Saturday would have been Card Show Day

Buckle up, this post is going to get Rosier. There was a card show scheduled today here in the Twin Cities, but it was cancelled (May show is still on for now, but I suspect that too will be cancelled). The local Card shops in town are basically doing online sales only right now, which I think is perfectly reasonable and smart. I have added a few things recently buying online as a replacement for the monthly show. This post is pretty close to what I might pick up at a show if I attended in person.

If you are already sick of my Rosie Rainbow ravings, please scroll on down to Ichiro and start there. 

The release date of Bowman was pushed back, which has me wondering if series 2 will also be delayed. I am stretching my Rosie Rainbow muscles early on Topps Heritage. Rosario is one of the Twins' short prints, that one actually ended up costing more than the purple refractor after shipping. Chrome refractor, Silver refractor, White refractor. There's a gold refractor I missed out on (didn't want to pay $130 for it), and there's probably a 1/1 and printing plates out there too. I might call this Rosie rainbow "complete"

Oh, except there's also an online exclusive 5x7 numbered to 10 that I found. Added that too!

Ok, this is as Rosie as it is going to get! Josh Donaldson signed with Minnesota in the off-season, and this is pushing me even closer towards the 1974 Topps set build. His Throwback Thursday online exclusive features the underrated design. Rosie also had a Topps OnDemand Black and White card, an UTZ card, and GQ came out this week somehow, so I found the Gold Chrome parallel of Rosie for that set.

Ok! Here is something different. Jim from cards as i see them posted this one a while back and I was happy to add Ichiro's "sunset" card to my collection. He was creating a backlog of them with his 2018 comeback with the Mariners, then the 2019 Tokyo series that opened the season. He's probably actually retired now for real. I wouldn't be opposed to another cameo in the future though! Let him play whenever he wants like Minnie Miñoso!

I saw this card on Twitter and immediately grabbed a copy on eBay. This is the Topps 75-76 Seattle Supersonics team card, complete with 747 jet (not supersonic) and coach Bill Russell (definitely super)!

Speaking of team cards, I'm still working on the 1959 Topps set, and I have just two team cards to go, Pittsburgh and the Yankees. I picked up this Cleveland card with a couple of All-Stars

Specifically these two All-Stars!

Then I watched about 10 different Mantle auctions for this card for three weeks, and ended up doing a Buy It Now anyway for the best possible deal I could find. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't win any of those auctions. Paid a little more than my highest bids were.

Willie Mays, widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game, still criminally underrated and I picked this up for a fraction of what I spent to acquire Mickey Mantle. Not complaining, but that's messed up!

My favorite thing about these All-Star Cards are the cartoons on the back - Awesome! I think I prefer the back of Mazeroski's card to the front. I waited this long to get it just because I didn't like the photo selection. (similar to my 1961 Topps Killebrew holdout).

Go find the closest card shop (or your favorite one if you have options), find out if they sell online, and buy some cards from them if you have the means to do so this weekend! But above all, please take this thing seriously and stay safe. We'll all be back to the new normal eventually in the meantime everyone's health should be the number one concern.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Hats Off To The Card Show!

In a collecting world that pushed more and more towards online sales, I am grateful for the Local Card Shop and Local Card Shows. I am very fortunate to live in a region that has a number of both shops and shows. The Online card buying experience has been lacking lately, whether it's getting damaged cards from eBay, empty unsealed envelopes from Topps NOW, and the recent COMC debacle (they have still not provided an update about my missing order from December 2nd...). But going to a card show, with all the sights sounds and smells can remind me what drew me back into the hobby six years ago.

File these under "just in case." Graterol's status was still up in the air in the Red Sox trade on Saturday morning. By the time I got home, the deal was dead, and I was looking forward to seeing him in the Twins bullpen in 2020. By the time I made it into work, everything was back on again, with a little twist.

On "Twins Twitter" there was a lot of chatter about trading away Eddie Rosario for pitching. Even if I thought that was a good idea, let me remind everyone that there are guys still available in free agency that can duplicate Rosie's numbers. But more importantly, he's awesome and you can't have him! This auto is numbered to 50 copies.

Switching gears, I am always up for adding new Barry Sanders cards to my collection. I'm still very hesitantly wading into vintage basketball. The trouble is that I don't know the players from 70s ABA/NBA the way that MLB players from that era are so much more recognizable. Does anyone know of some good books about the ABA?

The Timberwolves were never better than during the time Sam Cassell was on the roster. Obviously it was Kevin Garnett's team, but the addition of Cassell and Latrell Sprewell made the team a championship contender for the first (and only) time.

I don't really collect football at all, but my goodness, how could I not add this card to my collection?

Jim was good at football.

I found a box of O-Pee-Chee! I was hoping to snag a 1972 Gil Hodges, but these were a nice surprise and consolation prize.

Sometimes I do these things on purpose - adding a '63 and a '73 of the same player at a show. Other times, I don't realize until I'm organizing the cards to scan them.

I went after some newer stuff as well. The image variation on the Scherzer card is stupid, but I tend to like stupid.

Even after losing Graterol, I am still excited for the future roster of the Minnesota Twins. Arraez has arrived, and 2019 First rounder Keoni Cavaco could be a short stop away from the big leagues.

Last but not least I went outside my usual comfort zone to add this 1990s insert of Barry Bonds. It is very shiny.

Saturday is Card Show Day (for the first time in 2020)

I like going to card shows without a real agenda, like I did today. I was thinking about needs for the 1959 set build, and wanted to look at some 1970s cards to try to pick my new set build for 2020.

But beyond that, it was going to be anyone's game. I actually only spent money at 2 tables today, but each had their share of fun and surprises. The modern stuff all came from one table, and the vendor also had a stack of vintage which was a very rare occurrence for him.

The other vendor was the regular vintage / oddball guy and he did not disappoint. I picked up a Wheaties Minneapolis Laker . . .

And added some Yogi for a balanced breakfast of champions.

You'd think I was over the Moon by then, but that was not the case.

In fact, I found 2 Moons, all part of my quest to build the 1959 Topps set.

The vintage guy also brings a large stack of in person and/or through the mail autographs to the shows, and I don't know, am I going to start collecting Autographed Rookie Cup Cards? Seems pretty ridiculous to even attempt that. Why did I get the Donn Pall? So glad you asked. He's in Vancouver, at the home of Vancouver's AAA team, a stadium called B.C. Place. This stadium was designed by the same group that built the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, and I thought it was a quirky trip down memory lane to see another Teflon roof.

Back to the first vendor - I scored a small stack of 1970 Topps. I don't think this will be the set I build, but I got a decent deal on these, so why not?

He also had this. I had no intention of adding a Mickey Mantle to my collection today (unless it was that 1959 All-Star card), so both of us were surprised when I asked what he wanted for it. I won't bore you with the details, but the price was so low that even if I wasn't planning on ever owning this card, I still had to pull the trigger on it today. Yeah, it's creased to hell and back, off-center with rounded corners, but it's Mickey Mantle!

Mickey Mantle: good at baseball.

If I had made a plan, I would have skipped his table altogether because he didn't have anything from any sets or collections I am working on right now... but that's the beauty of not making plans!

Same Old Song and Dance?

It's Saturday, so that means it was Card Show day. I found a dime box to kick things off.

The box had lots of Twins from all over the decades.

But there were even more cards to choose from on other teams. Picked up a big stack for the player collections and some fun cards to send away to other folks.

Next up from the same vendor- serial numbered cards, a quarter each!

Pulled an even bigger stack of these cards, a lot of fun to dig through these.

Then things got a little crazy, as I found some off grade vintage for a steal.

This hi-number 1959 gets me one step closer to finishing the set!

Clyde Milan was a coach for the Washington Senators for this card, his nickname was given to him by Charles Albert Bender.

Last but not least was this Hall of Famer- look familiar?

It's Giants great Mel Ott! If I am not careful I am going to start building these Play Ball sets.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend,  Happy holidays!

Saturday is NOT Card Show Day

I myself first realized that this was not a card show day when I arrived at the strip mall that hosts the monthly show and no one else was there... Oh well, always nice to take in the lovely weather. So, instead of showing more of my 1959 Topps set build (didn't add any new cards today), here are the other cards I added from the last couple shows.

Jerry Kindall knows a thing or two about Minnesota winter weather - he was a St. Paul kid and a University of MN standout. He hit for the cycle in the College World Series in 1956 and after his MLB career returned as the coach of the Golden Gophers in the 1970s. He was the first person to win the College World Series as a player and then win again as a manager.

Hey, Let's Add Two Cubs!

I don't like to show the price tags for the most part, but for this card is was an integral part of the story. I have said it enough times now that I'm not a big fan of the 1953 Topps set. I don't have any cards on my want list because I don't have any intention of adding any more to my collection. But here we are, talking about another new card added from the set. I am fairly certain I will not be able to afford a copy of Hoyt's 1952 Topps card, so when I found a copy of his 1953 card for just $10, I had to add it. If it was closer to the book value, I think I would have passed on it.

There you go - less tacky this way.

1952 Topps Horizontal cards, on the other hand, will always be on the list for me! This card has two good corners and two missing corners, which made the Hall of Famer an affordable addition!

Some more random finds included this Doc Gooden Leaf Rookie Card. The Gooden box bottom from the 1985 Donruss card is one of my favorite cards of the 80s, so it was fun to add this card as well.

Along with the French translation on the back, the Leaf card also has a "Rookie Of The Year" stamp over the stat block. When I first saw this, I thought someone added this after the fact, but looking at some other examples on COMC, it looks like it appears on all of them.

The rest of the haul included some more recent releases, There was a decent deal to be had buying all of these together from the same vendor.

The same vendor also had some relic and autographs for sale, and I picked up a pair of Adrian Beltre cards, who just has to wait a few more years before he can be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

This looks like a bat relic, but the disclaimer on the back doesn't use the word bat at all, and is keen to point out that this "game-used memorabilia" is not from any specific game, season, or event.... It could be from an Adrian Beltre bat, but I guess we'll never know for sure!