Since the local monthly show (and many other shows around the country) has been flooded with TCG cards, I’ve been thinking about skipping it or at least not automatically attending every month. Over the past nine months to a year it has become less and less productive.
But as they say in the majors, “that’s why you play the game.” I was quite surprised when I walked into the usual hall on Saturday.
First it was packed. I normally arrive closer to 1pm, when the crowd has typically thinned out. But when I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed there were still a lot of people there. Secondly, the show consisted largely of sports cards. Every Pokemon, Magic, etc. seemed limited to a handful of tables. I don’t know what caused the sudden return to sports cards, but I was glad to get up from my recliner.
The change affected my mood more than my shopping. The tables were still awash with football and basketball and I’m sure I heard “PSA” said 25 to 50 times.
But my one vintage dealer was still there. To be honest, it’s getting to be that I’ve picked out almost all of his discounted vintage. If he doesn’t replenish, I can have everything I want by the next show.
Two of the three vintage sets I’m most looking forward to when browsing through those bins – 1957 and 1961 – contain virtually nothing I hadn’t picked up before. This is what I added this time.
I’m pretty lucky in this obsessive world of gem and coin collectors. No one wants these perfectly fitting ones just because of some dings or scuffs – although there was one guy who dominated all the vintage rows when I first showed up. I had to pretend to rummage through the glass display table of expensive items, pretending to be interested until he left.
The other vintage set I’m leaning towards in this current era where I’m not currently pursuing vintage sets. Yet somehow I collected more than 20 percent of the 1965 Topps set. Gee, maybe I should actually check out the Ernie Banks and Harmon Killebrew the dealer has on display.
I also find the 1976 Topps football irresistible, even though I am DO NOT COLLECT. Jack Ham has a crack on the left side, as any card from an All-Pro linebacker should, and Lynn Swann has a few corner dings, but do I want his card for $2 or $3 or wrapped in plastic for 50 bucks?
That took care of all the vintage that interested me. I quickly looked through the bins of discounted modern cards as I learned to do the previous show.
I picked up a nice cut Roki.
One of the most disheartening aspects of the local show recently is that all the tables with individual discount tickets were gone. I mean, there wasn’t one.
But this time I found one. The man had placed a few dollar boxes.
This is what I grabbed for myself. Super happy with the Gagne and Piazza, as they come from sets I rarely see (or think I chase). I also added the Carlos Delgado card from this table that I showed in yesterday’s post.
But I have added more cards for other traders that I hope will be of interest. The dealer looked a bit familiar, like I may have come across his table before, so hopefully he keeps showing up and doesn’t scare off the fantasy world collectors.
I also ran into the former colleague who had a table a few shows ago. He’s a nice guy and he immediately remembered that I had completed the 1975 Topps mini set. I still haven’t bought anything from his table (I have most of it, except early fifties Bowman if I ever want to go after that). He asked me when I was going to sell tickets there. That still seems too scary to me.
Well, that was the end of it for me. I wanted to do some more tabletop research, but all the plastic made me a little dizzy.
So that’s what this show has taught me: no matter how discouraged I get about what’s out there, if I don’t go, I’ll never know what’s out there. I have to play the show game.
And that brings me to the competition I am doing. Here I am giving away the cards, the extras of The Diamond King.
There were 39 people who took part in the competition. That seems like a lot, but during the heyday of the blog (and probably with less interesting cards) I got 70 or 80 comments.
To determine the winner, I ran the randomizer three times by default. Here are the results:
One time
Twice.
Three times.
Thank you for participating and thanks again to The Diamond King for making all of these available, as well as the ones I kept for my collection.
#play #game #giveaway #results