The mall show, part 1

 

I went to a card show at the mall in town Saturday. The promotional outfit that puts on the big shows at the Syracuse fairgrounds branched out with a smaller show in my town.

I was excited, while keeping expectations low. It had been eight years since I had been to a show at a mall and that wasn't anything planned. I had stumbled upon it while out of state.

Even that time I mentioned how long it had been since I had gone to a mall show. They were super common in the mid-to-late 1980s and early '90s but I don't recall hearing of a mall show near me in the 30 years that I have lived here.

What would it be like?

I invited Angus, from Dawg Day Cards, to find out with me. This show was scheduled to run the length of the mall hours -- from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Have you ever heard of something like that with a show? Usually I have to dodge dealers scrambling to get out of the place at 3 p.m. It was nice to know there was no rush on our part.

 

This was the first time in a year that I had been to a show with Angus. Normally he drives in from Canada and then we drive to Syracuse. But this was much closer! Two miles from my house (Of course, Angus still had to drive the same distance from his home).  

We walked into the mall near the movie entrance by the food court. I don't know how long it had been since I had been inside the mall and actually walked through it. Two years? Three years? I couldn't even tell you the stores that were in there now.

The show tables started on the other end of the food court in the mall aisle. There were probably seven or eight tables in a row as you walked the aisle. Then there was a gap of just stores, then a couple more dealer tables, then a long gap of just stores and then four or five more tables at the other end of the mall. (The configuration of the mall show in Vermont was all the tables in a circle near the center of the mall).

About four tables in, I spotted a dealer that I've seen at the monthly shows in town. I bought the '69 Roberto Clemente card from him a couple months ago. He's a younger guy, maybe in his 30s, and deals in vintage. He's got the cards under glass but he's also got a few short-row displays of slightly discounted vintage, which is just my speed.

He seemed to have bulked up his inventory for this show, because I found a lot of '69s that weren't there before. The stars were falling out.

 

Robinson

 

Seaver

 

Carew

Palmer

And Giants heroes.

The dealer quickly surmised that I was collecting the 1969 Topps set. He said that he had recently acquired a bunch of '69 Topps cards and pulled a box of commons out to see if I wanted to go through them. I did. But I didn't want to blow all my money there, and since I knew he was a regular at the monthly show, I said I'd take a look the next time I was there.

Each of the cards I picked are slightly off-condition, I think you can tell -- the Seaver has a little bit of paper loss, the Giants Heroes card's corners are dented. But this is what I'm looking for. I can grab five star cards this way instead of holding out for a pristine example and being able to afford just one.

Here they all are together, think it looks most impressive that way:

 

So those took most of my show cash. We moved onward.

Angus found a box of discounted football -- and Browns cards. Next to those were discounted baseball, mostly inserts. There were some Mike Piazza inserts in there and I made a note to circle back.

 

Around there was another table of assorted items, including several discounted small sets. My eyes settled on a box from the '90s that I had never seen before.

 

 This is a 48-card set from Upper Deck in coordination with the 1994 All-Star Game with all the photos from famed SI photographer Walter Iooss Jr. I knew of Iooss' Upper Deck sets in '93 UD and that other mid-'90s UD set. But this was new to me.

Just a sample of the cards in the set and how big they are. 

I shuffled through them all to make sure there was at least one Dodger card in there. The set isn't worth me buying if there isn't.

 

Bingo.

It was mine for 5 bucks. And they fit nicely in four-pocket pages.

We continued on to near the other end of the mall. Angus, who was being more observant than me, spotted a card shop in the mall and it was kind of bustling. As I mentioned before, I had no idea what stores were there. But this caused me to recall that my wife mentioned one time recently that there was a card shop in the mall now. I made a mental note -- and then obviously it fell out of my head.

The shop had both sports cards and Magic/Pokemon/whatever cards. Angus found a $5 binder with the 1980 Topps Super card set in it. Had I not acquired that last year, I would've been right on it.

There were some discount boxes along the back wall -- separated nicely by teams -- and we both dug through those. I ended up buying three cards.

That's enough to make me want to go to the mall again!

Afterwards, while looking at social media, I saw where the mall officials thanked the show people for bringing out people to the mall. I haven't been to a mall on a Saturday in so long I don't know what a good crowd is, but it seemed decently busy.

On the way back to the other end, we stopped at the table with the discount boxes and I got my Piazza '90s inserts.

There were even more, but I didn't have much cash left, and there's always the situation with '90s inserts in which I have little idea if I have them already or not. Angus kept showing me a Pinnacle insert of Piazza, which looked very familiar to me, but I had to leave it there because I was more confident the above four were needs. They all were. So was the Pinnacle insert, turns out I was confusing it with the Hideo Nomo from the same set that I have. Oh well.

That was it for my purchases.

There was some other neat stuff there -- team-themed toy tractor-trailer trucks, lots of signed football stuff, Caitlin Clark cards (I need to get at least one Clark card in my collection, just one) -- and other things that have left my brain. At the one end were tables and chairs for some sort of Pokemon tournament? Magic tournament? I don't know. But it was unusual to see that kind of action in a city as small as mine.

It's pretty obvious that even with all the issues in the hobby, it's thriving these days. The first mall show in like 30 years? A monthly card show in town? None of this was happening in the first 15 years of my blog.

And it saved me an hour-plus drive down and back for once (because there was another card show in Syracuse happening the same day).

So there was more to fill the day, too -- and more cards stuff -- which I'll get to tomorrow.