This past weekend I attended the TriStar Sportscard Show in
San Francisco. I have attended this show
for the past five years. Being from a
small town in Northern California, there are never any cards shows here (please bring back the glory days of the early 90s when even in my hometown
there were shows monthly). Usually the only
show I attend each year is this show in San Francisco, normally held at the Cow Palace. For me it is about a five hour drive to San Francisco, but
it is worth the time and expense as I get a chance to look at and buy baseball cards outside of
my local card shop.
I was excited about attending the show, as I was
planning to go to the show on Friday afternoon/evening (I had never done that before) and Saturday. I was a little confused on Friday when I first arrived as there was a long line of a couple of hundred people waiting to get into the show. However, the reason that there was such a long line was cleared up minutes later when I found out that this year the venue at the Cow Palace was
moved to the north side of the building, because there was a HempCon show also scheduled (link: Hempcon Show San Francisco) that was using the
room that the card show normally occupied.
A couple of times when I went to my car to stash some of my purchases, I
detected the wafting of smoke from a joint or pipe floating across the parking
lot.
The main reason I attend the show is to buy
baseball cards. Prior to the show I
curtailed my purchases at the local card shop and on the internet so I would have more dollars
to spend. A couple of
other reasons I like the show are:
- I get a chance to talk with dealers. I like to talk with them about cards and ask how they are doing at the show. This year, the dealers that I talked with said they were having a good show. To me there seems to be more people at the show than in previous years. I don’t go to the show to sell cards, but a couple of times I was asked if I had any cards for sell. I also noticed many dealers were willing to purchase cards. From what I could tell, a majority of those deals were for relic and signature cards or one-of-one issues.
- I also like to talk with the children at the show. Yes, a majority of the attendees were old farts like me, but if I get the chance, I like to talk with youngsters about their card collecting. I was eight years old when I started to collect, and it is a hobby that I’ve enjoyed since then, and I know the future of the hobby is to have children interested in and enjoying the hobby. On Friday night the few children I saw seemed to just be tagging along with their dad and/or mom. On Saturday, I got the chance to talk with a few children, and those that I did talk with were excited about the cards they had, as they seemed most trilled about the relic or signature cards they were holding. There was one young man, who couldn’t have been any older than twelve, who was working a table with his parents. He seemed very knowledgable about cards and was having a good time, except when his older brother pissed him off after he stole his nachos. He was a good salesman and looking back, I should have bought some of the cards he offered me.
So when I entered the show, I had my lists in hand and started looking for dime boxes and $1
vintage cards. I found
dime boxes first. I was able to find two dealers who were selling cards for
a dime. One of the dealers had
over 100,000 cards and the other dealer had about six or seven full 5000 card boxes. It seems that I was elbowing for space with other
card bargain hunters, as I wasn't the only one looking for dime card deals. Yes, other
collectors were polite and courteous and apologized as we kept
bumping into each other in search of the best dime card.
In my next few posts I want to share some of the cards
I bought at the show. I am happy about
the cards I got, maybe spent too much, but it was worth the travel time and
spending a couple of days combatting the traffic of the city. Later
I will do posts on some of the non-vintage cards that cost more than a dime
and about vintage cards that I bought for a dollar.
Dime Card Deals
One of the best things about going to a card show is looking through
boxes of dime cards. It is fun to look
for a good deal, but I also enjoy looking at the cards, many that I’ve never
seen. Normally I will come home with
anywhere between 500 to 1000 dime cards.
This show was no different, and now that I’m back home, I am wondering
what I am going to do with all of these cards.
I’ve started to sort them and I am trying to figure out what I've got and now that I write this blog, I can share some of my purchases on my blog. Here are some of the cards that I brought
home with me.
1969 American League Co-Winners of Cy Young Award
I was able to find vintage cards of the Co-Winners of 1969
American League Cy Young award. These
cards are not perfect.
The Cuellar card is a Topps 1966 short print issue and the McLain card is from the Topps 1972 set, one of Topps first traded cards.
Mike Cuellar Topps 1966 #566 and Denny McLain Topps 1972
#753
I always interested in learning about the history of the
game. Baseball
cards offered the chance to educate me about players from yesteryear. Each of these Negro League star cards was
issued in 2001. What could have been if these players would have had the
opportunity to have a playing career in the major leagues?
Josh Gibson Topps 2001 What Could Have Been #WCB1, Andrew
“Rube” Foster Fleer Tradition 2001 Stitches In Time #20, Satchel Paige, & 2001
Upper Deck Legends, The Foirentino Collection #F2.
The 1952 World Series Reprints
The 1952 World Series was before my time but was a
rematch of the 1949 Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees. In 2002, Topps issued reprints of cards from
their 1952 set that portrayed players from the 1952 World Series, which the
Yankees won four games to three. I was
able to get five from the 2002 Topps regular set and two issued in the chrome
set.
Topps 2002 regular set 1952 World Series Reprints
Duke Snider #2, Bill Martin #6, & Gene Woodling #15,
Johnny
Sain card #16 & Hank Bauer #19.
Topps 2002 chrome set 1952 World Series Reprints
“Preacher” Roe #11 & Ralph Houk #17
I don’t have many cards from the Topps 1998 Minted in Cooperstown
set. Beckett says the cards were seeded
in one of every eight packs. I didn’t
buy a lot of packs in 1998, so the Minted in Cooperstown cards I have I
purchased on the secondary market. I was
able to find a stack of about 40 common Minted in Cooperstown cards and I went
ahead and snagged all of them.
Here are a few of those cards.
Carlos Delgado #384 & Bobby Bonilla #356
Jim Eisenreich #67 & Chili Davis #40
Ozzie Guillen #164 & Walt Weiss #96
David Wells #83 & Trevor
Hoffman #57
Food Issues
I was able to find some nice odd ball food issue cards.
1987 M & M Star Lineup Mike Schmidt #3, and 1989 Hillshire
Farms or Kahn’s Cooperstown Collection Brooks Robinson #9
Minor League Issues
It seems that in the early 1990s there were many minor
league issues. I was able to find some
nice minor league cards.
1990 Star Ivan Rodriguez #26 & 1990 CMC Dave Justice
#285,
1991 Line Drive Pre-Rookie Double AA Jim Thome #96 & 1991
Classic Best Pedro Martinez #355
1992-93 Fleer Excel Manny Ramirez #164 & 1996 Classic Sport Nomar Garciaparra #121
Some Rookies
I was able to get some early 90s rookie cards plus some
rookie cards for current players.
Here are a 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie Juan Gonzalez, which is
a reverse negative (note the 19 on Gonzalez's jersey is backwards and that he is batted left handed), and a 1990 Leaf of John Olerud.
1990 Donruss Rated Rookie Juan Gonzalez #33 & 1990 Leaf
John Olerud #237
I found 2004 Topps Cracker Jack Yadier Molina rookie with the sticker
issuance of the same card.
2004 Topps Cracker Jack Yadier Molina #204 and the same card
as sticker
Here are a couple of current Red All-Stars, Joey Votto and Todd Frazier. I am not sure if the Votto is his
rookie card. He made his major
league debut in September 2007.
2007 Bowman Draft Future’s Game Prospect #BDPP98 Joey Votto
and Topps Update 2011 Update Todd Frazier #US270
Some Inserts
I found inserts from sets going back into the 80s. Here are a few of them.
1999 Upper Deck Wonder Years Mark McGwire #WY19 & 1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated Diamond Dominators Nomar
Garciaparra #8
2001 Topps Gallery Alex Rodriguez #GH9 and 2001 Upper Deck
Superstar Summit Deter Jeter #SS1
Watch for other of my blogs with more tales about the San Francisco card show.
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