Repping TCDB at the Card Show

Last week I had an experience that many of us haven't had in over a year--I attended a card show. I can hear Nick screaming internally right now because it was just last week he told everybody to stay home and hit up the Online Dime Box. But honestly, it didn't make much sense to avoid it. I've been full-time working in a school since August. I work closely with more people every day than I saw at the card show. Our state has a threshold of 15 for shutting down schools--15 people in the school with the virus at the same time means the school has to go online. The numbers are reported and published by the Health Department, so schools can't just fudge them. My entire county has had only two schools shut down this year, none since September. My school, with around 2300 students and over 100 faculty and staff, never had 15 and hasn't had a single case since January. So I decided that the benefits would outweigh the risks. Besides, that doesn't mean that I didn't make a purchase from the Online Dime Store, too. (Future post spoiler: I did.)

Luckily, my TCDB hoodie arrived just in time, just a couple of days before the card show, so of course I repped the site while I was there. I had two people stop me and ask me what TCDB was, and one actually got on his phone and bookmarked it after I explained that tracked my collection on it.

I made purchases from four different sellers and I'm planning on dividing up the spoils into several posts. Today's vendor was an older gentleman that I had never seen at a card show before. He told me that he typically sells at swap meets, but not cards. He hasn't collected since the late 90s, and that shows in the selection of cards he had. But late 90s is pretty good for me, so I didn't mind.

I bought a couple of complete insert sets from him. This is the Catching Fire set from 1994 Action Packed. I'd never seen this set before, but I knew I wanted it right away. Shiny, attractive design and a stellar checklist sold me immediately.

Maybe I had never seen the Catching Fire set before, but I was definitely aware of this Costacos Brothers set from 1993 Skybox. I loved these cards when I was a kid, but only ever saw them in ads in Beckett. I've had a few of them on my wantlist for a while, but I've never owned any until now. Every one of these cards would fit perfectly in my collection without being a set, minus the Barry Foster. But that's a cool card anyway. I was glad to pick up these two sets.

Here are some great cards for my Rookie of the Year collection. I especially love the older cards: the Carew, Bench, and Rookie Cup Dawson.

Tim Salmon is the winner of the cool card contest. There's acetate, die-cut DK, and an insert that specifies his rookie success, tailor-made to fit in a Rookie of the Year collection. The shiny Awards Gallery from Topps Gallery are awesome cards, too.

I also picked up some All-Star Game MVPs. The Hit Parade of Julio Franco shows well in the photo. Yaz has been pretty prominent on the blogs lately as the King of Night Owl's 1980s Countdown. The 1982 Fleer kicked off the countdown as #100. Yaz's 1983 Topps card made the countdown as a batting cage shot, but I picked up his 1983 Donruss, also a BP picture.

I found a few cards that I like for my new All-Star collection and its accompanying Frankenset. The two Metal cards are the Platinum parallel, which I didn't even know existed. The Buhner card is somewhat iconic to me. Jeff Kent comes from another set that was a new discovery: Topps Embossed Golden. I got my first Topps Embossed cards last month, and now I'm finding a gold parallel.

I'll wrap up the cards from this seller with a couple of Cubs. Gracie here is the third Leaf Certified Steel card I've shown here. I discovered that I really love these cards. They're thick, and it appears to me they're real metal. I don't know for sure, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I was happy to find three that I can use in my collection.

I dropped $20 at this table, which I thought was an okay price for the two insert sets and the stack of singles, but it wasn't my best deal of the day. There will be more from this show at a later date.