The idiocy of youth (or, vintage from the card show)

As incredible as it may seem, there was a time not long ago when I didn't look for vintage at card shows, mostly because I was an idiot.

It was basically dime boxes or bust for teenage Nick. If vintage happened to fall out of a cheapie bin, terrific -- but rarely did I ever seek it out. I don't know why...maybe it was extreme frugality, but it might've something more. Perhaps I just didn't think vintage had the bells and whistles modern cards offered. This is stupid because a) collecting is about more than funny photos and shiny cards, and b) who says vintage doesn't have bells and whistles?

This '58 Topps Hal Smith, for example, is freaking FANTASTIC -- featuring not one but two baseball card rarities with the old-time catcher's mask and hand signal! -- and I'd never once seen it before last weekend's show (which is kinda amazing given how often vintage is discussed on the blogs).

I often wish I could go back in time and berate my teenage self for such ignorance, but given the impossibility of that (at least as far as modern science is concerned), I'll have to live by the old better-late-than-never adage.

It's hard to believe I didn't own cards like these before last weekend -- the dual Bucs rookie was a 50-cent find that completes my run of Al Oliver's Topps cards, and the Matlack was a beautiful '74 from the dime box that had somehow flown under my radar.

Seems to me that I'm among the extreme few who really enjoys these old Fleer World Series cartoons, which is good because they were out in bulk at Saturday's show (including all of these for a buck a pop!).

As I've grown older, I've learned that targeting specific cards at shows can indeed be fun, rather than simply taking the unanimous find-what-I-may approach of my youth.

These two have been MIA in my collection for a while -- the Kranepool semi-high number was $1.50 while the Pumpsie Green was a buck, his first of two Topps cards as a Met (with his '64 sunset issue), which is fascinating considering he played all of 17 games for them.

But that's not to say most of my vintage buys aren't scattered, willy-nilly purchases, because you bet they are.

These four cards have nothing in common aside from the fact that they were cheap, well-loved, and sorely needed -- the vintage trifecta.

Oldest Card of the Day honors goes to this masterful '56 of blogosphere favorite Virgil Trucks, mine for all of a dollar.

I didn't buy my first Topps Mini until I was well into my teens, which means that there are still a handful I haven't yet snared, like these two biggies from the 50-cent bin.

I forget why, but my dad and I were recently discussing Gil Hodges's untimely death -- and I just so happened to bring up his '72 OPC "Deceased" variation, a longtime want of mine (perhaps morbidly so).

Turns out I didn't have the standard Topps version of Gil's ultimate sunset card before Saturday, and -- wouldn't you know it -- I snagged the aforementioned OPC issue just hours later from the very last table of the day for three bucks (quite a deal since the others I've seen on the 'net have gone for over ten times that).

Dad factored into another huge find of mine earlier in the afternoon -- at one point while I was off immersed in some kind of dig, he came up to me and said: the guy at the next table has an old Mickey Mantle for a dollar, the design kinda looks like a newspaper.

Instantly the questions ran through my head: vintage...newspaper...NU-SCOOPS?! Also known as one of my favorite oddball sets of all-time? And a Mickey Mantle? For a dollar?! Could it be?

IT WAS: somehow a Nu-Scoop Mick -- easily the most expensive card in the set -- ended up in the dollar box, taking along a few friends for the ride (thanks, Dad!).

I enjoy these '50s All-Star subsets if for no other reason that they're a whole lot cheaper than the standard Topps cards of said players.

Mr. Cub was a mere $3, while Looie ran me a buck-fifty -- good luck finding their regular '58 Topps issues at those prices.

More well-loved, heavily discounted, and just generally awesome big name vintage here -- the Spahn (his last Braves card) cost just $4 and Brooks became mine for a cool fiver.

As the minutes waned, the impossible seemed to be happening: I hadn't yet found a single Hostess or Kellogg's card in my hours at the show.

Remember in my last post when I said I finished off that dime box challenge with about five minutes left till closing? Well of course I couldn't let those five minutes go to waste, mostly because Dad informed me that a dude had a lot of cheap vintage a few tables down.

Enough said: I marched right on over and bought what would turn out to be my lone Hostess find of the day with this two-dollar Rod Carew.

But these two other Carews (a buck each!) would end up being far from my only Kellogg's purchases at this table.

As a retail employee myself, I'll admit I hate when people linger about the store minutes before closing...and yet that's exactly what I did to this poor vintage vendor.

But when you have the chance to buy such awesome Kellogg's cards for a buck a piece, can you really blame me?

Since I had absolutely no time to waste and a good amount of cash still burning a hole in my pocket, I bought absolutely any and every Kellogg's card I even remotely thought I needed from the guy, which turned out to be quite a few.

But even with the greatness of all the 3-D stars I've just shown, none of them hold a candle to Willie Mays here.

Eagle-eyed Dad was, once again, the one who first scoped it out: and six dollars later, I had myself my first Kellogg's single of the kid they called Say Hey -- long ways away from almost coming home with no Kellogg's cards, innit?

With literally seconds to spare, I plucked this '62 Musial from the bottom of the dude's discount bin, and I just about had to rub my eyes when I saw the paltry seven-dollar price tag.

I didn't realize it till I got home later that night, but this actually completes my 1958-63 run of Stan the Man's Topps cards (he didn't have a contract with Topps for most of his career) -- hooray!

And right after the Musial came what was to be my most expensive purchase of the day (by a wide margin), as well as my most treasured (also by a wide margin) -- a 1961 Topps Roger Maris!

Fate works in funny ways sometimes. This card -- from Maris's record-breaking "61 in '61" season, of course -- appeared on my "Keep Dreaming" list after I conquered the impossible dream of owning a '58 Maris rookie from a dude's discount at the last convention hall show I attended. Now, a few months and $20 later, down went the '61...and it turned out to be from the very same dude's discount bin!

Over time, collections grow, collections change, collections reflect the shifts of life -- I can't honestly expect to collect the same way I did when I was in high school. But still, I know for a fact that my adolescent self would've scoffed at the prospect of paying $20 for a '61 Maris (that's 200 dime cards!), $7 for a '62 Musial (70 dime cards!), $6 for a Kellogg's Mays (60 dime cards!), and so on, and so on...

Me, I'll take the '61 Maris in the here and now, thank you very much -- and shut up, 16-year-old Nick.