I really didn't have much that I was specifically going to look for when I went to the card show. One of my friends asked me to try and find some Raiders cards for him if I came across them. I knew I wanted to find some of this year's Mets cards to fill out their opening day starting lineup page. Other than that, I would see what I found.
I did, however, want to walk the whole hall before buying anything this time. I wanted to scope out what the dealers had, and then decide where to go back. At the previous show I went to at the same place, I missed out on seeing quite a few dealers because I stopped at too many early tables without looking at the later ones.
There were two small hiccups to that plan.
First, as Night Owl described, Alan tracked us down to overwhelm Night Owl with more cards and Dodger photo goodness, and next, while accompanied by N.O. and Alan, I broke down and made a purchase while making the tour of the hall.
What can I say? I couldn't pass up this new baseball cap for five dollars.
After I bought it, I looked at the tag and found the 2002 copyright date, so I guess that I found a new seventeen year old hat.
We finished the tour of the hall with a dealer that had binders of some current baseball card sets. Flipping through them, and looking through some of his other cards, I wound up with these.
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Top (l-r): 2019 Topps - Stars of the Game #SSB-62; 2019 Topps Heritage #323
Bottom: 2016 Topps Gold Label #78
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The top two cards jumped into my opening day binder, while the bottom card allowed me to show N.O. a card of Piazza in his proper uniform. I'll have to look through my binder to see if I want to have this Piazza card replace any of the other ones I have in there already.
These three cards set me back a whole dollar.
From there I moved back to a table where I saw a box marked "Vintage Football $1.00".
I found a half dozen or so Browns in the box, but after consulting my wantlist, found that I only needed one.
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| 1963 Topps #21 |
It was nice to grab this card. It leaves me with only needing three Hall of Famers to complete the team set.
I also picked out two vintage Raiders card for my friend from the dollar box.
Looking at other stuff on the same dealer's table, I found a Mets team set that I bought for five dollars.
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| 1993 Kahn's New York Mets |
There were some names that I had forgotten, and at least one familiar name, Frank Tanana, that I forgot had played for the Mets.
The set is beautiful, and well worth the five dollars I spent on it.
Oh, and I'm sure that a lot of you were thinking the same thing when you saw one of the above cards. Can you believe the Mets are still paying Bobby Bonilla?
After buying these cards, I went back to a table where I saw football cards sorted by teams with a sign above them stating that the cards were three for a dollar. There was plenty of time left in the show, so I started going through the Browns, looking up cards on my wantlist to see if I needed them.
After about ten minutes of that, I said to myself that the cards are three for a dollar, just go through them, take your chances and pick out a bunch. I wound up pulling out 68 Browns cards, and then went through the Raiders cards and brought the total amount of cards up to 116 cards. I figured that I could spend a nice round $40 there, so I quickly peeked into the Packers section and found 4 cards to trade with a friend here in Ottawa. The dealer was happy with my purchase, and gave me a discount. He charged me $32.
For my part, I hoped that I would need over half of the cards that I picked. Success! I needed 41 of them!
I think that I got my money's worth. Here they are:
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Top: 1999 Pacific Aurora - Styrotechs #3
Bottom (l-r): 1999 Pacific Revolution - Showstoppers #7; 1999 Playoff Prestige SSD - Draft Picks #DP1
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I think that I'll always be adding more Tim Couch cards to my collection. He had so many inserts over the years.
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| L-R: 1999 SkyBox Premium - Deja Vu #10DV; 1999 Topps Stars - New Dawn #N6 (#/1000) |
As many cards of Kevin Johnson that I add, it will still never keep pace with the Couch cards.
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Top: 2001 Upper Deck Rookie F/X #278 (#/750)
Bottom: 2002 Fleer Platinum - Bad to the Bone #20BB
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I love the Bad to the Bone insert card.
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Top: 2002 Pacific Atomic - Red #23
Bottom: 2002 Playoff Prestige #200
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Die cut Atomic parallel. Cool! (I already owned the base card.)
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Top: 2003 Fleer Snapshot - We're Number One #4WNO (#/1999)
Bottom (l-r): 2003 Ultra - Gold Medallion #30; - Gold Medallion #144
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I hope someday that I can say that the Browns are number one.
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Top (l-r): 2004 Bazooka - Stickers #48; 2004 Bowman - First Edition #200
Bottom (l-r): 2004 Fleer Hot Prospects - Notable Newcomers #5NN; 2004 Upper Deck #206
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Some new cards from Winslow's rookie year. Believe it or not, I don't think that I had ever seen that Upper Deck base card before.
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Top (l-r): 2004 Ultra - Gold Medallion #94; 2004 Ultra - Update Draft Day #U239 (#/375)
Bottom: 2004 Playoff Hogg Heaven - Rookie Hoggs #RH-46 (#/750)
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Top: 2005 Playoff Honors - Accolades #A-4 (#/699)
Bottom: 2005 Playoff Honors - Rookie Tandems #RT-3
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Top Left: 2006 Donruss Gridiron Gear - Gold Holofoil X's #25 (#/100)
Top Right: 2008 Leaf Certified Materials - Certified Skills #CS-9 (#/1000)
Bottom (l-r): 2008 Playoff Prestige - League Leaders #LL-14; 2008 Playoff Prestige - Xtra Points Red #25 (#/100)
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A couple of nice numbered parallels. I suppose that I shouldn't be too surprised to find them for so little, but I am. On the other hand, I'm happier to add them as cheaply as I did.
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| L-R: 2012 Panini Pepsi Max Rookie of the Week #2; 2014 Leaf Draft #JM1 |
The Pepsi Rookie of the Week cards are interesting. If you look at the card, it appears to be a Prestige card. From looking on comc.com, other cards from the checklist are in the styles of other Panini releases. Pretty neat to me.
In a way I was surprised that I needed the Manziel card. I guess that if I've seen it before, it was more than I wanted to pay.
Night Owl was curious as to what college cards I buy. I collect college cards of players drafted by the Browns, or those signed by the Browns as undrafted free agents, as long as the Browns were the first team they signed with. They go into my binders beside the pro cards of the players from the year the card came out. I don't go crazy trying to find the college cards, but will pick them up as I come across them.
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Top (l-r): 2016 Panini Absolute #171 (#/499); 2016 Panini Absolute - Spectrum Blue #18
Bottom (l-r): 2016 Panini Absolute - Rookie Roundup Die-Cut #12; 2016 Panini Playoff - 2nd Down #44 (#/49)
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I botched the scan a little bit as the Rookie Roundup card is slightly overlapping the card above it. Oops.
A parallel numbered out of 49 in a three for a dollar box. I was surprised to find it.
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Top (l-r): 2016 Panini Prime Signatures #29 and #65
Bottom: 2016 Panini Prime Signatures #156
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| L-R: 2016 Panini Prime Signatures #128; - Prime Proof Red #128 (#/149) |
I was very surprised to see these cards in the box. I was surprised to find an Austin Davis card wearing a Browns uniform, let alone two. He is a new addition to my Browns collection, and he allowed me to add a new card to a Browns starting quarterback list that I have going on the Trading Card Database.
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Top (l-r): 2017 Donruss - Press Pass Bronze #8; - Season Stat Line #26 (#/48)
Bottom (l-r): 2017 Panini Prizm - Red, White and Blue #124; 2017 Panini Unparalleled - Yellow #247 (#/199)
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A bunch more recent parallels in the box, including one numbered out of 48...in a three for a dollar box. I'm still happy to have found those.
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| 2018 Panini Phoenix #23 |
After picking all of these out of the three for a dollar box, I moved about five feet to the left to take a look at a bunch of monster boxes filled with nickel cards, as long as you bought a minimum of 20.
I saw what looked to be two full boxes of football, and since I was looking for an accumulation of Raider cards for my friend, I knew that I would not have any trouble finding at least 20 cards.
I noticed a chair in front of one of the monster boxes on the customer's side of the table, so I decided to grab it, sit down and dig in. Little did I know that I would be staying there until the end of the show.
We'll have a small break between the Browns cards that I pulled from the two different tables.
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| L-R: 1990 Pro Set - Commemorative Collectible #3; 2009 Topps Chrome - Cheerleaders #TCC10 |
I never pulled the Joe Robbie card in all the boxes of 1990 Pro Set that I opened back in the day. I am happy to add it to that old set for a nickel. And I couldn't let Amy just sit in that box. I had to spend a nickel to rescue her from it.
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Top: 1999 Collector's Edge - Majestic #M3
Bottom (l-r): 2000 Pacific Private Stock - Retail #9; 2000 Ultra - Gold Medallion #101G
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From his time in the CFL, Doug Flutie is a favorite in Canada. I thought that the three of these were worth picking up for less than a quarter.
I was nearly finished going through the second monster box of football cards when the announcement that the card show was coming to an end was made over a loudspeaker. I quickly hustled through the rest of the cards, and upon counting them at the end to pay, I found I was at 199. I reached into one of the boxes and quickly found a card to bring it to a nice round 200. Most were Raider cards for my friend, but I did have 78 Browns cards in the pile.
For these Browns cards, I was pretty sure that I would have most of them. I was just hoping that I would need a fair number of them. However, I didn't mind picking up doubles at a nickel per card. Besides, I had to hurry a little going through the boxes, so instead of thinking about the cards I just added them to the pile.
As it turned out, I needed 24 of them.
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| L-R: 2000 Collector's Edge Masters - Retail #42; 2000 Fleer Focus #201 (#/3999) |
Once again, there are so many Couch cards left for me to find.
I was also happy to add another Courtney Brown rookie card to my collection, especially from a nickel box.
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| L-R: 2005 Leaf Rookies & Stars Longevity - Black #23 (#/99); 2015 Panini Prizm - Green Prizm #151 |
A couple of parallels. I can kind of understand finding the Green Prizm Bowe card for five cents, but a parallel numbered out of 99? Ummmm, thanks? I wish I could find more of them.
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Top Left: 2017 Donruss - Salute to Service #6
Top Right: I really haven't found the checklist, but it is a 2017 Leaf card that is numbered 04
Bottom (l-r): 2017 Panini Prestige - Xtra Points Red #188; - Draft Big Board #5
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I was pretty sure that I needed the Joe Thomas card, but I wouldn't have left it behind even if I did have one.
I'm not exactly sure where the Leaf Kizer card is from. I think it is a retail repack card that was talked about in the forums at the Trading Card Database, but the Kizer card in that multi-sport checklist is numbered 05. I'll have to look into it further, but at least I own it now.
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Top (l-r): 2017 SAGE HIT #4 and #14
Bottom: 2017 SAGE HIT #56
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Top (l-r): 2018 Donruss Optic #25 and #26
Bottom: 2018 Panini Absolute #126
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I still need a lot of 2018 cards, so I was happy to find these. I was especially happy to find a rookie card of the number four pick of the 2018 NFL Draft. Five cents for a rookie card of a player that made the Pro Bowl and the NFL All-Rookie Team.
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Top (l-r): 2018 Panini #68 and #72
Bottom: 2018 Panini Playoff #44
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Okay, bad scan. I left too big a margin at the top of it.
I'm so grateful for the job that Tyrod Taylor did with the Browns last year. From everything that I heard and read, he was a great mentor, and that continued when Baker Mayfield became the starter. He has signed with the Chargers, and I wish him all the best for the rest of his career.
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Top (l-r): 2018 Panini Contenders #75 and #77
Bottom (l-r): 2018 Panini Contenders Draft Picks #22 and #45
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Another scan with too much of a margin at the top. Oops.
I still like adding Colt McCoy cards to my collection. I was hoping that he would get a better shot at starting for the Browns. And what bad luck in having his leg broken when he got a chance to start last year for the Redskins.
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Top (l-r): 2018 Panini Prizm #151 and #152
Bottom: 2018 SAGE HIT #87
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With the cards from the show finished, I am going to do a little math to see how much I overspent from the monster boxes.
I wound up with 27 doubles from the three for a dollar box, so $9.00 there, and with 54 doubles from the nickel box, so $2.70 there. I've brought home more than $11.70 in doubles from stores and shows before, so no regrets.
I am very pleased with my haul from the card show. I know that I missed a lot of tables at the show, but hopefully that just means that they will have good cards for me at the next one.
Thanks to everyone who actually read this whole post, and thanks to Night Owl and Alan for a good time at the show. I look forward to the next one.
