Card Show-off: The Final Dime Breakdown

This is the last post covering the card show I went to that was not the National, and I'm jealous of all of the cool stuff you other bloggers are showing off. But I feel a little better when I remember the great deals I pulled out of the dime boxes. The last card show post chronicled my Tigers and PC finds. This one will breakdown the other things I look for in a dime box.

Because, yeah, of course, we're hunting through those boxes looking for cards specific to our collections, but then we always end up snagging other randomness, too, right?

Like vintage.

If it's from the early '70s or earlier and is a player or a team I at least half care about, I'm taking it home. '71s and '72s are a no-brainer, especially when it comes to semi-stars. Often, when I pick cards like these up, I'm thinking some other collector will like them in trade.

And that gets to one of my other goals when I look through a dime box. Trade filler:

A Finest refractor, I know at least one blogger who's always looking for refractors. And I have plenty of Red Sox traders who may dig a numbered Lowell as an add-on.

When I see cards like these, my mind starts running through my favorite bloggers. A Tino for a Lost Collector, a Hinske for a guy who likes his Napkins Dooned, more refractors for the report. I'm sure you guys have this mental inventory, too, and for me it adds more joy to my collecting, knowing I'm finding cards others will appreciate. That's almost as good as finding a card that fits perfectly into my own collection.

The last thing I'm always looking for in dime boxes are rookies.

And there are always rookies to be found. A great slew of first-year nonsense and official rookie card logos this time around. I had been wanting that Santana card for a long time, as well as an Asdrubal. I just can't pass up a rookie card of any player I half-respect, and when those cards are from throwback sets, even better.

More rookies here, kind of. Of course, this is a year off from Ortiz's white whale of a rookie. And the first four here, well what do you call them? Minor league cards? XRCs? Ah, who cares. They're cool looking cards and they cost a dime and maybe I don't have a whole lot of use for them in my collections, but there's no buyer's remorse to be found in the dime box.