Impromptu Card Show Loot

I friend of mine was having a Birthday Friday so my wife and I went to Springfield with him and his wife for dinner. After dinner the wives decided they had to go the the mall. This is one time I was glad that my wife thought she needed more clothes. Why you say? Read the title, dummy. Yes I accidently happened into a card show.

The first booth I came to wasn’t very promising. It was full of LPs and entertainment autos. They also had some non-sports cards and the only thing that caught my eye was complete sets of Garbage Pail Kids. Series 2 was $30 and 3-5 were $20 each. Non-sports are not for me so I didn’t waste any time with the booth.

Booth 2 wasn’t much better. NASCAR cards, 8x10 autos, and a bunch of sports lithographs. He only had one little case of cards and it was full of… well, crap. I did notice something else though. He had 3 old boxing cards tucked in behind his little glass case. They didn’t look at all familiar to me so I asked him about them and he said they were a 30s German set. That was when I noticed that they had German on the back. One was a Schmelling vs. Sharkey card and the others were guys I never heard of I asked him how much and he said 15 a piece. He wouldn’t really work on the price either because best I could get out of him was 12 each if I took them all. I passed on it but I kind of wish I bought them now because they were gems. I mean I never saw a 30 something cards in the shape that these things were in. They would have graded high if someone tried it. I mean real high.

Next booth was way more promising. It was 5 tables of nothing but vintage and me without a checklist. The guy working the booth greeted me with, “Hi, I remember you, you’re from West Plains.” I remembered him too because of what he had the last time I was at a show. He had an Oddball Goudey Ted Williams. I say oddball because I don’t really know what it was exactly it was almost an 8x10 but it did say Goudey on it. I’m expecting someone to read this and tell me what it is. He had a $1,200 price tag on it. I watched him trade it to a guy for a Jackie Robinson RC. Okay back to this show. Now, I have to shop from memory which is never a good thing because even the cards I don’t own I have seen before in auctions or other collections. So I went with what I absolutely knew I needed, the last 2 1960 Topps for my team set, Red Sox Team and Bill Monbouquette. No luck. So I just stared flipping through boxes cussing because I couldn’t remember which ones I needed. I did come across this card and decided to buy it even though I already have it. For a buck I gotta show love for the hometown guy.

I gave up looking through regular cards and decided to look at oddball stuff since I could remember it better. I looked through a bunch of Topps Stamps, Embossed, and a bunch of Fleer Stickers with no Red Sox to be found. Post was void of Red Sox also but I did find this.

Yep, another Virdon. As far as I know this is his only oddball card so now all I need is a ‘62 to complete his playing day cards. I know I overpaid for it but like I said the guy knew I was from West Plains and I have to admit it is one of the best cut Post cards I have ever seen. I paid him thanked him and went to the next booth.

The next booth was also 5 tables back to back with the first one. About half of his boxes said 90% off Beckett. But as I looked through cards there were no prices. He was helping somebody else at the time and since I don’t’ know what Beckett prices are I went on to the next booth.


Booth 3 was actually really really impressive. The guy had probably 200 Ultimate patches. I spent a few minutes looking at them because they looked really nice. But when I go to a card show it is vintage or nothing. Not everybody thinks like me because he had more people looking at his booth than anyone else.

Booth 4 was coins, 5 was Jerseys and NASCAR, 6 was jersey cards. Not a few jersey cards tons and tons of jersey cards. He had at least 4 tables of monster boxes filled with nothing but jersey cards. Again nothing new for me so it was on to number 7.

At booth number 7 I experienced something new. The guy was asleep behind the booth. I wasn’t much interested and it was the last booth so I went back to the 90% off Beckett guy. Right off the bat I found two ’59 Ted Williams cards. When I asked how much he said it was on the back. $2.00 and $3.00

Learning this new little fact I looked over his stuff a little harder. Once again I started with 1960 Topps. He didn’t have it. But he yelled back over to the guy from the first booth. He said hey where is that box you bought earlier? The first booth guy said here under my table why? 90% guy said I think I remember seeing the 60 Topps red Sox card in it. He did alright and $5 later it was mine.

Once again I was without my list so I asked for oddball. He pointed me to a basket on the end of his table.

JACKPOT!!

I could have found this one basket alone and been happy with the show. Here is what I found:

1954 Bowman Preacher Roe - Cost $2.00. Sriously I’ll buy creased ’54 Bowman Preacher Rows for $2 all day long.

1940 Something Johnny Pesky Some kind of card. - I don’t know what it is and the guy I bough it from didn’t either. But for $1.00 I wasn’t passing it up. Again I expect some reader to know what this is. I’m sure someone like Dayf that is an encyclopedia of baseball knowledge will know what it is. I scanned it alongside the Roe to show how big it is because the 54 Bowman is oversized itself.

1936 Goudey Bill Werber- He had 3 old Goudey cards and one of them happened to be a red Sox. It is pretty banged up but it is also 74 years old. Better yet it was $2. I’m kicking myself for not buying the other 2 Goudey non Red Sox cards for $2 each. For whatever reason it didn’t even occur to me until I was driving home that I should have bough them.

1934-36 Rick Ferrell Batter Up – I have never seen one of these before and I knew I had to have it. It isn’t even really a card it is printed on really thin stock. It is more like paper than cardstock. You can’t tell from the scan but it is little. It is exactly the same height as the ’36 Goudey. For anyone that doesn’t have any old Goudey think 07 Goudey height. $10 later it was mine.

So how did I do for $31 bucks? I’m crazy happy with it. Best impromptu mall trip ever.  The guy at the last booth also threw in an extra card for free when I asked him how much it was. I’m not showing it because I am going to mail it out and I don’t want someone to see it before the package is opened. I’m still going to the vintage show Sunday and plan on picking up a bunch more vintage stuff*.  That is why the IRS gives us an income tax return isn’t it.

*This time with checklist in hand.