You won't see that again (a card show report)

Like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two card shows are truly alike. 

I never leave a show thinking: well, that wasn't much different than the last one. Every show has its own rhythm, its own character. I'm reminded of this every time my dad and I hit the big semi-annual show here in the 'burbs, which we had the pleasure of attending yet again a couple weeks ago. 

Want a unique feat at a card show? Take the Lou Brock autograph I found in a quarter box this time around. It's obviously not a pristine example - it's faded to the point that I didn't even realize it was signed until I was sifting through my haul later that night - but to think I plundered something like this for a quarter is still mind-boggling to me.

You can search the internet left and right, and you can scour the card show bargain bins across the globe, but I can't imagine you'll ever see a Lou Brock auto for a quarter ever again.

If you're lucky, there can be entire tables of stuff that are unlike the inventory you'll see anywhere else in the cardboard world.

The Brock came from one of my more entertaining digs in recent memory, a guy whose boxes were stuffed with the entire spectrum of oddballs priced from a quarter on the low end to a dollar on the high. I spent more money and time here than at any other table at this show, and if you know how my mind works, I think you'll see why.

We're talking oddballs like Drake's, Starting Lineups, and even a cluster of those weird late '90s samples that I love for some reason.

Broder oddballs seem to exist in a strange nebulous place in our universe - does anyone know how/where/when these were made, or exactly how they were distributed?

Whatever the answer is, I just know that I buy Broders whenever and wherever I can, and the four you see here represent a teeny-tiny fraction of the sum total I found in this guy's quarter box - dig the rare Steve Carlton Giants sighting and a new Cal Ripkin (sic).

I have a certain fondness in my heart for the scores of strange unlicensed oddballs that surfaced in the late '80s/early '90s, and I don't think I've ever seen a table take advantage of that fondness more than this one did.

(Every time I think I have all the Eric Lindros baseball cards, a new one appears!)

I don't have a good explanation as to why Star oddballs excite me so much...they just do.

This vendor had a handful of complete Star sets in his dollar box, and slew of singles for a quarter - all of which were quickly snapped up by yours truly, of course.

More from the generic oddball world, including an Air Jordan sighting and Ryno with a rhino!

I bought around 200 cards from this guy's inventory after the dust cleared, and I'll end it here by saying this is the kind of table I could've easily spent an entire post gabbing on and on about.

Finding dime boxes is no longer a certainty at shows - I spotted just a single one this time around.

Granted, it was a pretty darn good one - I walked away with north of 300 cards in the end - but . I can't really complain much given the mass of other stuff I always seem to find, but it seems like dime boxes are beginning to fade into the background.

In the end, I guess it makes me more thankful for the rare dime box that pops up in the wild these days - the era of Luis Robert madness seems so long ago now.

Dime boxes or no dime boxes, I still managed to secure a nice handful of bigger player- and mini-collection hits.

(Including a rare new addition to my joyfully obscure Casey Kotchman collection!)

The usual gathering of obligatory discount-bin shiny.

This time in Cards I Shouldn't Be Finding For Loose Change: numbered shinies (including a rare 2011 Hope Diamond parallel for a dime!), Living Set cards, and A&G case hits(!).

Card shows are all unique, and they always seem to balance themselves out - the relative lack of dime boxes this time was picked up by the absolutely massive amount of oddballs that fell into my lap.

(Still have a hard time believing Advil once sponsored a set of baseball cards.)

Part of the beauty of oddballs is that they come in so many shapes and sizes - seems like an appropriate time of year to buy a Pacific Ornament insert, yes?

A few horizontals for the road - Panini Select is incredibly dull, but on the flip side I guess I can't be too mad at any set that features a new Hoyt!

I think more and more of my vintage buying lately has taken the theme of better buy it now 'cause you'll never see it again.

My hemming and having over bigger purchases (i.e., anything more than $5 because I'm cheap) is usually negated by the horrific thought of missing out on said purchase forever. I'll spend a little more on a card if it's something I might never hold in my hands again.

I paid a whopping $20 a piece for these two, but they're each scarce Venezuelan issues that I don't think I'll be seeing again at anything near that price again in this lifetime.

I'm always good for a few Kellogg's pickups at each show, but I certainly didn't think I'd find one of the few remaining '78 SSPCs I need in a random 50-cent box!

I also threw 50 cents at a custom-made '62 Maury Wills - actually just a photo of Wills glued onto a random '62 - presumably put together by a '60s kid who was aghast that Wills didn't have a regular Topps card yet.

Nabbed a prime handful of new Nu-Scoops and '77 Cloth Stickers, two of my very favorite vintage oddball pursuits.

Taking a break from the oddballs with some cold, hard Topps vintage here.

I've been after that '54 Joe Black for a while and I couldn't hand over my money fast enough when I saw a copy for ten bucks - couple that with a Maz high-number and a couple cool Whiteys and you have a fun trip through vintage heaven.

I don't know that I noticed how oddball-heavy my vintage buys were at this show until I started poring over the day's finds later on.

To the chagrin of my wallet, vintage Bazookas have risen on my radar quite a bit lately - I forked over another $20 for a notably tough '68 Bazooka Rusty Staub that I knew I couldn't let go of once I asked to see it from a guy's glass case (he even threw in the decapitated Tony C for free!).

That Santo is my first from the generic-but-still-cool 1969 Nabisco set, and Steal of the Day honors might go to that trimmed strip card I found for 50 cents which, if someone's handwriting on the back is to be believed, pictures Frank "Home Run" Baker(!!!).

I like to believe I have a fairly extensive array of oddball knowledge stored in the 'ol brain box, but I'll be the first to admit that I get stumped fairly often at card shows.

I'd seen that Kaline before, but I never knew what the heck it was until I a dealer at the very first table of the day filled me in. Apparently those were advertised as "bubblegumless cards" in a 1968 Detroit newspaper with cut-out fronts and backs that kids were encouraged to glue to pieces of cardboard themselves. With a story like that, there was absolutely no way I was passing it up, and the dealer even knocked his $30 price tag down to 20 bucks for me!

The Alou, on the other hand, had me completely stumped - it's actually a Bible-thumping American Tract Society card that I'll treasure as a prime example of how curious and far-reaching the world of oddballs can be (plus I go nuts over anything of the Alou Bros.).

I may love oddballs, but at the end of the day my biggest purchase was this beautiful '64 Hank Aaron that I thought was a helluva a steal at $40.

I'll admit that in the moment, Hank felt like a consolation prize - like the National, I once again fell short in my quest to secure an affordable '64 Pete Rose that I'm starting to get obsessive about. But you'll be happy to know that I quickly came to my senses and told myself GET REAL, NICK - HANK AARON IS **NEVER** A CONSOLATION PRIZE!

I'm sorry, Hank - to think I ever doubted you, even for a moment, is a fine illustration of how insane card shows can be.

It ain't me

Once a baseball card is released, it's out there forever - there's no taking it back. 

Over the years, it's become obvious that card companies, like us humans, aren't perfect. Error cards are a fun little rabbit hole of this hobby, and the ones I find the most entertaining are the hallowed "player swaps" - i.e., cards that actually feature a different player than whoever was meant to be shown on said card. They range from understandable to bizarre, from laughable to morbid.

You probably know about some of the famous ones already - like the infamous '69 Topps batboy fiasco or the time Gary Pettis had his younger brother sit for a Topps photo - but I thought I'd share some other snafus that don't often get a ton of airtime.

I don't know when I first became aware player swaps existed, but I'm fairly certain this 2006 Bazooka screw-up was the first one I noticed all on my own.

I've been a Francisco Rodriguez fan for a long time now, and although I doubt I knew who was actually featured on this card at the time (it's Ervin Santana), I knew it wasn't my beloved K-Rod.

I suppose I can understand how a company could get a couple no-name dudes mixed up, but can someone please explain how Donruss managed to swap two aces and future HOFers?!

 

In today's technology-driven world, you'd think this kind of thing wouldn't happen anymore - and you'd be wrong.

I can't say I noticed it when 2017 Topps was first released, but I remember people being quick to point out that fellow Met Eric Campbell is actually pictured on Lucas Duda's card that year.

From what I can gather, not many of these player swaps were ever corrected - they're just kinda left out there to forever float around the universe.

I can see why. I'm sure it takes a lot of money and manpower to completely pull a card from the presses, not to mention create and print a new one to replace it. So I give Topps credit for taking the effort to correct a mix-up in their '88 Topps set where they actually used a picture of one-time prospect Chris George (who never played a major-league game) in place of the correctly-predicted "Future Star" Al Leiter. 

(There's also a corrected version of the aforementioned '90 Donruss Glavine/Smoltz that I don't own...yet.)

My mind was blown more recently than I'd care to admit when I found out that three dudes are featured on this fun '73 Topps card, and none of them are Joe Rudi.

It seems obvious now - that's Gene Tenace at center and I'm not sure who the other two A's are - but I guess that's a lesson for all of us to look more closely at our baseball cards.

I find it incredible that a card company could manage to let a mixed-up Ernie Banks card go to press.

Granted, I don't know who's actually pictured here, but a split-second look tells you it ain't Ernie.

There's a couple notable player swaps in '63 Topps, and better yet, they actually feature a pair of cardboard favorites in Ryne Duren and Ron Santo.

(The fact that Topps seems to have gotten the inset photos right makes these even weirder.)

Aurelio Rodriguez and Gary Pettis get most of the headlines, but for my money they're not even close to being the most disastrous "player swap" in cardboard history.

No, that dubious honor has to go to this '66 Topps Dick Ellsworth, a card that actually features Cub infielder Ken Hubbs (the fielding pose probably should've been a giveaway). What makes this card so strange is that Hubbs died in a plane crash two years earlier. I see no explanation of how something this egregious could've happened, but darn if it doesn't make for a fascinating tidbit of cardboard conversation.

Card companies will forever be under the microscope, and I suppose I'm thankful my life isn't treated the same way - here's hoping a random blogger won't still be pointing out that stack of books I dropped at work 60 years from now.

Requiem for a baseball season

As the season comes to a close - featuring yet another World Series I can't bring myself to care much about - I'm left to grapple with the questions left by another year of baseball.

Since I'm not much of a morning person, I love having a consistent night shift at work - the main consequence, however, being that it doesn't leave much time for catching ballgames. I probably watched less baseball in 2023 than I have in any other year as a fan. I still keep up with the game (watching standings, checking leaderboards, etc.) but my actual viewing kinda went downhill this year.

Part of the beauty of baseball is its consistency - there's almost literally a game going on at any waking hour - but I wonder if this signals some kind of shift in me as a baseball fan. If I should be thankful for the rare Cubs game I get to watch rather than be woeful about all the ones I missed. I don't know.

Which makes for a good transition into this Mookie Betts Topps Now card I graciously received from Jim (aka gcrl) of "cards as i see them" fame - featuring a double dip Mookie turned as a shortstop(!) in one of the rare Cubs games I did actually manage to catch on TV!

The good thing about baseball cards, of course, is that it's a year-round hobby if you want it to be - no staring out the window waiting for spring.

Cards occupy an even warmer place in my heart during the winter months, and while I don't trade nearly as often as I once did, it's always a treat when I see a hallowed envelope or package in my mailbox. 

In addition to becoming a steady supplier of Sonny Gray cards, Jim always seems to send me something I've never seen before - like that excellent Don Baylor from a (regional?) Twins World Series anniversary set.

I can't for the life of me understand why companies make thick cards for no reason - that Giolito is massive, so big that it doesn't even fit into a regular nine-pocket page.

Stadium Club Chrome probably doesn't need to exist, but it features a good amount of interesting shots that keeps it on my radar every year.

Jim's been sending me cards for a long time now, and always selects a first-rate mix of curious cardboard.

(Pink refractors are cool, but they've got nothing on '90s Dufex!)

A more recent PWE from Jim saw yet another trademark stack of cards, including a rare Hoyt appearance in a modern set!

Mike Sweeney doesn't get much airtime on this blog, which is weird since he's one of my bigger player collections - that neat UD Play Ball Promo reminds me I should talk about him more.

It's always Sonny!

Jim closed things out by sending along a treasured Dime Box Dozen need with Dave Parker here, a card I probably should've had a long time ago now (is '86 Donruss the most '80s design ever?).

I'll still watch however much of the World Series I can - I suppose I'll root for the Diamondbacks since I still have a soft spot for the few expansion teams I've seen in my lifetime. At the end of the day, baseball is a passion for me, and while that passion shifts with age, nothing can make it go away.

If nothing else, I'm just happy to have the day off work today, to be able to park squarely on my couch for Game 1 and scoop up the last few sweet bits of a baseball season that so quickly seemed to pass me by.

You can never have it all (a COMC order)

Once in a while, I foolishly wonder if there can really be that many more cards I need floating out there in the universe.

The plain fact is that I do have a lot of baseball cards - I'm at north of 90 binders(!) as we speak, not to mention the boxes of other frankenset/non-sport/miscellaneous stuff I've accumulated scattered around my room. To anyone not involved in the hobby, it'd appear that I am 1) insane, and 2) kinda close to having everything I want by now, right?

Whether I'm insane or not is up for debate (isn't collecting a minor form of insanity?) but as for the second concern, the answer should be obvious - I've barely even scratched the surface of having all the cards I need!

I may take it to the extreme with my 924 different projects, but most card people seem to understand that there is always something else to collect, something that'll make us say Ooh, I need that!

Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the COMC orders I seem to regularly post around here, the most recent of which landed on my doorstep earlier this month. I admit that every time I click "send" on a large COMC pile, I have that weird thought of wondering how much is left on the site that I still need. (Spoiler: I've since bought so many more cards on there that I'm almost ready to have another order shipped to me.)

Chasing minor league issues of guys I collect (Mookie Wilson!) is a task that itself could take a lifetime, but that's not even including the weirdly cool cards of people like Frank Verdi whom I've never heard of (could the photographer be any further away?).

While my mini-collections are fairly expansive at this point, I'm constantly finding new ones I need - including Topps Now exclusives and GQ variations that Topps prints just to annoy me.

And while I'm proud of the numbers my bigger player collections have grown to, what I own is a small percentage of all the Konerkos and Gwynns out there (if I'm at 5 percent of either guy's total cards, I'd call it a win).

And all this is to say nothing about oddballs - I try not to think about how many of these I'll never know about.

Instead, I try to focus on the ones I'm somehow lucky enough to discover - like a weird McDonald's oddball of Dime Box favorite Karim Garcia, and my first Don Zimmer Rays card!

A second Zimmer here with that tough (Senators!) Archives SP - I paid a touch over $5 for it, which is almost unheard of for a modern card around here.

Food issues carry an extra special place in my heart, which made stuff like a Domino's Al Kaline and other odd McDonald's oddballs a prime part of this order.

COMC always manages to suck me into the bottomless pit of Topps Throwback Thursday - I've bought so many of these over the years, and yet a big stack seems to wind up in every order.

(How great is that Buck O'Neil?)

Other Topps online exclusives that have me wondering why there isn't more stuff like this in standard pack-issued sets.

Seriously, I'd buy the daylights out of a Negro League set if I saw one at Target.

I've said it many times on the blog: magazine covers on baseball cards are an absolute godsend, and I want them all.

Don't believe me?

...still don't believe me?

...how about now?

I stumbled upon a seller unloading these Topps/Sports Illustrated mashups on the cheap (most of 'em were a buck a pop), and as you can see, I had myself a field day.

Minis!

I've always liked the Topps 206 brand, and while I hate that these are online-only the cards themselves are neat - can't resist a good Steve Carlton Cardinals sighting.

(And another weird Don Zimmer!)

I continue to be a sucker for cheap photo variations despite thinking said photo variations are wildly unnecessary. 

(RIP, Brooks.)

Even if by some wild fantasy I was able to acquire every US-branded card I ever needed, that would leave the loads of foreign-issue stuff I'll probably never see.

My love for BBM is well-documented, but I also discovered a fun mid '90s "Line Up" Venezuelan Winter League brand with this COMC order that I didn't know about (cool Ozzie Guillen double dip!).

A few neat horizontals here, including a rather intense Venezuelan double dip and my first-ever card featuring all three Alou brothers.

I'm by no means a Manny Ramirez collector, but that photo variation was too fun to pass up.

SSPC only had one major release, and I don't even own all of those I need yet, which should tell you how far I am from conquering the entire baseball card universe.

Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose bring me a couple steps closer to finalizing my '76 SSPC wants, and I tracked down other offshoots with the '75 Gaylord Perry sample and a neat '78 SSPC Don Baylor. 

I acquired my first Dodger Bell Brand card at this year's National, and I liked it so much that I immediately wanted another one.

Thankfully, an affordable Frank Howard presented itself in the COMC archives one afternoon, and I managed to couple it with a weathered '69 OPC Hondo for a song ('69 OPCs seem harder to find for some reason).

These are both bizarro-world cards from the '78 Burger King set and represented gaping holes in my binders.

Fergie was a "Keep Dreaming" need, and a particularly painful one given that the cheapest copy I could find online for a long time was over $20 - but out of the blue, a $4 copy popped up on COMC one day, and here we are.

I have an unspoken agreement with myself to try and track down one "big" card with each passing COMC order, and this '60 Frank Robinson certainly fit the bill this time around.

Like Fergie, this one had been on my "Keep Dreaming" list for a while. Thanks to a little paper residue on the back, I was able to nab this copy for a whopping $10. Another vintage Goliath slain!

As I said earlier, I'm not even two weeks removed from the arrival of this order, and I'm almost ready to have another one sent to me. So, no - I don't think I have to worry about not having any cards to chase. 

Or maybe I'm just insane, I don't know.