One hour to get there, not even one hour there

 

I have mentioned many times how far away I live from everything.

People tend to consider small cities or towns as "great places to raise a family" when they're trying to think of nice things to say. And, yeah, that's true, but you could say that about dozens upon dozens of upstate New York towns, except those towns are actually CLOSE TO THINGS.

Where I live has relatively low crime and almost no traffic, but that's where the positives end. I'm still here only because the job is decent and I hate uprooting myself, because, dammit, it's a chore when almost nothing comes to you -- you have to go there.

Yup, we've reached another card show report.

This is the one that I thought earlier I wouldn't be able to make, which would be two card shows missed in consecutive months. But I completed the work project in record time and I was officially free yesterday to travel to the show.

It took sweating out the weather a bit. There was snow in the forecast -- on April 3 -- but it turned out all it did was rain the entire hour down and back. Also, this show has moved up its time frame. It starts at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 3. It used to end at 4. This is irksome to me because I work Saturday nights and I rarely can get there before noon -- that thing about not being close to anything again.

 

So I walked into the show at 1:07 p.m. -- yes, I checked -- and first went to say hello to John from the Sports Card Nation podcast. He interviewed me a little more than a year ago and he has a table at the show. We chatted for a bit and then I had to get going because this show wraps up at freakin' 3!!! The way dealers have been shutting down their inventory 50 minutes before closing during past shows I had like an hour to find cards!

 

I started my tour, pretty certain where I was going to spend most of my money, but the first thing that drew my eye were a few innocent sets with reasonable prices on the cases.

 

One of them instantly went into the giveaway stash, so you don't need to see that here. The Statistical Standouts set was marked for the giveaway, too -- I didn't know what the heck I was looking at, honestly -- but then I searched inside and one card is staying with me.

 

Yet another '90s Piazza for the collection.

I was pleased to nab the 1986 Fleer All-Stars set. I've always liked that one, it's one of the better Fleer box sets of the 1980s. I've only ever had the Pedro Guerrero card and recently the Tommy Herr card came to me. But there's nothing like a complete set of all-star cards that look like something that was made in 1958:

Those are wonderful. I don't remember Gorman Thomas as a Seattle Mariner at all, but applause for gettting him in this 12-card set. Also, I really appreciate the proper treatment of the backgrounds -- red for the American League players and blue for the National League players.

As for the 1985 Drake's set, that's one I didn't have yet. 

The guy selling them was young, maybe not even 30, and he couldn't believe I was buying them. "You like the Drake's sets?" he asked (Who doesn't like The Drake?). I could've referred him to my blog posts about the sets but there was NO TIME. I just said simply that I loved them and that I've had the first one since it came out. "1982?" he said. No, man, 1981 (although there were Drake cards in the '50s). Maybe I should have directed him to the blog post.

Anyway, he was happy somebody was buying them and even remarked to his girlfriend or whoever, "I sold the Ripken set!"

So I stuffed those in my coat pockets and went to find Gary, the vintage guy, because it has been way too long since I added to my 1970 Topps quest.

It had been so long that I felt like I wasn't a vintage collector anymore, just wandering from one oddball to another. I was determined to do some damage. I found the binder stack of 1970 Topps that began with the mid-300s, broke out my phone with the blog want list, and just added every card that I could see that I needed, page by page.

They may not be much to look at but those are cards ranging from #381 to #691. High-rent territory, mostly.

Believe me, I'm still not over the fact that I find 1970 Topps rather dull. I've come around a bit -- I've needed to if I'm going to complete it -- but those feelings that I felt as a kid about '70 Topps are still there.

I mean these were the two most expensive cards of the entire stash! Two head shots of guys without caps??? Ten-year-old me would be totally disgusted.

Anyway, as you can see, the cards were in excellent shape and keeping my head down and just adding the cards without pausing to see if there was anything else I wanted -- or something cheaper -- really sucked up all my cash. But I was committed. It felt good after staring at stupid online prices for vintage for months.

This was one of the cards I added on the very day he passed. RIP, Tommy. I'm still reading Michael Leahy's The Last Innocents, about the 1960s Dodgers, and I read quotes from Tommy Davis mere minutes before I found out that he had died yesterday.

 

This is a key card as it's the first team card of the Montreal Expos, which means that's the debut 1969 Expos in that photo! Somebody in the picture there in the middle row isn't paying attention to the photographer. I think he's wearing No. 29, which would be Howie Reed.

 

I happened to grab Howie's card yesterday, too.

 

Not a lot of name guys in this stash, Rick Monday is about as recognizable as it got. I still need the Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench and Nolan Ryan from this set, but one of the best things about set collecting is no card is more prominent than the other, you still need one of each. Sure, player-collectors and dealers hike the prices we set-collectors must pay, but I'll get there.

The point is I raised my completed portion of the set from 76.3% to 78.7% (Some of the cards were upgrades). And I was doing none of that when I was shopping for cards online the last few months.

So, with my main mission accomplished, I did a little wandering that I usually do when I arrive at show, to see what I might find.

Back in the corner I found nine-pocket pages spread out onto the table and each one of them contained a Burger King set from 1978/1979.

I think I've made it known how much I hearty-heart-lovey-love these sets.

I couldn't believe my eyes. There was even the '78 Detroit Tigers Burger King set (with a price I could not afford). And I couldn't believe my lousy luck. I could only get one of them with my leftover cash.

The Phillies set was the first to catch my eye, particularly the Danny Ozark card.

If you don't know why the Ozark card is so great, you probably don't get the Burger King sets. Man, this thing pulled me right in.

This was the first Phillies manager I ever knew. There were no manager cards in the 1979 Topps set.

That's the rest of the set (sorry for the crooked photo). The photo differences from '79 Topps include Doug Bird, Nino Espinosa, Manny Trillo, Pete Mackanin, Greg Gross and, obviously, Pete Rose.

This is my second completed Burger King team set, along with the 1978 Yankees set.

The dealer said he got all of the BK sets when he bought someone's collection. I was beating myself up for running out of cash before I saw these and I told him I was interested in all of them. I may be able to strike a deal with him next week, but I doubt the Tigers set will be involved.

And that was the end of the show for me. I was in and out of there in 40 minutes. I refuse to hang out at card shows when there is no potential to spend, the show has lost its meaning at that point.

Then I drove the whole hour back to where nothing is. Two hours of driving for 40 minutes of card heaven. I suppose that's why city folks live where they live, because they can get up, get dressed and be at a card show in 15 minutes.

But it sure would be nice if they thought about us outsiders -- and night workers -- and left the show open for an hour or two later.

Heck, I'd be down for a show on a Monday. I'm always off. But I suppose that will never happen.

City slickers and 9-to-5ers get all the perks.