Card Show-Off: Vintage Rookies at WAR

I'm finally getting to posting the rest of this card show. The magic word today is vintage. Well-loved vintage, of course. Read on for the big rookie WAR.

But first, we'll start with this beauty. For $2 the thrill of Duke Snider's wall catch is mine to behold. Now, Topps might have their fancy-smancy short print Great Catch cards this year, but they're not as cool as this one. Which would you rather have, a slightly scuffed-up '59 Snider in action or some over-hyped picture of Mark Reynold bumbling over a tarp roll? Gotta love that vintage.

The deals go on. These were dime and quarter box finds, and finds they were. Bask in the glory of a rare smile from Mr. Gibson. I think my favorite in this group is the Post Minnie.

Now we're getting into my favorite finds: vintage rookies. These, also, were quarter box finds. Sure, these aren't Hall-of-Famers, but they're names we know and love. Those are exactly the rookies I'm always looking for. Let's play a little game. Of these semi-star rookies, who was the best bargain statistically, going by the very simple stat of career WAR. In order, Tasby has a sad negative WAR of -0.6. Tommie Agee, who was 1 hit shy of 1000 career hits, has a WAR of 25.5. Frank the Tank Tanana (no one called him that), who is a Detroit native and one of those Tigers pitchers from my youth, has a WAR of 57.5. Finally, poor Bill Buckner had a surprisingly low 14.7 (they must be counting a certain game against him).

These, too, were amazingly quarter box finds. Are you kidding me!? Look at those giant trophies! Let the games continue! Matty Alou's WAR is 23.3. Crusty Rusty Staub has a WAR of 45.8. And finally Bert Blanco Campaneris racks up a sweet 53.3.

So, the biggest bargain by WAR is Tanana.

And in case you don't know like I do exactly what a WAR is and how it's calculated, here you go (according to Wiki):

where

Well, that's some highlights anyway. Simple as a quarter box.

Card Show-Off: Rookies for a Quarter

Following up the last card show post and the mystery of the Willie Mays goo, today we delve into the modernish stuff. All of it comes from the bargain boxes. Without further ado:

We begin with an assortment of rookies. I love rookies, and these were some nice ones. The Gordon is numbered, the Putz is uncirculated, and Lester is an XRC. Not a bad mix. And they're even better when they each came out of the quarter box. Even better when they were actually 5 for a buck. And then the dealer cut me a deal. I freaking love card shows. Anyway, onward with more from this quarter box.

More great steals in this grouping of rookies from the quarter box. I'd been after a Quintin Berry rookie every since his great season last year. I wouldn't mind seeing him back in the lineup. The Pence is nice, and you have to love Buster being haunted by a red demon cloud. Probably best of all is the Carlos Gomez, which is a blue refractor. Gomez is having a career year, and it's cool to have one of the better rookie cards of the dude who keeps showing up on the highlight reel.

Man, when I was a kid, this was the insert set to get, from '92 Score. I pulled a Musial when I used to rip these. Now I have Mantle and the trio. Now I just need the Yaz to complete the set. According to COMC, there were only 150000 of these made. Holy rare junk wax, Batman!

More goodies for the player collections. That Pudge chrome is sweet.

And a few more. I'm such a sucker for shiny parallels. However, I hate the Moments and Milestones sets, which are completely unwieldy for player collectors. But their damn non-rare numbering sucks me in. There were a bunch more Verlanders in this quarter box, but I only picked up these two. Notice the eBay 1 of 1s. 150/150 and 002/150. Hell, what isn't an eBay 1 of 1!

This oddball Whitaker from the dime box may be my favorite find of all. I'm not sure if this is an iron-on or a shrinky-dink or what. Oh, COMC says it's a "Rub Down." Sexy. I love how much those Italian Topps affiliates tried to jam onto these cards. Busy? No way. Just exploding with sophisticated design.

Overall, a great show. Those bargain boxes always make the trip worth it.

Card Show: Pocketful of Dimes

When I went to the card show in Jackson, Michigan a few weeks ago, my pockets were jangling with dimes. I had tons of those shiny little Roosevelts and was ready to turn them into cardboard. Bring on the fuzzy-corned vintage, the forgotten sparkly '90s inserts, the under-appreciated rookies, and, of course, all your Ripkens. I had dimes, and there were boxes.

But no one really wanted my dimes. Everything was in between. There were the nickel boxes:

Full of recent inserts.

And there were quarter boxes:

There's the creases and wear we all love. Mossi's big ears, Cash's leading home runs, and Piniella's rookie grimace can attest to the joys of this box.

And the 50 cent boxes made an appearance:

Lots of favorites here. Some great Vic Wertz cards, a Norm Cash base, Murray's second-year card. This was my first 1951 Topps card, but unfortunately it's a foul ball.

So where were the dime boxes?

Don't worry. I dug into those, too.

Actually, only a few of these came out of the dime box, but let's just pretend for the sake of this post's flow. Like a numbered Kaline would end up in a Michigan dime box. Ha!

Who doesn't love a Matt Stairs rookie for a dime. I have no idea what this Bo Jackson card is. Anyone recognize this card?

More great dime box finds. I've been needing Nolan's tux card for a while, which is completely ridiculous. The Hoyt is one of the refractory Reserve parallels. Lamont's a fool, but he's gold, and so is Moyer. Glad to see the old guy pitching again.

The card show was before Pudge's retirement, though I bet he'll still be a mainstay of the dime boxes, which is good for me. His GU cards on eBay are slowly moving out of my cheap-ass price range.

And where would a Vealtone card show dime box post be without an obligatory slew of Ripkens? I'm digging the French's card, which I hadn't seen before. The Sports Cards Ripken in the bottom row seems to be indefinable, some unlicensed set from the early '90s. And the '92 Topps Ripken up top is actually a CYMT insert. A dealer found this for me while I was looking through his dime boxes, and tossed it my way as a bonus. Gotta love that.

These horizontal Ripkens wrap up this card show's discount box extravaganza. Not too shabby, though, eh? Next post, I'll go over the rest of my finds.

Rocking the Dime Box at the Card Show

The last card show I went to had some amazing dime and quarter boxes, and it's that time to show you the gems I found from my diligent scrounging.

I don't even know who Carlos Urquiola is, but I won't turn down an auto for a dime. Apparently he spent most of his time in the D-Backs system, so next time I trade with a D-Backs fan they'll be getting this card whether they like it or not. And I also can't pass up SPs from cool throwback sets.

For some reason, I keep picking up these Goudey Presidents, which are classy looking cards. I think I'm getting close to completing the set, and I'm thinking I'll just leave that up to the whim of the all-mighty dime boxes. I snag Obak when I see cool cards in the cheap boxes. The dime box culture allows me to explore the more experimental sets, without the buyer's remorse burn of buying a box. If we ever needed another reason to love the dime boxes, there you go. This Statz card is numbered out of 25, and it was actually a quarter box purchase.

These were all quarter box purchases. And I love when they yield me some nice rookies. Surprisingly, this is my first Strawberry rookie, and he gets added to the '80s semi-star rookie collection. The Cole is a refractor. Looks like he's off to a good start in his first season in A+.

Yet more rookies, most from the quarter box. The Griffey I've been going after for a while. It has some paper loss on the back, but that's fine with me. And, of course, I've been needing to add a Fielder rookie to the collection. I had a few of his rookies from 2006 with the rookie logo, but I'm kind of a purist when it comes to rookies. I need that first year card.

Always happy to find some quarter and dime box vintage. I picked up the top 5 cards when I was going through one dealer's quarter boxes. And then my eyes caught some higher-priced deals that actually made me forget about the cheap boxes, but you'll have to wait until next post to hear about that. The Hamilton I paid a dollar for, and that knocked another rookie off my list. The Mantle is from Upper Deck's 2001 set, Legends of New York. Now, I'm not a New York fan by far, but these cards were interesting enough to drop a dime on. The blue "Yankees" is all fuzzy and felty, but until they invent feel-ernet you'll just have to trust me. But the last thing any one would do with that technological innovation would be to feel my felt "Yankees." Yikes.

Moving on:

These didn't come out of the dime box, nor the quarter box. These came out of the 2 cent box. Crazy, right? This is only a small sampling of what I grabbed from dozens of these boxes. I had to cut myself off when I could no longer carry what I'd found. Above you see some of the highlights. I picked up a ton of 2010 Bowman Chrome without any discretion. I also picked up a bunch of 2010 Topps Chrome. Basically anything shiny for two pennies. I didn't scan them here, but I got a nice stack of Topps HD, because it seems like other bloggers collect this set. Let me know if you're working on HD, and maybe I can help now.

So, have you ever heard of 2 cent boxes like this? Anyone encountered a good penny box yet?

Next post I'll show off my big hits. Hint: They're pretty much all vintage.

Moseying through the Card Show, Combing through the Cheap Boxes

I'm finally getting to the card show I attended a month or so back, in South Haven, MI. All you eastern Michiganders might have your Gibralter shows on me, but these South Haven shows are some of the best I've gone to. There was one dealer whose tables I spent the majority of my time at. He had about ten tables with descending rows of $5 boxes all the way down to nickel boxes. Sounds like a great way to spend hours combing through a labyrinthine tome of cards, right? I'll start off the posting with what I found in his nickel to quarter boxes, which are always the most fun, I think. They're where we find the best discount treasures.

I think this one was in the quarter box, and I can never turn these down for a quarter, especially when it's Joe Torre.

The 1969 Aparicio might have been 50 cents, but the other two were a nickel. The Rollie card is just too cool. His moustache looks nobler than ever in the Diamond King style. I'd been needing that Fernando rookie for a while, and this one's in good shape for a nickel. The photo is a bit blurry, but I can't complain.

These were all in the nickel, dime, quarter range. It seems funny for me to find an on-card auto in the cheap boxes, but I keep running into these Classic autos for super cheap and just can't turn them down. Karim is a minor league Dodger in this card, so maybe someone will be interested. The Morgan RC is a short print, I think, and encased in woodgrain, so that's always cool. The Wakefield RC, though, I was most excited about finding. He may never be a hall-of-famer, but he's one of those players that baseball history will always remember.

Here's the weirdest thing I found in the cheap boxes. Is this a Lineage '75 parallel? No, sir. It appears to be one of those oddball brands working without license in the early '90s. I couldn't find any information on this card, but who doesn't love 1975 designs? This card is just begging to be sued.

Here's the back:

Nothing to identify this card back here. I guess this would make it a 1991 issue, but nothing else to mark this.

That's it for now. Tomorrow, I'll do the fifty cent boxes, which had some pretty great stuff.

Card Show: Wonders of the Cheap Boxes

So, I kind of founded this blog on three things: Coot Veal and his awesome Vealness, Bowman Vintage, and dime box treasure. I haven't been very good about posting dime box stuff recently, yet I have all of these dirt cheap gems to share. I'm way behind on posting this batch, which I picked up at the last card show I went to, almost two months ago.

I'll try to keep this short and just show the cards.

What? Diamond Stars in a dime box? Yoinks! I didn't fool you for a second. Yes, these are reprints, but they're good reprints, and I can't pass up art deco for a dime a piece. The weird thing about these is that they're paper thin. Not like early '90s thin, but we're talking piece of cheap white paper thin. Still, worth a dime a piece.

Or, even better than reprints for a dime a piece, these 2002 206 were four for a quarter. The dealer had jammed a bunch into a top loader bursting at the seams with minis. This was such a great set. Too bad I wasn't collecting when this was out. For some reason, the newer 206 sets, while still great, don't quite measure up to this one.

These were in the quarter box, too. This is my first Masterpieces framed card. I do love framed cards, and even though I'm not a Papelbon fan, I appreciate an intense squatting pose as much as the next fella. The Jim Longborg was numbered to 50, which seems crazy low for a quarter box.

In the bottom right corner, there's the back of the Longborg card. Otherwise, some nice rookies for a quarter. I think some of these were even for a dime. But not the Machado auto. I mean, it's a Machado auto, on card! The Ludwick and Span cards are both those chunky gold versions. All of the chunky Bowmans I've seen have had busted up backs, where it looks like the black ink around the edges is cracking. Anyone else encounter this? Oh, and there was something weird about this Koji O-Pee-Chee card. Check out the back:

No, I'm not just trying to win the prize for most boring scan in history. This is the back of the Koji card. Nothing. I'm wondering if this is a promo version or something.

A few more nice rookies. The Youk can even be peeled and stuck to one's trapper keeper or forehead, if one so chose to do so. I have a double, so I just might. The Corey Hart rookie was a nickel. Nice.

You don't expect to find vintage Kaline cards in a dime box, unless they look like this. This one went through the spokes a few dozen times. Good thing I picked up this card from my LCS a few months ago:

It even came with a nifty screw-down case. If the kid who mangled the other card put this one through the spokes, he'd get a face full of asphalt, which is the proper punishment for defacing a Kaline card. Well, unless said defacement means I can buy Kalines for a dime. Then, okay, kid, mangle away.

Here's the last one I'll show from my scrounging through the cheap boxes:

1973 Topps Lou Gehrig. Hey, this card's not even mangled. Besides slightly touched corners and a bit of off-centering, it's in pretty great shape. This is a great-looking card, and maybe one of my best finds in the dime boxes ever.

Not a bad haul, eh? Most of these are up for trade, besides some of the rookies. Let me know if you need any.

Card Show Cheapness, or an Embarrassing Pudge

I've been to two card shows fairly recently. Well, not that recently. I've just been behind in my posting. And I have treasures to share. The first one was in South Haven, which is a small tourist town on Lake Michigan. My wife and I often go there to swim, but this trip had a much more important purpose. They had a signing at this one with retired Tigers player Charlie Maxwell. I was too cheap to pay $10 for an auto from him, but I do wish I would have chatted with him, since I'm pretty sure he would have crossed paths with the epic Coot. Oh well. No Maxwell chatting, but I did pick up a few decent cards.


I always spend a good deal of time digging through the dime and quarter boxes, and I'm always looking for and have trouble passing up Ripken cards for the player collection. Here's one of the Ripkens I got in mostly quarter boxes, since Ripken is too sophisticated to slum in the dime boxes:

This is one of those pop-up cards from the mid '80s. I've been debating whether I should pop this Ripken up or not. Perhaps I'll wait to find a double. I was surprised to find this one in an elongated top loader, which I didn't even know they made. Otherwise, I'd have no way to store this towering card. I do love how the elongated card features the dome of the stadium.

Next up is just some base 1994 Upper Deck. How great of a shot is this? Ripken is doling some sort of Superman ninja kick to a Red Soxer. Or maybe he just posed like this, balancing on the sliding dude's raised arm. This has to be one of the best photos from this set.


I also picked up one of the worst photos from this set:

Oh, the early '90s was an embarrassing era, and Pudge exemplifies just about everything I want to forget about this time period: gold chain, gold watch, over-sized shades, too-tight Guess jeans an AC Slater look set with the backdrop of the beach. This looks almost like it should have been one of those black and white glamour photos from the 1991 Score Dream Team subset. Perhaps Pudge would like to forget this card, but at least it's now in my collection, yanked out of a nickel box.

I also picked up my first cards of some of the more-promising members of the rookie crop this year:

Smoak and Hosmer were part of a 3 for a dollar deal. I'm not a big fan of this set, but I was glad to pick up my first cards of these guys.

I also snagged these:

Jeter and I-Rod kind-of-rookie cards. Hard to pass up for a quarter. And this is what happens when one is roaming the cheap-o boxes aimlessly.

With all my aimless cheap-o box wanderings, I did find this card in a 3 for a dollar box. I really liked the 2005 Topps Heritage set, and I like Vlad, and I like numbered cards. But this one is certainly up for trade, if someone likes numbered Vlad Heritage more.

Rookies from the Quarter Box

It's the dimebox's more sophisticated big sister, who graduated magna cum laude with a philosophy degree while dimebox was out partying: the quarter box.

Often I find the quarter box's cards to be stashed into a penny sleeve, which makes me feel classier. But the problem is handling a big stack o' cards in sleeves is slippery. I've had my hand full slip and scatter more than a few times. And then I just feel like a jerk.

Well, beyond my coin box warnings, I do have some actual cards to show.

Not just any Jay Bruce rookie, but a genuine 2005 Topps Update. He had some steady improvement in 2010, and is looking decent this spring training. Good luck in 2011, Bruuuuuuuce.

An even better rookie from this set: The Hebrew Hammer.

I'm glad I found this Pedro rookie, since I bought a complete set of 1991 Final Edition for a dollar, only to find this card cherry-picked out. So, will he get another shot this year? I hope someone will take a shot. I guess he's doing an interview about playing again on MLB Network soon.

My only Maddux rookie from 1987 Donruss Rookies. You gotta love the grease-stash here. Luckily, he pitched better than he grew lip hair.