In our area, there is a card show at least two weekends a month. Sometimes, it’s three. Currently, we are in a stretch where we will have four in five weekends. While it’s a good thing, there can be some bad. When I mention some of the bad, don’t take that as any amount of complaining. There are collectors across the country and even the world that would love to have a show one time a year in their area.
It’s nice to have a lot of shows. In our area, they are run by different promoters. You see a lot of the same sellers across shows but there are also sellers that only set up at a certain promoters’ shows. I tend to hit the Johnson Sports Promotions shows and not so much the others, for particular reasons.
Where the problem can come in is that at a certain point, there’s just not much left for me to buy. I like what I like and it’s a small percentage of stuff. I can’t say that I have walked away from a show empty handed, but there have been instances of walking out with just a couple of items.
At the February 20 show, there was a seller that I hadn’t seen before and to my delight, he had vintage. He was from Chicago, told me that he was visiting friends in Texas and decided to drive and set up at the show. I’m glad he did. He was the first seller I visited, hopeful that he would have things I’d be interested in. He did.
His asking price on the cards was good for me. The Browns I picked up for nostalgia sake. I don’t care much about the NFL anymore but when I did, I was a Browns fan. The 1955 Bowman Frank Gifford is a low(er) grade piece I picked up because it was 1955 Bowman. I haven’t started “working” on the set, but I have quite a few of them now and it will eventually be a project.
The Gene Heeter and Bruce Bosley cards were each a buck or less. This made them no-brainers to add to my WVU collection. Finally, the Beliveau cards were also $1 each. I knew they were older and that’s the sole reason I picked them up. Not sure if I’m going to put them into my COMC store or what I will do with them. They were purely an impulse buy. I also picked up a low grade 1953 Topps Joe Rossi card and sent to Jason.
While I was at the seller’s table, a couple of guys that you may know from Twitter came over and gave me cards they thought I’d like. They were right.
Stephan brought this one over to me. It’s no secret that I’m working on the 1955 All-American set (you can see what I have so far here) and this one is from the 2005 follow up. I’ve considered working on the complete master set of this, but it’s likely more than I want to spend. I’m very happy to have a start on it if I ever do, though.
A couple of minutes later, Matt brought this one over to me. He loves his Texas Longhorns and has a great collection. This helps him appreciate how much I love my former Mountaineers and their cards. Thanks, Matt!
Later on when I visited Stephan and Angela‘s table, they gave me another item.
They know I like racing and decided to find them a good home. I haven’t opened the pack yet, but I know that there is a Tony Stewart on the back. Stewart had run the Indianapolis 500 a few times, so you know that he’s okay by me!
I walked around a little more, but really only made one other purchase, from Matt.
I picked this one up for the 1955 Bowman “collection.” I have one, but an additional one at that price was something I wasn’t going to pass on.
I also picked up some 70s card of former Mountaineers. I love dime boxes, but it takes forever to go through. I think I gave up after about two rows. Not pictured are these cards that I sent to Richard in PA and also another box of 1986 Topps baseball.
All in all, I walked away a pretty happy guy. I started discussing with some of the locals that maybe we should plan a day trip to Houston, Oklahoma City, San Antonio or some other area where we might find new sellers. Well, new to us. We shall see what the future holds.
Thank you for reading. If you have any interest in contributing, just let me know. I would love to get more content onto the blog. If you like what we’re doing and want updates when we post new pieces, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Please take the time and also look through some other pieces on the site. I’m still looking for more folks that would like to contribute, so let me know if you are! You can follow me on my other Twitter handles at @kin_kinsley and @DFW_Card_Shows.