My Best Card Show Find of 2018

By my last count, I have been to seven different card shows in 2018. My main focus why attending these shows has been to pick up vintage cards for my Hall of Fame binder and to pick through dime boxes for trade bait.

This past Sunday was the annual Peoria baseball card show. That's right, P-town only gets a show once a year. Back in the early '90s there was a local show every month and sometimes twice a month. I miss those days.

The closest thing to a dime box I found this weekend was a "6 cards for $1" box. I found five Ryne Sandberg cards I thought I might need and a nice Jim Thome for the dollar spent.

 Unfortunately, I only needed two of the Sandberg cards. I was too lazy to look at my list on my phone. Oh well, I can survive with a few Ryno duplicates.

The Thome card was a nice find and fits well into my modest player collection.

Hall of Fame? Four more players to cross off the list.

I'm not really concerned about condition, but I do wish the Jim Bunning card wasn't so off center. I have plenty of Fergie Jenkins cards in my collection, but they are all in his player binder . . . so I needed one more for the HOF Binder. The Hank Aaron and Don Drysdale came from the same dealer and were marked down 50% off the sticker price. I checked on eBay, and with the discount I was getting a fair, but not outstanding deal. Good enough for me.

Here's a purchase I didn't see coming.

 Anywhere else in the country and this card is probably in a $1 or $2 auto bin. Here in P-town, where Anthony Parker was THE MAN for the Bradley Braves. it set me back five bucks. I don't care. I never thought I would find an auto of A.P., let alone in a Braves jersey! I now own autos of Parker, Jim Les, and Hersey Hawkins . . . three of the biggest names in Bradley's history.

My find of the year? Oh man. A gentleman was selling a bunch of sets for 75% off. There was plenty of stuff from the late '90s and early aughts to be had.  But I had my eyes on this:

I bought the 1983 Topps set for the price of a blaster. A little quick math and that works out to be two-and-a-half cents per card. As you can see from the picture, the set includes the three big rookie cards, and everything seems to be in near-mint condition. I couldn't be happier about this purchase!

One of my long-term collecting goals is to own/build every Topps sets going back to when I was born to when I first exited the hobby (1978-1993). Filling a hole for $20 is really good feeling.