After spending the day in St. Louis last Friday, my son and I headed into the other direction on Saturday morning for a day in Indianapolis. It sucked not being able to stay and watch my daughter's volleyball tournament, but I had gotten tickets to the Indianapolis Indians game back in February before her tournament schedule was out. After sitting through 2+ months of her games already, my son was looking forward to skipping some.
As luck would have it, there was a monthly card show being held from 8-2. Since we did not have to be at the game until 4:30, there was plenty of time to hit up the show. We arrived about 10:30 and spent a little over 2 hours there. Most of our time was spent sorting through dime and quarter boxes. I forgot to add up the exact number of cards, but we spent $15 total for about 25 cards that are trade bait and all the Cardinals below.
The wifi in the building was not great and my phone did not get very good reception, so I was unable to check my inventory on TCDB. Most of what I bought where Cardinals I hoped I needed. I did end up getting about 10 duplicates, but I am sure they will find a good home. The oldest card I bought was a 1983 Glossy send in of Bruce Sutter. I had never seen the 1991 Ozzie card before. 20 cents well spent on these 2.
One dealer had 5 monster boxes of mixed sports that included premium brands like Tier One, Triple Threads, and Ultimate Collection. Would it be too much to ask to separate sports? I really do not care to flip through basketball and football cards. For a quarter each I jumped at these numbered Cardinals.
The red backgrounds on these jumped out at me while I was flipping cards. The Jordan is numbered to 3000. The McGwire is from the 1999 Home Run Heroes set that was released across several brands. I have never seen the Pacific card before this show.
I will buy Topps Gold Cardinals that I need any day of the week for a quarter.
How cool are these inserts for not being licensed? The Holliday is a Clear Vision insert that is beautiful in hand. I thought I had the Molina, but actually needed it. His inserts are very easy to trade to other Cardinals fans, but this one will stay with me.
One dime box had a huge stack of Brandon Moss cards for some reason. You never know what you are going to find sometimes. The 2017 Foil and Gold cards are my first step in completing his rainbow (not really).
Though not as sharp as the other unlincensed cards, these 2018 Donruss teal cards numbered to 199 were still a good find for a quarter each.
I am a sucker for Bowman inserts, even if the players are not with the Cardinals anymore. Reyes is currently in Triple A trying to gain some control. I would think after a few starts in Memphis he will be back in St. Louis before too long.
I loved colored refractors. Does not matter if they are pink, sepia, or x-fractors. $1 well spent.
I don't make it a habit of buying base cards for a quarter, but I have not seen too many of these brands for trade. You might be lucky and find them on Sportlots for 18 cents each, but factor in shipping costs and 25 cents is a bargain.
Another brand I have had trouble finding is 2018 Bowman Chrome. Nice to find these in a dime box.
It is great to see Ozuna hitting well so far this year. I have my doubts the Cardinals will try to resign him after 2019, but maybe he can help them back to the playoffs this year. DeJong has started out great this year, as has Hicks. He made Yellich look bad on a strikeout yesterday to complete a sweep of the Brewers.
I did find a few 2019 inserts in the quarter boxes. I might have been able to get these cheaper or in a trade later this year, but it is hard to deny instant gratification. It was nice going to a show somewhere other than St. Louis where I would have seen a lot of these cards for 50 cents or a dollar each. The drive to Indy is about the same as St. Louis for me, so I may have to keep this local show in mind.
After a lunch break, we still had a couple of hours to kill before heading to the ballgame. I remember seeing a sign at the show for a local shop not too far away. Since my phone now had reception, I was able to find Indy Card Exchange pretty quick. Right inside the door were 3 monster boxes of recent baseball base cards for a dime each. By recent I mean a ton of 2018 and 2019 products including Bowman that was just released last week. Since we did not hit any Cardinals in our Bowman break the day before, my son and I started digging.
We found all 5 Cardinals that were not in the prospect set. The Goldschmidt does not look too bad for being airbrushed.
Other 2019 finds included our first Diamond Kings Cardinals and the last non sp Gypsy Queen needed for the team set.
It was great to find some prospect brands in the dime boxes including 2018 Bowman Chrome prospects that I did not find at the card show. Counting some other cards not shown, I found 24 cards out of the dime boxes. My total was $1.87. I asked the women if she charged me enough, and she said it was great to see young collectors in the store like my son having some fun. I spent a few minutes talking to her and her husband after I paid. I mentioned we came to town for the Indians game, but was worried the constant light rain all day would cause the game to be cancelled. Turns out the gentleman is friends with someone in the front office. He assured me the game would be played. I thanked him for the great deal on the cards and the game tip and headed to the ballpark.
The major reason I picked this Indians game was the pregame team autograph session. Of course I am not a Pirates fan, but my good trading partner Ron B is. I was able to get 15 cards signed for him by players including Kevin Kramer, Will Craig, Ke'Bryan Hayes, and Mitch Keller. I kept a couple of cool looking ones for myself.
Both of these guys were very friendly. They should be helping the Pirates before too long. Keller pitched in Sunday's game and went 6 shutout innings striking out 8 batters.
My favorite autographs came from former Cardinals Tyler Lyons. As for the game itself, the Indians lost in extra innings 3-1 long after my son and I had left. With temps in the low 40s and a damp cold wind, we did not last very long. The two hour drive home and a full day of Easter gatherings on Sunday also made it easier to leave early. All in all it was a long but very enjoyable day spent with my son.
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