2026 Card Show #5 Recap

Saturday brought an unexpected trip to a card show.  I had plans to do some yard work, but it starting raining about 6 in the morning, and the forecast called for off an on showers all day.  For once the weatherman was right on that prediction.  My nephew also wanted to attend a show before he goes back to college in a couple of weeks.  We found one about an hour and half drive south of us that I had been to before.  I checked the show's Facebook page to make sure it was still being held since the National was also going on.  It was, although half the tables were Pokemon.  We did managed to find a few cards in the two hours we spent wandering the aisles.  I will add the promoter did a great job of dividing the room into sports and non sports.  Saved us a lot of time.

My first purchase of $2 added 3 Altuve cards to my son's collection including the first 2025 Topps Flagship card I have seen.

My second $2 purchase was for a needed 1965 Topps card.  There is a slight ding in the upper right corner, but otherwise it is in great shape.  I spent about 15 minutes talking to this older dealer about the current trends in the hobby.  Both of us shared a distaste for grading and flippers who have seem to overtaken the hobby.

My last purchase came from a dealer with nothing but $1 boxes.  I started with a 2026 Bowman insert of Cardinals #1 prospect Rainiel Rodriguez and a nice Pujols die cut that will be trade bait.  

Hard to pas up autographs for $1.  There are plenty of team collectors on TCDB who will gladly take these.

Last are a couple of 2026 Bowman Chrome parallels and a 2016 Topps Chrome purple refractor numbered to 275.  

This is my first show with my nephew.  Although he is 21 years old, he is just getting into cards.  He plays Division 2 baseball for a small school in Wichita, KS.  Last year his roommates busted packs on road trips and got him hooked.  I forgot how much fun it is teaching someone about the hobby.