It was kismet

For the longest time on the blog, I haven't made any kind of reference to the $30 a week portion of the blog title that for many years was a staple.   It was definitely a good starting point for me, but as time has gone on, I've had the $30 "allowance" in my head, but most times at shows or online I'll go over.   It's even worse now with the "pandemic pricing" on a lot of products.

This past Sunday at the West Palm Beach card show, I only hit the one table, which had a good selection of vintage cards.  I went out hoping to get some '68 Topps baseball to add to the collection, but all that he had I already had.

I did find a few cards that either interested me, or I needed for other various want lists.

A pair of '71 Topps football to start off.  They each went for $2, not bad in my opinion.  The Dawson as you can see has a bit of damage on the right-hand edge, but the "mad bomber" is in really nice shape.  This set will probably be put together some time after I retire...

I right away recognized this as a need; Carl Lewis from the 2006 Allen & Ginter set was a buck and was happily put into the pile.

As a side note, I find that I'm struggling finding cards for this set on TCDB.  I only have 63 out of the 350 cards for the set.  If anyone has a stack of them that they wish to trade, please either comment or hit me up on TCDB (My ID is rmitchell6700)

This could have been another post similar to the 7 8 9 post from a few days ago.  Only this time it would have been 2 3 4.   The 4 cards for the '69 set either cost me 2 or 3 bucks, and the '71 Carlton was stickered at $4.  Sitting here thinking while writing this, I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a '71 card.   Months it's been.

I really have caught a football bug over the past year, so much so that I have:

• Almost completed '86 Topps
• '81 and '82 Topps are both more than 90% complete.
• '79 Topps is about 40% done

For the most part, the cards have been really affordable, and these were no execption.  The Lott was the costliest as it was from his rookie year in '82 ($10).  The Payton was $5, and was a card that I needed for the '81 set.  The top row was all $2 apiece, and the Zorn RC was 4.

Was quite happy with what I had, it totalled if I remember correctly $42.  Brought it up to the dealer.

"I can do $30"   Kismet!!   Easiest purchase I've made in a while.

It was as if he knew me....

Enjoy what you collect!!

Robert

Showing that I'm semi-serious about '68 Topps

I came into 2022 wanting to be a little more focused on just one vintage set want list.  My style over the past few years has been very haphazard to say the least, and I feel like I've been getting nowhere with any of the vintage sets I'm working towards completing.  Hopefully one day I will be able to finish another vintage set.

Well, the trade I mentioned last week came early enough in the month of January that I decided to try and start knocking down the '68 Topps want list.  When I have been hitting eBay recently, I've been focusing on picking up singles from that set from a particular seller.  While scrolling through their listings, I'll focus on the burlap set and maybe hit a card or 2 from another set, just like the 7 8 9 post from the other day.  

A trio of purchases have arrived and as promised here's 19 more cards from the '68 set to show off.

We'll get to those in a minute, I found a couple of '72s as part of one of those purchases and grabbing names like Frank Robinson for a few bucks is becoming more tolerable to me now.   I guess the old cheapo scrooge I've been for years is finally realizing that if I ever want to finish these older sets, $1-$2 cards aren't going to be everywhere...

Getting a few more known names for around $2-$3 hasn't been too bad, guys such as Wilbur Wood, Claude Osteen, Jesus Alou on this scan were affordable.  

Can't help but like the solid green helmet that Phil Roof is sporting, he's always a reminder of the original Blue Jays team during the inaugural season of 1977, even if it was just for 3 games and 5 AB's.

Poor scan, cutoff the bottom of the cards.  I don't make it a habit of searching for clean checklists, but the one in the top left corner is not marked on either side and is in really nice shape.  This scan was mostly in the $1.50-$2.50 range but using sellers that pay for shipping eases that just a bit.

Another nice find was the Hank Aaron all-star card which set me back just $12.  A couple of soft corners, but no creases and it became another card that I couldn't leave for that price.  

I was trolling around this afternoon on the computer and the wife asked me if I was putting together lists for tomorrow's card show.  (I wasn't)

I'm hitting the first card show for me in 2022, and I'm going with the same purpose that I've had over the past few months.   Just see what pops up.  I'll let you know what happens.

Feeling great about working on '68!!

Robert

7 8 9

No, this post isn't about the old kids joke of why is 6 afraid of 7, it's about a trio of cards I picked up on eBay last week that just happened to cost $7, $8 and $9.

For me, they were three pretty nice pick-ups for 3 sets that are in the pipeline.

For the '81 Topps football set, a $7 Kellen Winslow rookie card dropped into my cart really easy.  This was the 3rd of 3 cards that I found from the same seller.

As I had mentioned a few days ago, I have started to pick up some more '68 Topps cards for that set and finding the Lou Piniella here for $8 I thought was a good enough deal to continue this purchase.  This was the first of the 3 cards that I found and as normal, I scoured the sellers store to see what else they had.  The next card up kind of made this purchase a great one for me.

Some pretty good names checked off

I pretty much have resigned myself to buying any Mickey Mantle cards for vintage sets much further down the road.  That's just how it is here.  But when I saw this '69 Topps checklist featuring Mickey for just $9, well boxes checked or not it was coming home.  I showed the card to my wife, and she immediately remarked on the checked boxes, wondering who originally had this card and the others that were colored in.

I'll be sure to let everyone know if I find more Mantle cards for less than $10 in the future.

Still enjoying the hobby!

Robert