A quick break from the 1980s...

 I had to make a quick, 3-day trip to Albuquerque. It really wasn't that quick because its a 10-hour drive. While I was there I looked up card shops on Google and found 5 shops. I was only able to visit 2 of the shops before I had to return home. It would've been 3 but the other one was closed. 

The first one I visited was kind of small and really wasn't very organized. All of the sports were mixed together. It was difficult to find anything. The graded cards and the ungraded cards were in the same display cases all mixed together and in general, I thought the prices were kind of high. I did find a $1.00 box and went through about two stacks of cards, but it was difficult to find anything. Once again everything was mixed together and the cards were facing forwards, backwards, upside down...you name it. Plus, some were in penny sleeves, some in top loaders, but most weren't in anything. I'm not saying that a $1.00 box has to be divided by sport in numerical order by year, but some semblance of order would be nice. The guy working the store was pleasant enough, but all he would do was try to get me to buy the expensive stuff, even when I let him know several times that I couldn't afford it. When I get back to Albuquerque, this store will be marked off the list. 

The second store wasn't really a card store it was an autograph store that had cards. The card section wasn't very big, but had some nice cards. I was pressed for time, so I only went through a couple of rows in a $1.00 box. I got a few cards, so my trip wasn't a total loss. 

I'm starting a player collection of Jim Abbott. I'm not sure why I haven't already done that because I think his story is awesome. The Trout cards, Acuna Jr. and Witt Jr. are also for player collections. The Ryan is not a 1984 card, but a 2012 reprint. I have a friend who loves everything Nolan so I picked it up for him.

I asked the guy at the store if they had any room on the prices of the cards and he said that their margin was so low that the price is what it is. It wasn't my best purchase at card store, but it wasn't bad either. The store, All in Autographs, had some really great autographs, pictures, helmets and some baseballs. I found a nice picture of Hank Aaron in his blue Braves uniform in a follow through of his swing that was autographed, or so I thought, that I was prepared to buy, but the guy working the store pointed out that it was a reprint, so I put it back. Thought that was pretty cool that he did that though. I know that if I'm ever in the market for an autograph or have some time to kill, I'll go back for a visit.

I had some mail waiting for me when I got home...

All three of these were Ebay pick-ups for my player collections.

Well, that's all of the quick break from the 1980s. I'll get that second post on the '80s up real soon!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Showtime!

 No, I'm not talking about the best LA Lakers teams from my childhood. I'm talking about the Dallas Card Show.

Like most of us in the blog world, I'm not going to the National in Chicago as much as I'd like to. I told Dr. Beckett, when I ran into him at the show, that this was my National. In reality, it wasn't that either. I was on a time crunch and didn't really make my rounds all of the tables like I normally do. 

Normally when I'm at the show, I look for vintage cards and cards needed to complete my older sets. This time, I decided that I was going to spend my time scouring the $1.00 boxes and see what I can find. Now, all in all, it I felt as if it was pretty productive. It was a slow process and it really limited my time walking around looking at other tables. I found all of these cards in the 5 for a $1.00 or the 3 for $2.00 boxes. 

The Yordan Alvarez completes the Stars of MLB set. The Luis Robert goes to the Topps player collection and the Chapman goes into the set. 

All of these cards goes into my player collections. I already had the Seager and the Betts, but I needed to get two more cards and I figured I could give them to my grandsons or my nephews. 

While I was going through the boxes, I ran across the All Aces cards. I wasn't going to collect the subset, but I really like these cards and they were only .20 each so, I guess I'm going to put the subset together.  

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a Bobby Witt Jr. fan. I got to see him play in high school when my oldest son was coaching against him. He seems to be a really nice kid and boy can he play. If I can come across his cards and can afford them, I'll pick them up. I do think that I'm going to stick to Topps products though. I'm not a big fan of the unlicensed products. Can't go wrong with a rookie Corey Seager either. 

These are just some players that I like and have player collections of them. Anything that I double up on will go to the grandkids or nephews. 

I think these were my favorite pickups for the day. I got all of these for $4.00. Felt like a pretty good deal to me. 

I'm debating what to do with my cards that no longer fit in my collection. 

I have listed over 2,000 cards on buysportscards.com and so far, in 5 1/2 months I've sold 41 cards in 13 different orders for a net of about $67.00. Every time I start to think about shutting it down and just moving everything to TCDB for trade/sale, I'll sell something. $67.00 isn't much, especially spread over 5 1/2 months, but its still $67.00 that I get to spend on cards. 

I've also listed over 11,000 cards for trade/sale on TCDB. The cards listed here are not listed on the buysportscards.com site. In about 3 1/2 months I've completed 19 trades with 3 trades in progress. I've gained over 350 cards for my collection and traded away over 150 cards that weren't fitting in with my collection. There's no doubt that trading on TCDB has been a positive for me. I've interacted with some really nice people and have only had one issue and it was worked out without any problem. The trade offers have dwindled quite a bit. I'm still adding cards to my collection and to the trade/sale list, but there hasn't been much action lately. I still haven't initiated a trade yet and I need to do that. 

I think for now, I'm going to keep things the way they are and keep listing cards for sale on buysportscards.com and keep listing in the for trade/sale in TCDB and see how it plays out. 

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31