Saturday brought another opportunity to attend a card show less than an hour from home. My son and I have attended shows at this location for 3 years with mixed results. Some I have walked out spending less than $10, while others cost me $20-30. It is never a wasted trip, though, as my wife and daughter go shopping, and we eat at my son's favorite fast food restaurant, KFC. Everybody wins.
We arrived about 15 minutes after the doors opened. The show was advertised as 80 tables, a little on the high side. About 30 people were walking the floor, so it was nice to have plenty of room. I did notice quite a few dealers I had never seen before. It is great to have new inventory to look through. We bought cards from 5 different dealers in the 2 hours we were there.
Our first purchase was from a father and daughter duo setting up at their first show. I am guessing she was 10-12 years old. She did most of the talking, which I thought was great. Their setup consisted of team boxes with most cards marked $1 or less. My son found these 3 Altuve cards for $2. The daughter was very polite and thanked us for the purchase. I wish she had more cards we needed.
The second dealer had a small box of 5 for $1 cards, a small box of $3-5 cards, and a small showcase of graded cards. We spent $6 at his table.
I have a Topps Fan Favorites Tudor auto, but I was not going to pass this up for $3. The 1985 Cardinals team is one of my favorites.
We pulled 15 cards for the other $3, including some needed Cardinals, an Altuve for my son, and some trade bait. The Chrome Platinum Anniversary cards are all numbered to 200 or less.
Our third purchase was from a new dealer. He had 4 tables full of team boxes. Some cards were in penny sleeves, while others were in top loaders. I hesitated to buy from him as nothing was marked, but he said nothing would be over a $1, so we dug in. My son was in heaven as there was a huge stack of Astros to go through. I went through his Cardinals and Pirates stacks. We spent $15 on this lot.
The dealer was right with his pricing, 21 cards for less than $1 each. I wish he had more Cardinals I needed. Finding a big group of Altuves for my son and some Pirates for a trader I owed was nice.
Dealer #4 had 2 monster boxes full of quarter cards. $4 got us these.
More of the same cards as the last deal: Cardinals, Altuve, and Pirates. I added a couple of Yankees including a Judge blue border.
The fifth dealer was my favorite. This gentleman had been a collector for over 40 years. He recently decided to try selling after purchasing a large vintage collection. This was his first show. He had a great setup with 3 showcases full of vintage cards. What caught my eye was none of them were graded. My type of dealer. I found quite a few nice Cardinals I needed but did not want to exceed my $75 show budget. I settled on these 5 for $50.
My first Uecker card is this nice 1965 Topps. He also has 1964 and 1966 Topps cards in a Cardinals uniform that I need. If you have any Uecker cards, you can agree they can be expensive. This one is in great shape, just 1 fuzzy corner.
There were 3 different copies of this 1967 Brock in various conditions. I chose the middle of the pack. Only thing wrong is a slight ding on the left edge.
I need 2 more 1968 Topps to finish my team set after crossing off this Gibson. Other than the centering issue from top to bottom, it is perfect.
These two 1973 Kellogs cards are very close to mint. I was not thinking about buying them, but the dealer threw them in the deal for free. After my purchase, I spent about 10 minutes talking with him and exchanged emails. He is more than happy to go through my vintage want list and bring the cards to the next show.
Nice finds... especially the vintage. That final dealer sounds really cool. Hope he has more stuff for you at the next show.
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