Card Show Recap

It has been a very slow year for me when it comes to card shows.  I attended one back in August that I did not spend a dime at.  Prior to yesterday, that was it.  St. Louis Sports Collectors holds a number of shows during the year on the west side of St. Louis.  I try to attend the December show because a lot of dealers run specials for the holidays and I usually need to find some cards for care packages.  It also gives me an excuse not to go shopping in the over crowded St. Louis malls.  So while my wife and kids spent 2 hours in Toys R Us, I was able to go through numerous dime and quarter boxes.

The result was 90 cards that I paid a total of $16 for.  All cards were refractors, numbered, or Cardinals needs.  The non Cardinals are for team collectors I have traded with in the past.  There was such a great variety in the boxes I could have spent more, but was not sure how much time I had so I kept the non Cardinal purchases to a minimum.  On to the good stuff.

I should know off the top of my head if I needed this Lankford buyback, but I cannot remember if I had it or just saw it on EBAY.  For a dime, I will take a chance.

I only picked out a handful of base cards to finish some team sets.  One dealer had a ton of Heritage and Archives singles, but they were not sorted and I did not want to dig in hopes of finding one or two cards.  I printed out my wantlist from TCDB so I knew I needed these.

I had zero 2017 Bowman Chrome Cardinals, so it was easy to pick these two out.  Diaz was traded to the Blue Jays over the weekend for a low A outfielder.  Not sure why the Cardinals traded for one when they are trying to get rid of 2 or 3.

Although the players did not get past Double A, I will take Bowman Chrome refractors any day.  These 2 are from 2011 Bowman Draft.

The players on these 2016 Bowman Draft refractors have a better chance of making the Majors.  Carlson played in low A last year as an 18 year old and held his own.  Gomber was added to the 40 man roster last month to protect him from the rule 5 draft.  He should start the year in the Triple A Memphis rotation.

There were at least 25 copies of this Tony Cruz refractor.  I guess the dealer was hoping for a small gold mine that did not happen.  I will take any Topps Gold Cardinals for a quarter or less.  The 2012 cards do not look quite as golden as other years.  More of a bronze in my opinion.
  

At this same show last December I bought all of the 2008 and 2009 Cardinals DAV singles for a dime, but the dealer wanted a $1 each for the Molina and Pujols cards.  I think it was the same dealer that had them for a quarter this year.  Both sets are now complete.

Most of the time Molina base cards sell for 50 cents each at St. Louis area shows.  I was shocked to find a small stash of inserts like these Topps Chrome Xfractors for 25 cents each.  

Only one refractor here, but a couple of other nice Yadis.

This 2013 Finest is a base card, but I needed for a team set.  The other card is a 2008 card given away on Christian Family Day at Busch Stadium.

The 2016 Donruss on the left is a 1982 insert, the Optic is a regular card.

The 2015 Diamond Kings Aficianodo inserts is one of the few Panini cards that shows Molina batting.  Give me the catching poses anyday.  The helmet looks so little league without the logo.

There were a lot of other boxes I did not get a chance to look at.  I hope some of these dealers may be at the Winter Warm Up in January.  It was great to see quite a few collectors under the age of 10 at the show.  One of the dealers I bought from was letting them pick out 10 dime cards for free.  A simple but great gesture that a lot more people should do.  Even better was hearing thank yous coming from the kids.