It Pays to go to Card Shows

 A week ago Saturday my son and I attended our first card show of 2022.  The timing of the show was perfect, as my son had a baseball tournament about 10 miles from the mall where it was held.  After he won 2 games in the morning, we hit up the show.  

We attended 2 shows at the same mall last year.  The first one was pretty good, the second just ok.  We spent a little over 2 hours at the show going through countless bargain boxes.  We bought cards from 7 different dealers.  I believe it was advertised as 50 tables, but I would guess there were a few more.  Lots of cards to show, so here goes.

First dealer had a few dollar boxes sorted by various sports.  We found 1 Altuve for my son's collection.

The next dealer had various quarter, fifty cent, and dollar boxes.  I spent about 15 minutes going through the quarter boxes.  I could have spent more, the cards were all mixed in with other sports.  

This mall does not have the best phone reception, so I was not able to check my TCDB inventory to see if I needed these Cardinals.  I lucked out and needed all 4.  The Carpenter is numbered to 250.

I love finding cheap trade bait in these boxes.  I try to stick to teams I know I can trade.  Anything colored, premium brands, or parallels are what I look for.  In all I pulled 30 cards and got a small deal for $7.

Dealer #3 had one box of cards marked 6 for $1.

I needed the Woodford for my Cardinals collection, the rest are trade bait.  

Dealer #4 also had a bunch of quarter boxes.  These were sorted by sport thankfully.  

More trade bait with the exception of an Altuve.  I am a sucker for parallels from 2021 Chronicles and Mosaic.  

Dealer #5 had a box of older autographs marked 4 for $5.  I managed to find 4 Cardinals I did not have.

Nothing high dollar here, but 2 numbered autos are hard to pass up.  I did not have an autograph of Williams yet, so Panini will have to do since he is no longer with St. Louis.  

The same dealer also had 2 monster boxes full of dime cards.  I found 30 of them for another $3.

I only needed the Gorman for my Cardinals collection, but the other 2 refractors should not be hard to trade.

The rest of the dime cards were trade bait.  

Dealer #6 was actually packing his stuff up for the day.  I found this a little odd since it was only around 3:00 in the afternoon and the show ran until 8 on Saturday and also Sunday afternoon.  He said things were slow on his end since he only had baseball.  He was wearing an Astros hat, so my son asked if he had any Altuve cards.  The dealer knew of 1 and sold it for $1.

The Topps Holiday short prints are not that hard too find, but still cool to get for a buck.

I wish I had found dealer #7 earlier in the day.  He was at the end of the mall somewhat by himself.  His quarter boxes were sorted by team.  They were full of parallels, inserts, and premium brand base cards.  I pulled 40 cards from him for $10.  

These 8 Altuve cards pushed my son over the 500 mark.  He already has his sights on 600.  The dealer mentioned he has a ton more cards to add to these boxes before the next show at the same mall in July.  I will be sure to find him first.

The rest of my $10 was spent on trade bait.  Just an awesome assortment of cards.  Most of the Pirate and Yankee cards are already in the mail.  

We spent $30 total at the show, but our last pickup was in the parking lot.  It was a very windy day that afternoon.  On the way out to our vehicle, my son spotted something floating in the air that looked like a dollar bill.  With no one around, I told him to go get it.  

I made sure there were nobody close before I allowed him to keep Mr. Jackson.  Not sure if this was lost by a card show attendee, a regular mall shopper, or someone a mile away.  My son's first thought was to go back into the show and spend it, but we decided to call it a day.  Spending a net of $10 on 120 cards is a pretty good day.