4/3/26 card show report: $25, no foolin'

Well this should be a pretty quick one, even if it took me too long as usual to get to.

I headed over to my usual monthly show in early April only to find that my favorite seller hadn't had much time to sort stuff into his sale boxes, meaning there wasn't much new for me to flip through. I ended up spending a year-low $25 because I'm not the type to throw down cash just for the sake of it. And it worked out well because I certainly made up for it this month. More on that in a few posts.

Anyway, that $25 was easily split between 100 dime cards and a trio for which he wanted $15. Here's a look at the loot:

The juniors Griffey and Ripken came from the dime boxes and those cards hail from last year's Topps Archives. Griffey's is from the '64 Topps portion while Cal's is done up in the style of the then-20-year-old '05 Topps set; '96's design can also be found in this product.

And then we come to the day's biggest pickups that account for the three-for-$15 portion: a trio of beautiful 90s Pacific die-cut inserts of Ivan Rodriguez! I noticed these in the guy's showcase and happily accepted the price. In order, above you can see 1999 Pacific Crown Collection's In the Cage followed by 1999 and 2000 Paramount's Fielder's Choice.

Both of these insert sets are among my favorites from the decade--one whose chase cards obviously rule--and are part of the fantastic history of the Pacific brand. The In the Cage cards simulated batting cages, though other versions also replicated foul poles in more examples of the manufacturer's ingenuity. Better yet are the glove-themed Fielder's Choice die-cuts, which are not only cut to conform to the shape of a fielder's most important equipment, but even simulate the webbing! Pudge is a natural fit in these sets as won 13 gold gloves, good for first place among catchers and three better than second-place star Johnny Bench.

The Cage card is my first from that set while the '99 glove joins Greg Maddux and the 2000 card gets added to the Ripken and Gwynn I previously snagged. I can't wait to add more of these, especially if I can find them at these outstanding prices.

We'll finish up with some basketball and football dime cards. Bufkin, LeVert, Robinson, and Wagner are all examples of some colorful inserts of hoopers I was glad to snag for 10 cents each. LeVert's Pistons are actually battling his former team, the Cavs, as I write this, and that's because they managed to overcome a big deficit against Mo's Magic.

As for football stuff, I turned up last year's Score base of former Packer/new Cowboy Rashan Gary to go with a pair of '25 base of national champion QB JJ McCarthy out of Donruss and Panini's Mosaic.

This could have been a bit of a downer of a show but I was able to turn that around with some "90s inserts rule!" goodness, plus I didn't regret having a bigger budget available this month, so once again, it was a good show.

I'm anticipating that my next three posts will be blogger trade packages, followed by the May show recap, a May trade, and my first TCDb deals of the year. I certainly have plenty to recap, even if I'm slow and lazy about doing so. I'll try to get motivated to at least show off the trades soon to thank the senders for their generosity.