Card Show to Finish Cincy Trip

 After a fun 2 days spent at Great American Ballpark for a 2 games and a tour, our trip was coming to an end Sunday.  Before we left town, we hit up a card show at an American Legion.  The listing on Beckett.com advertised 50 tables, and it was only 10 minutes from our hotel so I thought it was worth the time to check it out.  My hope was to find some Cardinals that I did not have to pay a local premium for.

This was the farthest show from home that I have attended.  I like going to new locations, but doubt I would drive 4 hours to a show.  Good thing we were already in the area.  There was a solid 50-60 tables set up.  We spent about 2.5 hours there digging through a variety of bargain boxes.  For the most part we skipped over the showcases as most of them contained non baseball, graded, or mostly Reds cards.  I spent a total of $35 at 5 different tables.  

My first deal was by far the worst.  This dealer had a couple of monster boxes that was sorted by sports and alphabetically.  It was a great set up, but none of the cards were priced.  The dealer said nothing would be over a $1.  He was correct, as he charged $5 for these 6 cards.  While that is not terrible, most of these I would view as $0.25 or $0.50 cards.  I handed over an Abe Lincoln and promised myself not to buy anything else before it was priced.

The next dealer had about the same setup as the first, but his cards were clearly marked in dime boxes.  This was right up my alley.  Lots of nice cards, but I only ended up with 20 for $2.

I did not do a good job of checking my wantlist, as I only needed 2 of the 6 Cardinals.  Not a big deal though as I have plenty of fellow Cardinals fans to trade with.  My son did need the 2021 Finest Altuve.

The rest of the cards I pulled with other traders in mind.  4 cards in the top scan have already been traded, while all the Yankees and Pirates in the bottom scan will be going to Trading Bases member Ron B.

My third purchase came from a dealer with 3 $0.50 boxes.  My son actually pulled all these cards while I was busy at another table.  $3 gained me these cards.

He did a great job pulling 4 Cardinals I needed and 2 Altuves for himself.  The 2004 Tribute Bob Gibson was my favorite.  

While my son was flipping through his boxes, my wife and I were set up at a dealer who was nothing but vintage.  He also had a great setup.  1950s cards were $3, 1960s cards were $1, and 1970s cards were $1 or $0.50.  All cards were sleeved and sorted by number.  I am not usually a vintage guy, but this was too easy to find Cardinals from my want list.  The dealer even gave me a discount.  I bought 19 cards from the 1960s for $15.

                                                                                
                                                                            1966

    

                                                                                1968

                                                                            1969

All of the cards in are great condition.  They are not mint, but are free from creases and for the most part have 4 good corners.  

The last dealer I bought from had 6 1800 count boxes full of quarter cards.  My wife and I dug through them all while my son took a lunch break.  We ended up with 40 cards for $10.

I had a blast going through the boxes.  There were base cards mixed in, but for the most part the cards were inserts or parallels.  I was most excited to find the 2014 blue parallel.  Just need I more card to finish that team set.

There was a ton of yellow parallels from various brands.  I was thrilled to only pay a quarter for the Jordan Walker camo parallel.  Glad he is still with the Cardinals after yesterday's trade deadline.  There was talk he would be included in any deal for Juan Soto.

I managed to find some base card needs.  The 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary set is massive with over 20 Cardinals in it.  Wish I had found a few more, but these are a good start.

Even though he did not help with the search, my son did come away with 5 more new Altuve cards.

More Pirates and Yankees that will shipped off very soon.  Ron B attended the National last week for 3 days and promised me a nice Cardinals package.  Can't wait to see what he found.

I could have pulled a lot of other cards for trade bait, but wanted to stay at $10.  The Mountcastle and Pedroia are already spoken for.

This was one of the better shows I had been to in some time.  I could have spent more time there, but with a 4 hour drive home and a son who wanted more food we decided to hit the road.