3/7/20 show report: pre-corona bonanza

I'm gonna try to keep cranking out posts to catch up on the piles of cards sitting on my desk.  But first, today I'm giving a shout out to Jay who blogs over at Card Hemorrhage.  Jay's back in the hobby and PCing some Giants of the San Fran variety, and since he was nice enough to contact me (among others, I'm sure!) and mention that he's following, I thought giving him some free pub would be fair.  Welcome, Card Hemorrhage!

And for today's content we'll go way back to earlier this month when things were much, much different.  I headed east to Taylor on the first Saturday of March looking forward to another afternoon of poring over boxes, and that's exactly what I got.  My usual guy got $50 of my money, broken down into $40 of dimes, quarters, $0.50, $1, and $2 cards, plus one "bigger" card.  I also returned to the vintage guy whose tables are behind that one and took advantage of his $1 and 8/$20 deals to the tune of $25.  As usual I was happy with the results:

I believe I found the Kinsler Triple Threads base in a dime box and I was happy to add it to a collection I still enjoy even though Ian has since left the team and retired.  Griffey makes just one appearance today in 90s insert format.  Meanwhile Mr. Padre gets three, including the multi-product 2K insert offering, a Plum Border Diamond Kings card, and yet another Topps reprint.  Two new Larkins made it into my box, one being a Museum Collection base that's growing on me a bit in the face of the all-over-the-place Inception.  And the one vintage item I kept for myself is a new Willie Horton base from '66 Topps.  I've come to appreciate Horton more as I've gotten older so I'm unofficially working on tracking down at least all of his playing days cards, such like this subset issue that notes he was second in the AL in RBI in '65; He held the same position in HR as well that year.

I had another good day of digging out some Maddux cards, that's for sure!  The first is a '93 Stadium Club Master Photo Winner redemption card, which is a cool piece to have even before considering I previously picked up an actual Master Photo to go with it.  '96 Topps Chrome's Masters of the Game insert takes me back to that brand's debut and a nice insert design.  Speaking of that quality, recent Gallery and Museum (again) looks, plus a Panini Leather & Lumber insert, also look great.  Cal tags along as the second '95 Ultra All-Star, plus I added a relatively plain Optic insert.

JV gets his own scan with four Topps branded products.  2010's National Chicle is a solid art set compared to some recent efforts, plus it's always nice to add stuff of his from earlier in his career.  Museum Collection--one more time--and last year's Archives are also eye-pleasing, while Bowman Platinum has the shiny part down but doesn't do much for me otherwise.  Still, I wasn't gonna turn it down for a dime!

That "big" card I mentioned earlier is this 2015 Leaf cut auto of one of my favorites to don the block "M" and olde English "D", Charlie Gehringer.  I know people's opinions of the brand and this kind of autograph aren't generally high, and in some respects I agree with them.  But maybe their thoughts will change a bit when they find out I was able to tack this on to my purchase for a measly $10.  I'll take a HOF cut sig for that price any day, and that's exactly what I did, making this Mechanical Man auto #9 for me!

Naturally I worked on taking home a bit of football content as well.  Former #1 recruit Rashan Gary gets another RC added to his collection in the form of his 2019 Panini Illusions card, one I think looks pretty good--at least as much as one can when it doesn't offer a college photo!  The next four are recent inserts I was glad to see.  Two of those star stud Eagles DE Brandon Graham, and they're the Jumbo versions of the Artist's Proof and Gold Zone parallels, set apart by their numbering.  RB Karan Higdon's card is a Mirror Silver parallel of his 2019 Certified RC, based on the numbering /299, 100 copies rarer than the first-year version.  And sticking with RC parallels, CB David Long's 2019 Panini Phoenix card you see above is a Purple version /149.  To that I added a signature from Panini Unparalleled's Rookie Autographs Cosmos set for my second such card of the former Wolverine.

Although shows appear to be out of the question for quite some time now, I'm glad this post allowed me to enjoy the one I attended earlier this month.  And looking on the bright side, I can use the money I would have spent in the next few months on future shows or other sources!

But first there's still plenty to catch up on, and I'll do my best to be diligent about posting so I can keep getting stuff put away.  Thanks for reading and please keep social distancing!