12/3/22 card show report: Show This is Christmas

Christmas has come and gone and the year that was 2022 is quickly approaching its end, so let's have a look at what I brought home from my last card show of the year.

With the Michigan/Purdue Big Ten Championship game not until later in the evening I was able to head east to Taylor on Saturday, and I didn't have to contend with an especially large crowd as I pored over the boxes. After I think not quite two hours of listening to Christmas music (not the worst!) my purchase breakdown looked like this:

• 70 @ $0.20 (5/$1 box) = $14
• 2 @ $0.50 (2/$1 box) = $1
• 32 @ $1 = $32
• 9 @ $1.67 (3/$5 box) = $15
• 1 @ $5 = $5

That's a total of $67 and the seller made it $65 for me.

I did quite well picking up some quality items that have made their way into Christmas Card packages (and more that will go out in some of the remaining five that are waiting on Sportlots cards to go out), random trade bait, and cards for me.

Speaking of random trade bait, here's what I came up with out of the $1 and $2 boxes:

Here's the baseball stuff. Despaigne is #122/299, Vargas is #389/399, and Tejeda is #44/50.

And football, which as usual outnumbered the baseball. Fales is #14/25, Quick is #28/99, Prosise is #138/199, Richardson is #42/49, and ASJ is #24/25.

As always these are up on TCDB but also available here so please feel free to make me a trade offer!

And as for the stuff for myself, most came from the 5/$1 boxes with a couple $1 cards snuck in there:

On the baseball side of things I scored fun stuff of my big four PC guys: Griffey, Gwynn, Maddux, and Ripken (plus a Mize thrown in for variety). The Gwynn Stadium Club Chrome Refractor looks fantastic and brings back good memories of the product's inception. Meanwhile, the Maddux brings to mind a '98 Bowman's Best insert but is actually from 20 years later. And the Pacific Gwynn and the Bonds/Ripken Pinnacle chase cards mean tonight's post gets my coveted "90s inserts rule" tag.

Switching to football, I found a pair of new Donruss Optic RCs for Bush and Evans and they were just $0.20 each, which I'd pay any day to further that project. Graham's Press Proof is super shiny and looks great in-person. I'd skipped over Toomer's Topps Black (#d /53) parallel for a number of shows until it made its way into the $1 box, which was cheap enough for me. And Wino's Prizm parallel is a sight to behold for better or worse!

Finally, WR Nico Collins gets his own scan with this five-pack. The first is a '21 Clearly Donruss RC that's acetate and looks amazing. The Gridiron Kings card is a Pink parallel, and that's followed by a Chronicles card and Rookies & Stars Prizm parallel. Last up is an Optic jersey card that was just a buck or two, and it's just my third hit (also relics) of the receiver who's starved for even mediocre QB play in Houston.

It's fun going back and looking over my loot from a few weeks ago, but even more so I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions from folks who received their Christmas cards from me (as well as those who will in the near future). Some already have either on their blogs or Twitter, and maybe when they're all accounted for and I'm board I'll do a recap post that links to all of them.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas whether or not cards were involved. Though Christmas '23 is a long ways off I'll be back at the monthly show in a couple weeks to start piling up cards for gifts once again!