That is my kind of vacation

 

My vacation ended today, I'm back at work.

Vacations are pretty great -- I'll never understand those people who leave unused vacation on the board. I'll also never understand people who use their vacations to sight-see in far-off lands. Obviously, everyone's different, but here's what I mean:

While sitting in my hotel room in Cooperstown just over a week ago, my wife saw on Facebook that a mutual acquaintance who travels incessantly was now in France and alerting friends that she was touring some Leonardo da Vinci site there. I know some may consider me an uneducated goof but my first reaction was:

"I'm sure glad Cooperstown isn't in France."

 

The point is I had just about the best vacation that I could have without traveling more than three hours away. In the last week-plus, I've visited the Baseball Hall of Fame, shopped at baseball stores for cards and other memorabilia, welcomed several relatives into my home and given them all a tour of my card room, and capped it off by going to a card show for the second straight month.

 

That is my kind of vacation.

 

Needless to say, the collection received a boost while I was "away." Since this was my second visit to the same show in Syracuse that I attended last month, I expected to come away with not as much as the last time. Last month I realized that there were a lot more tables with stuff I don't care about than there has been in past years. That helps me condense what I need to look at, but it also means less excitement.

 

I bought cards at three tables this time -- out of the 100 or so tables set up there. Lots and lots of tables were boxes of unopened product, nothing but football and basketball autographs, and big-ticket items I just can't afford. Vintage has been in shorter supply my last two visits, but there's still enough of it for my needs.

 

My first stop was the first table as you walk in the door. The dealer there is a friendly, personable sort, very hands-on but not pushy. When he found out I was a Dodgers fan, he immediately groaned about how the Dodgers lost that last game against the Padres the night before -- specifically why did the Dodgers take out Tyler Anderson? There was another older guy looking a cards at that table, who also happened to be a Dodgers fan -- both were so old, they remembered the Brooklyn teams fondly, I was the youngster! -- and he groaned about it, too. Hey, you won't get any argument from me. I'll never understand the current game plan of removing starters who are still cruising along.

 

Anyway, there was lots of 2022 Archives at his table. I didn't expect to find any of it at all. And, weee!, the Dodgers hadn't been picked through yet!

 

 I can't tell you how pleased this makes me. This is all but four of the Archives Dodgers in the base set. All that's left is the key Chris Taylor highlight card, the two Jackie Robinsons and the Duke Snider (Hey! I think that Brooklyn fan might have swooped in on those on me!)

This means I DON'T have to buy a box of this stuff, or even a blaster! This also makes me pleased. Archives always makes me scrunchy and now I can just examine my Dodgers for design faults and be done with it. Let's break it down:

The 1987s first because, who cares. Nothing registers with me here. Nice to have Drysdale in the set, but otherwise, what's this, Cody Bellinger's fifth or sixth 1987 card? We left redundancy a long time ago with this design.

Those are the backs. I wouldn't be surprised that the '87 design has shown up so often because the backs are so easy to replicate. They are pretty dull. 

1963 is up next.

These are fine enough. I wanted to put the 2012 Heritage card of Kershaw next to this Kershaw card since they share the same design, but then it started raining outside and it's been dark as heck since and the picture won't look great (I miss my scanner).

It's very obvious from these three cards, that Topps is using stock backgrounds and has been for the last several years. It's one of the reasons I've soured on retro brands like Heritage and Archives.

The '63 backs, which again, Topps should have no problem replicating as it just did so 10 years ago with Heritage. I should look to see if the cartoons are repeated from that Heritage set.

 

Now the design that we have waited too long for -- 1978. 

These look strong enough design-wise. I think they've even got the baseball seams moving the right way. The photos aren't exactly in the spirit of the '78s and the name font is too thin, but that's Archives for ya, and I know the reasons. Just observing.

Those are the backs for the '78s. The 1978 backs are pretty pedestrian, too, known mostly because they're orange and for the game on the back. All three of these Dodgers will get you on base and Walker Buehler shows off the rare pitcher home run -- that's not gonna happen anymore!

 

OK, that's enough contrasting and comparing, here are the other Dodgers I got from this table and another one:

 

 The key card -- well, heck, they're all key -- is the 2020 Clayton Kershaw variation card. Those aren't the easiest to get when you're shopping online. Nice to find one for a reasonable price.

 

Outside of one other card I'll show in a moment, this is the only non-Dodger card I bought. It's a simple Card Your Mom Through Out insert from 2011 but it's a '75 design that eluded me that year.

OK, all of those cards probably added up to maybe 20 bucks or less. I tried to find some other cheapo cards elsewhere but discount boxes were in short supply (there was one guy parked in front of one of the few I saw, sitting in a chair, so it was impossible to squeeze in, who was there for the entire hour-plus I was there).

I looked over to the vintage guy, Gary. Shockingly there was no one at his table. As I strolled over, he left but only briefly. When he came back, I was standing in front of one of his cases, and I said, "I'd like to buy your 1970 Johnny Bench."

He took it out of the case and warned me "It's creased." "Yeah, I know," I said. "But I don't want to pay $150 for this card."

There it is. The second of the Big 3 1970 Topps cards that I've landed on this vacation. I probably could've gotten one in nicer condition if I paid $50 more, but I don't want to pay $50 more. This is ideal.

It's really dawning on me how sticky this set is. Looking at the high numbers, even after getting Bench, I still need Ryan, Mays, Kaline, Frank Robinson, Banks, Santo and Aaron (who is technically not a high number) among the final 85 cards for completion. Yeah, I can handle a crease.

Oh well, that's why set collecting is the gold standard of collecting. It's not for just anyone.

 

So, the vacation started with a 1970 Reggie Jackson and ended with a 1970 Bench. And there were a few other cards in between.

 

And I didn't need to go overseas for any of them.