I almost stayed within the budget at the card show.

Believe it or not, with all the cards that you see on this blog, I do try my best to stay within the $30 per week "budget".  There are weeks in which I may only buy a few dollars worth of cards, and then other times I find a few deals that may put me up to $40 or more. 

I've held fast to my one credo that I posted quite a while back, and that's no card purchases on the credit card.  I've kept that an absolute must in order to keep solvent while still having fun with our great hobby.

I did pretty well at the card show yesterday, spending $37 total at 3 tables.  The final card I bought was the one that put me over the limit, but when you see it I hope you'll agree it was worth the extra few bucks.

The first group of cards you'll see are either for sets that I'm building, or for potential trades.

The top row are cards from the '73 Topps set.  This is another set that has grown on me, especially the manager cards.  I like the design, the manager on the left side, and his coaches with smaller boxes on the right.  I can't recall a set other than the '73 that honors the coaches along with the manager.  The Brooks Robinson card cost me less than a buck, and other than it being off center, there's not a thing wrong with it.  I had to look twice at the Hrabosky card, seeing him without that Fu Manchu mustache just doesn't sit well with me.  It's kind of like a peanut butter sandwich without the jelly if you know what I mean.

The bottom row were also some interesting finds...the MacLeish on the left is a rainbow card from the 08-09 OPC set, priced to move.  The Aaron Hill sparkly is from last year's Lineage and was found in a 15 cent box (not quite as good as Nick's legendary dime box, but close!).  The Zimmerman jersey card was a buck, following with the theme "priced so well you can't leave it there".  I'm sure one day I'll find a Nationals fan to trade for it.

Naturally, a visit to the monthly show ends up with a trip to the vintage table, and as always Ray was there.  A great six pack of '64 Topps was just part of the transaction...

I managed to pull in a couple of more Pirates...seeing as I'm in western PA they usually go for a little bit more, but with my "discount" the prices drop down to normal.

The key card of the bunch was the Drysdale.  The card is in nice shape, other than the 70-30 centering.  I was able to get it for $8. That was the card that put me over the $30 mark. 

I also bought a bunch of '77 Topps, which is nearing completion with just 55 cards remaining.  I was also able to get a bunch of the Gypsy Queen singles I needed for this year's set; I'm now down to just 7 cards to finish the 300 card base set.

Three more cards for the insanity set came home with me as well.  SNI has received a nice push from my fellow bloggers (thank you all!) over the past few weeks.  I've saved a couple of other purchases for their own post later this week, cards from vintage sets that I had not previously owned any of, but found a fascination (naturally) when I saw the prices. 

I've got just under a month now to get myself ready for the Hockey Expo in Toronto.  I'm actually hoping that I'll be able to use that show to accomplish one of my blog goals that I posted at the beginning of 2012, which is meeting another blogger in person. 

We'll see if anyone is crazy enough to talk to me...

Thanks for reading, Robert