Card Show Finds Part 2 - 75 cent cards

What can you get at a card show for 75 cents. Quite a lot actually if you're willing to sort through a bunch of cards. At one table a guy had a couple of boxes of cards for a dollar. He was offering 25 for $20. I pulled out 26 which he let me have for just $20. That works out to about 75 cents a card.

1995 Topps Traded Power Booster #8 Jeff Bagwell

"At The Break" was a subset in 1995 Topps Traded. Topps took this subset, printed them on thicker card stock, added some refractive foil on the front and included them as an insert called "Power Boosters".

2007 Artifacts Antiquity Artifacts Paul Konerko

A serial-numbered card with a striped jersey relic. Not bad for $0.75 when I didn't have any of these. 2007 Artifacts was a nice set. I'm not sure why this is called "Antiquity", Konerko wasn't all that old.

2009 UD A Piece of History Rookie Autographs Violet #111 Phil Coke

On the other hand, 2009 A Piece of History wasn't a great set, but I'll put out $0.75 for any autograph from any set from which I don't have a card.  Even if it's only Phil Coke. And a sticker auto. This card is currently available on eBay for between $7 and $8, so good deal.

2013 Topps Silver Slate Blue Sparkle #360 Khristopher Davis

When I saw this in the box I scratched my head wondering what it was. tradingcarddb.com calls it a wrapper redemption.

2014 Bowman Chrome Dualing Die Cut Refractors Oscar Taveras/Gregory Polanco

A crazy die-cut card of the late, could-have-been great Oscar Taveras.

2014 Bowman Chrome Fire Die Cut Mark Appel

I never saw any 2014 Bowman Chrome in retail so these are a surprise to me. This is supposed to look like a burned card with, I guess, the player rising from the ashes?

2014 Topps Triple Threads #100 Ken Griffey

 High-end cards like Topps Triple Threads don't make it to my neighbor Target so this is a good find for me.

2015 Bowman Chrome Series Next Die Cuts George Springer

Come to think of it, I never saw any 2015 Bowman Chrome either, so more surprises. There are a lot of cuts on this card making it difficult to scan straight. The scan looks almost as good as the actual card.

2015 Bowman Chrome Prospects Profiles Minis #15 Mark Appel

 That Springer card had some intricate cuts but here they just lopped off the sides.

2015 Topps Chrome Blue Refractors #40 Jon Singleton

A nice refractor parallel I didn't have.

2015 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractors #23 Stephen Strasburg

I generally like Topps Chrome and their crazy parallels but I'm not sure that sepia was a good choice.

2015 Topps Chrome Pink Refractors #151 Jose Altuve

 Although I'm not sure that the color pink belongs anywhere near a baseball card but it sure looks better than that sepia card.

2015 Topps Triple Threads Gold #61 Craig Biggio

Not only a Topps Triple Threads card, but a gold parallel, numbered to 99 of Craig Biggio!

Relics, Relics, Relics - Part 1

There is a small (10-12 dealers) in my area every quarter. I was there last weekend. Right inside the door was a guy selling relic cards from 2-5 dollars. I generally a sucker for these cards. I'm trying to collect as many different kinds of cards as possible and relic cards are a challenge since you don't usually see them in blaster boxes or packs from the big box stores (my only reliable source for cards).  I almost shot my entire budget for the show at this guy's table. I got 11 cards. Here's the first 6, I'll post the other 5 tomorrow.

2001 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball Game Jersey Trios

I don't keep a readily transportable list of all the cards I own, but I have a pretty good memory. It failed me in this case since I already had one of these. But a triple-relic card for 3 bucks...

2002 Upper Deck People's Choice Game Jersey

I used to have the Andy Pettitte card from this set but traded it for something. Of course, bits of cloth with a stripe on them are more interesting than plain white ones. As I looked at this I was wondering which part of Martinez' Cardinals uniform was white with a black stripe. The answer was on the back, it was from a Yankees uni. I guess the card companies have a problem with uniforms they've collected when a player changes teams. I don't really like this solution. Also note this is from his pants. Upper Deck wants to "keep you as close as you can get!" Not sure I want to be that close to a guy's pants.

2003 Fleer Showcase Thunder Sticks Game Bat

I already had the non-relic version of this set (featuring Jim Thome). I always like to get both versions. I don't have any idea what the "TF0130" on the card is supposed to me. The same thing is on the Thome card.

2003 Playoff Piece of the Game Autographs

Another memory failure but it was only $2. And the one I have is a bat relic, so not exactly the same. I don't much care for sticker autos but I like the idea that the back of the card features a photo of the item where they got the piece.

2003 SPx Winning Materials 50

This is a complicated card and it was a little hard to place. In 2003, SPx had 4 versions of this card with a different number. In addition to this one they had SPx Winning Materials 175, 250 and 375. I would have thought that the cards would be serial numbered to the number in the name, but not so. There are two versions of each player card for each number. One card has the team logo, like this one, the other has the player number. The team logo is a little rubber piece glued to the card. Using the 175 as an example, the logo version is numbered to 155 while the number card is numbered to 20. The sharp eyed among you will note that the count of the two versions adds up to 175. Who thinks up this kind of stuff? Anyway, I'm not actually sure what I've got since my card is numbered to 50 and, according to Beckett.com, none of the cards are numbered to 50.

2005 Topps Pristine Personal Pieces Common Relics

Another card with a stripe! And another complicated set. In addition to the Common, they had Uncommon, Uncommon Un-circulated and Scarce. Each numbered to a different count. The other versions at least have different background colors.

Card Show Finds - The 25 cent table Part 3

Back to the great cards I found for 25 cents at the Tristar Collectors Show in Houston on June 1. I've got at least three more posts to go to cover the 60 cards I bought. I'll interweave them with my Summer Clearance trade posts.

1995 UC3 Clear Shots #10 Alex Gonzalez

UC3 was produced by Pinnacle in 1995 and featured cards with a plastic coating which made the image on the card move. Clear Shots was a 12-card insert found in 1:24 packs. When you move this card from side to side the image switches between a head shot and an action shot. The back of this card is blank.  The back had, for some reason, a protective film which left a residue on the card when I tried to remove it.

1995 UC3 Cyclone Squad #18 Tim Salmon

Another insert in 1995 UC3. This was a 20-card set inserted 1:4 packs. When you move the card, the wheels behind the player appear to spin like the spokes of a bicycle.

1996 Collector's Choice Crash The Game #10 Frank Thomas

I'd gotten tired of Collector's Choice by 1996 and didn't buy much of it, so I never saw one of these. They'd been running this sort of contest for a couple of years but this is the fanciest design for what is essentially a throw-away card. The holographic foil printing on the front is quite stunning. I guess I'd like to see the "Super Premium" version of this card. Frank hit his 22nd home run of the year on June 29th so I could have been a winner.

1996 SP Special FX #19 Fred McGriff

This was a 48-card insert in 1996 SP. It was probably not to hard to get one of these as they were inserted 1:5 packs. I usually didn't buy many packs of such high end sets. I actually had the Chipper Jones card from this set which I bought on eBay a few years ago. What do you think of these holograms? Personally I always thought these ones featuring a head shot of the player to be kind of creepy. As you move the card back and forth, the head seems to turn to keep facing you with cold dead eyes.


1996 Topps Laser Bright Spots #6 Jason Schmidt

Laser-cut, rather than die-cut cards, were popular for about 20 minutes in the mid-1990s. Topps had a whole set. I liked them but they were pricey. At $5 for a pack of 4 cards, I only bought one pack. This is the first insert from the set I've seen. Not only does this card feature the entire top section of the card laser cut, all of that part is covered in heavy silver foil.

1996 Zenith #137 Chipper Jones

The only cards from this set I owned were 3 Phillies cards I bought on eBay in 2009. I don't believe I ever saw packs of this for sale anywhere. This Chipper card is part of the base set, the "Honor Roll" subset. These were high gloss, heavy card stock cards with lots of gold foil on the front.


1997 Collector's Choice #330 Mark McGwire

I bought even less 1997 Collector's Choice than I did 1996 so I'm not too familiar with the set. This was a subset called "Griffey Hot List". That's what the red foil in the upper left corner says. That and the dufex printing set the front apart from the regular base set cards. The back looks like a regular card, complete with another appearance of Collector's Choice's mascot, Stumpy.

1997 Donruss Diamond Kings #4 Chuck Knoblauch

In 1997, Diamond Kings was still just a numbered insert set.

1997 Donruss Preferred Silver #191 Gary Sheffield

1997 Donruss Preferred was an early attempt by Donruss to make it difficult for collectors, be they set collectors, team collectors, or player collectors, to meet their collecting goals. First the cards were expensive, $5 for a 5-card packs. The packs were actually little tin boxes which themselves were collectable. The base set came in three flavors, bronze, silver and gold. There weren't parallel cards, but each card was either bronze, silver or gold with the bronze being more numerous and available and the gold being harder to find. Then there were various die-cut parallels. I bought a couple of tins and left it go at that.


1997 Flair Showcase Wave of the Future #8 Richie Sexson

1997 Flair was Fleer's attempt to frustrate collectors with multiple parallel levels but this was just an insert to the set.

1997 Score Stellar Season #17 Gary Sheffield

This 18-card insert set was available in 1:35 packs of 1997 Score. It featured holographic foil printing that looks better in person then in this scan. 1997 Score was another difficult set with 6 different parallel cards.

Since my, admittedly impossible, collecting goal is to collect at least one kind of card from each set I actually know something about this. In 1996, there were approximately 25,000 different kinds of cards available (counting base sets, parallels and inserts). In 1997 there were over 35,000, and the numbers just went up from there.

Card Show Finds - The 25-cent Table Part 2

Continuing with the 25-cent cards I found at the big Tristar Collector's Show in Houston in early June. In case you missed the first part, you can find it here.

1993 Upper Deck Diamond Gallery #31 Ozzie Smith

I already had a card from this set but I'm excusing myself for buying another one because it appears that all the cards in this 38-card set have a different design. All apparently feature a large hologram but there the similarity ends. I actually bought two from this set at the show. Here's the other one.

1993 Upper Deck Diamond Gallery #35 J. T. Snow

Do you see any similarity between these two cards? This set was available as a boxed set only.

1993 Duracell #13 Ryne Sandberg

This odd-ball card was available through mail-in of proofs of purchase. Note the prominent Players Union logo but no MLB logo. That explains why Ryan's cap is blank.

1993 Kraft Pop-Up Action #28 Gary Sheffield

Another odd-ball set. These were available in specially marked packages of Kraft Singles. The back of the card is perforated. When you cut the perforations, you can then pull the tab at the top of the card and the top half of the back photo folds out of the card.

1994 Pinnacle The Naturals #18 Gary Sheffield

What is not to like about this card? The front features foil printing like Pinnacle used to do with their Museum Collection parallels. This was a 25-card boxed set. The boxes are serial numbered to 100,000. I like this card so much that I bought the entire set, un-opened, on eBay.  Great player selection as well.

1994 Score Gold Stars #44 Tim Salmon

1994 Score was a set I really didn't like so I didn't buy much of it. This was a 60-card set, inserted 1 in 18 packs. I can't say I'm overly fond of this insert either. The front features a Dufex finish which I don't much care for.


1994 Ultra Strikeout Kings #5 John Smoltz

In 1994, Ultra featured 16 different insert sets. With the acquisition of this card I've now got 13 of them. This was a 5-card set inserted 1 in 7 packs of Ultra Series 2.

1994 Dairy Queen #8 Ken Griffey, Jr.

This odd-ball set was available from Dairy Queens in the Pacific Northwest, somewhere I've never been but hope to visit one day.

1995 Collector's Choice #88 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Not an insert card but a subset. I don't have a lot of 1995 Collector's Choice and hadn't seen this subset before. Stumpy?

1995 Score Rules #11 Jose Canseco

I didn't care much for 1995 Score either so I didn't have any cards from this 30-card Series 1 insert set.

More to come!