Card show with Night Owl - part two

Continuing on from yesterday's post, after each of us bought some vintage cards we walked to the back of the room at the card show where one dealer had multiple tables with a whole variety of items.


Glancing at the tables, I saw a wide variety of sports and non-sports, single cards, magazines, and oddball sets. I started looking through things to see if I could find something interesting for Billy Kingsley at Cardboard History as he won a contest that I held to celebrate the first anniversary of my blog. I'm not going to give away what I found for him but I think he'll be quite happy - and I'll tell you that I had a lot of temptation to keep one card that I bought for him.


Anyway, while flipping through the single cards, I came across an Otto Graham card that I had, but in a screw-down holder with a $15 price tag on it. As I pushed it aside and wondered why it was so expensive I realized that all the other cards in the basket I was looking through were autographed so I took a second look at the card.

1994 Signature Rookies Gold Standard - Hall of Fame Autographs #HOF9 (#/2500)

Woo hoo!


The signature actually seems to show up better on this scan than it did in the light of the room at the card show.


It's Otto Graham, so I'm going to show the back too.

Ah, the days (well before my time) when the Browns had Championship teams and an all-time great at quarterback. May they sometime reach those heights again.


It was great fun holding up cards for Night Owl to see, and to look and see things that he had discovered, and to just chat about the various cards, players or teams on those items. But we had yet to make it to the end of the table and the section of inexpensive oddball sets.


I'll tell you, normally when I'm at a show and come across an interesting oddball set, I'll buy it on principle because I know that I'll be able to find somebody that wants it. I really don't like leaving things like police sets behind. But this guy had too much good stuff!


Luckily Night Owl was there to take some of the stuff so I didn't feel too bad about leaving it there, but the next time that I go to this show I will surely be looking for this guy's table again.


In any case, here are some of the sets that I wound up buying.

Top (l-r): 1988 Detroit Lions Police; 1983 Washington Redskins Police
Bottom (l-r): 1984 Atlanta Braves Police; 1986 Atlanta Braves Police

The Lions will be going to Julie at The Cracked Bat, and hopefully she'll find some time to do some further blogging. I figure that I'll reach out to CaptKirk to see if he wants the Redskins. And sorry Jeff, but I'm shipping these Braves to jaybarkerfan while he's distracted in his latest card war with Bob Walk the Plank, which I'm sure will provide all of us with great amusement.


I also picked up one really cool set that I figured had to be repatriated to Canada.

1974 Weston Foods Montreal Expos

There was no way that I wanted to leave this 10 card set behind in the US, even with all the logos removed. Although I guess that I probably should have shown one of the cards with the more recognizable even without the logo fielder's caps as opposed to ones with batting helmets.


Lastly, I found a set that made me laugh and there was no way that I was going to leave it behind.


In a recent post I mentioned that I hadn't actually seen a card from the 1986 Jeno's Pizza Rolls set before having one show up that I bought from a dealer on the Beckett Marketplace. Well, this dealer had a complete set of the cards. Mine!


There are some great photos in this set, of which I'll show a few.

There are two cards for each team in the set, but I sure consider that Colts card in the bottom left to be a third Browns card with Leroy Kelly on it. The Sipe passing shot is a beauty.


Now, even with leaving tons of cool stuff behind, the amount of stuff that I bought required me to use the ATM at the hotel. I easily could have spent more, but didn't go too far above what I had actually had budgeted for the show.


After that table I thought I would be finished for the day, but I decided to look through some discounted cards that a couple of sellers had and found the following Browns cards.

L-R: 2005 Donruss Classics - Legendary Players Bronze #L-14 (#/1000); 2014 Finest - Fantasy's Finest #FF-JC



L-R: 2015 Panini Gridiron Kings - Impressionist Ink #II-DJ (#/199); 2015 Donruss - Career Stat Line #223 (#/381)

L-R: 2015 Topps Chrome - Blue Wave Refractors #168; 2015 Topps Valor - Courage #92 (#/299)

L-R: 2016 Panini Prizm Collegiate Draft Picks #177 and #119

I must say that although I trusted the Browns new front office when they drafted Ogbah with the first pick of the second round, I did think that two of their recent picks from Oklahoma State really didn't work out (Brandon Weeden and Justin Gilbert). Hopefully the third time is the charm!


While talking with the dealer where I bought these cards I noticed that he had a bunch of complete sets at the side of his table. One caught my eye with a $12 price tag on it. It moved into the "I can't pass that up" category when I saw the sign that said that all sets were 50% off. It moved into an even better deal when he just asked for five dollars instead of six.

Now, of course this may not prove to be such a deal. This is the first series of a number of sets, and knowing me I'll soon start looking to pick up the others. But I think that I'll easily get more than five dollars value reading the backs of these cards.


After that, and a little bit more glancing through dealers' tables, Night Owl and I left for our cars in the parking lot and agreed that we should go to dinner and keep talking. His home city of Watertown is on the way back to Ottawa so that proved to be an easy place to go. He let me choose Buffalo Wild Wings since I always enjoy being surrounded by all the games shown, and we don't have one to go to in Ottawa. On the way to dinner, Night Owl stopped at home and grabbed some Mets cards that he had for me.

L-R: 1975 SSPC New York Mets #17 Gene Clines; 1976 SSPC #591 Checklist

I  don't recall ever seeing SSPC cards in person but have loved seeing them when I read other blogs. As much as I love the glove on the hat photo of Gene Clines (or as the back of the card says, Eugene Anthony Clines), I really love the Koosman and Snider photo.


As with most of the older bloggers, when I was young we didn't get very many baseball games on television. There would be the game of the week on Saturday, and every now and then a game on CBC that I could watch. But I think pretty much every game was on the radio in our house, and our broadcasters were Dave Van Horne and Duke Snider.


I have such great memories of listening to games with my dad, and absolutely loved hearing Duke Snider tell stories. This card is, yes, I'm going to go there, Amazin'!

L-R: 1970 Topps #431; 2011 Topps Update - Cognac Diamond Anniversary #US251

It is always cool to get vintage cards, and when I have a chance to sit down and organize some of my cards Swoboda will be added to my Opening Day Line-Up collection.


Turner never started on opening day, but I've always liked him as a player. Well, he has pushed that a bit with how he has played against the Mets, especially in the playoffs last year, but I still think I like him and this is a cool card.

L-R: 2016 Topps Heritage #127; 2014 Topps Chrome - Topps Shelf #TS-DW

I'm never going to turn down cards of the Captain. I own two Mets jerseys - one of Wright and the other of Gary Carter.

L: 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter - Highlight Sketches #AGHS13
R: 2014 Bowman Chrome - Fire Die-Cut Refractors #FDC-TD

I love both of these cards. The sketch is cool, and I love the die-cut.

L-R: 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter - Mini #6; 2016 Topps Allen & Ginter - The Numbers Game #NG-33

Last week I read that Duda was going to take some light batting practice, but don't think that I have seen anything since. I just hope he comes back healthy whenever he does come back.

The Mets really have to do everything they can to keep Cespedes. The spark that he brings the team is so important and his bat is way more important at this time than any defensive lapses that may occur.


Night Owl, thanks for the great cards! (Now I really have to update my Opening Day Line-Up collection with these and a few others that I have found.)


As for Night Owl, one of the deans of the blogging world... He was so great to spend time with and as nice as I'm sure everyone's dealings with him have been in the past. He said in his blog that he can only talk cards, but I'm pretty sure that we branched into sports in general too.  ;)  It was very comfortable talking with him, as though he was a friend I had known for a long time. I look forward to the next time I see him.