreciation for the early 80's as of late.
 More 80's... good card of great players.
 Gosh, I had fun picking through the numerous dime boxes. I even found some cards trying to pass as actual vintage.  I put those in the pile, too.
 I plucked out many cards for my Hall of Fame binder. This is just a small sampling, but I take what I can find of guys like Lou Boudreau. An actual vintage card of Boudreau, a guy who was an 8 time All-Star in the 1940's, is going to set me way back.
 Thank goodness for modern cards of vintage-type players!

Oh, Topps Gallery, look at what you have become.
 The artwork on the left is so clear and crisp... the 2017 version left me wanting more, but that didn't stop me from adding a dollar's worth of it to my pile from the dime box.

Did you know Mel Allen had a baseball card? I grew up watching This Week In Baseball and I still regularly use his catchphrase of "How about that?" I'm choosing to ignore that this is a New York Yankees card.

I've almost purchased a blaster of Panini Contenders numerous times, now that itch has been scratched for about three bucks. Yep, I added about thirty cards to my pile of the brand from the dime box.
 Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. That IS John Elway in the upper left. Good stuff!

Here's the last of my dime box purchases:
 I think the best of the lot is the Barry Larkin acetate card, but that's only because I already own a couple copies of the Griffey.

Yes, that is a bundt cake.  I was given a door prize ticket when I paid my entrance fee to the show. a half hour later I was the proud winner of a chocolate bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes and a $25 gift certificate to any dealer's table at the show.  (For the record, I split the cake with my wife and it was phenomenal!)

I made a bee line for one of the vintage dealers at the show and bought 30 star cards from the 1980 Topps set. The sticker price of the cards was $31, but he flipped through and said, "How about twenty-five."

"PERFECT!"

Yeah, it was a good morning. By the way, I now have a small 1980 Topps want list up and ready.  I still need the Rickey Henderson rookie, but I'll pick up a cheap/dinged copy at some point. The search for the perfect bargain is part of the fun!

I also made it to a brick and mortar shop and bought a brick of 1980 Topps commons from the establishment. Did I mention, I still had the "fun money" my grandfather had given me for Christmas?  Yeah, I'm forty years old, and my grandfather still gives me cash to have fun with.

Gosh, I'm spoiled rotten.

So, part of his gift to me was spent on a large stack of 1980 commons and the rest went toward what I consider to be my best purchases of 2018.

This is the last card to complete my run of Topps Ron Santo cards.
 Sure, it's not the best condition, but I think that can be said for most of the cards older than me in my collection...  and I'm okay with that. I like to think cards with rounded corners have a history they can tell.

Here's a couple of more cards that are almost as old as my grandfather.
 The "Lou Gehrig says..." card is from 1934 and looks like an original Goudey card, but it's not!  Take a gander at the back.
 Oooh, la, la! It was made in Canada by the World Wide Gum Company and half the card is in French. Pretty neat!

I have a mini Stan Hack collection and this is a great addition:
It's a 1935 National Chicle card... how cool is that?

It was a great day for cardboard as I made a huge dent in my 1980 Topps set, purchased bunch of trade bait from the dime boxes, and made some wonderful fuzzy-cornered purchases.

That night my wife and I went out for dinner and drinks with some friends. I topped the day off with a couple of delicious adult beverages from Hala Hahiki, a fun tiki bar.
Yes, that shot is on fire!

Good times, great company, and a really fun weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

14 comments:

  1. Nothing Bundt Cakes is phenomenal - possibly the best bakery in the area. I'm supremely jealous of that door prize. Looks like you had one heckuva show!

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  2. Wow what a card show, I'm impressed with the variety of cards you got. The Santo 1961 Topps card is stunning not to mention some nice looking Cubs cards.

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  3. I venture to the Chicago burbs almost every January for a b-movie festival that's held on the Northwestern campus. And every year, on the night before the fest, we hit the Hala Kahiki for some palm frond ambiance and giant fruit-infused drinks. One of my favorite places to hang.

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  4. I think you and I were at the same show (last Sunday at Orland Park, yes?). I was eagerly checking my ticket every hour to see if I was one of the winners of the bundt cake/$25 gift certificate. We probably crossed paths and didn't even know it! Super jealous of that Hendricks RC, I've been looking for a copy for a while now (it's a zero-year card!).

    Also, I was at the hot dog stand next to Hala Kahiki just this afternoon. Small world, eh?

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    1. It is a small world. I thought you might have been there, but I was fairly certain you weren't any of the overweight middle aged guys in front of the dime boxes. :)

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  5. Sounds like a pretty amazing day, congrats on all the great pick ups!

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  6. Great card show!

    I liked the Panini Contenders when it came out in 2015 a lot. It looks like, though, that they are using the same photos over and over for the old guys. That Molitor photo is the same one they used two or three times in 2015, and I think that's true for Elway too. So, if you buy one blaster from one year of it, you'll have bought enough, I think.

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  7. There's a Nothing Bundt Cakes in my city 2000 miles away. I never imagined that it was a national thing.

    And to think, with all your great dime box finds, it's the cake that keeps popping up in the comments.

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  8. what a haul Tom! Modern doesn't always turn my head but B-Best for a dime? I would've scooped them all up for trading! Gallery-what a disappointment! Just a crap release by Topps to make a few quick dollars off those of us with fond memories of the product. I bought ONE retail pack. Happy I did't waste more than those few dollars. (Apparently, I needed to vent...) Thanks for lending an ear.

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  9. Sounds like you and your wife had an awesome day. That bundt cake looks delicious. And those vintage cards are equally drool-worthy!

    I thought I had a 1980 Topps Rick Sutcliffe RC for you, but I must be imagining things. I should be able to hit your HOF wantlist though.

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    1. Thanks for looking for the Sutcliffe. Someday I'll get my HOF wantlist up on the blog, but it probably won't be until the summer. It's not really a priority right now.

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  10. Congratulations on completing your Santo run! Also, Grimm + Hack = Fantastic!!!

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  11. The icing on the cake was still a Nolan Ryan in a dime box.

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