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.



Lennie Guttman: King of the Gutters -- Nachos Grande Contest

Sure, we all are mourning the death of our beloved Lennie Guttman, his smile, his arching eyebrows, his fine Guttman Gutter products. But we here at the Vealtones need to file a complaint about Detective Allen Ginter's scant report released so mysteriously to the public. It's almost as if Detective Ginter wants us to solve the case for him, the lazy bum.

Among the atrocities of omission Detective Ginter has committed was taking such a poor photo of Lennie, who always adorned himself dapperly with his toupee made of gutter sludge: dead leaves, raccoon fur, and bird nest sculpted into a snazzy pompadour. Lennie is rolling in his grave to see his scalp was so publicly exposed.

While Detective Ginter's report notes the time and place of death, the most perplexing element of his death was left out. Lennie was found hanging by his suspenders, upside down, from the Blinkington's gutters, which served as his place of work for the day. Mr. Peabody Blinkington, who first discovered the body, commented that Lennie finished the job, like he always did, in true Guttman bang-up style, and the new Blinkington gutters are reportedly now flowing like gang busters.

Because Lennie was the best gutter man to ever gutter up dem gutters. In high school, he broke the record for the fastest gutter hang, affixing two hundred feet of gutter to a 60 degree slope roof in fifty-seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. He held a starting spot on the Willow Cove Varsity Gutter Team for all four years of high school, Competitive Gutter Hanging being Willow Cove's top sport. Every citizen of Willow Cove remembers cheering him as he won state Gutter Championships, and the greatest travesty in Guttman's life was that the Olympics once again turned down votes to put Gutter Hanging into the Olympics.

Lennie will be missed by all, but the memory of his Gutter-rageous feats will live on in infamy forever, despite Detective Ginter's favor for ambiguous concision. Keep it guttery, Lennie. We'll miss you.

Card Show Show-off: Bargain Box Vintage and Some War Memorabilia

This last card show had some excellent bargain boxes, as most shows do. Heck, if I knew ahead of time a card show wouldn't have any dime boxes, I wouldn't even show up, probably, maybe, OK, just a brief appearance.

One thing I'm always looking for are cards for my player collections and priority hunting is for Ripkens and Pudges:

Some of these were dime box finds, like the newest Pudge rookie added to the collection, the '91 Classic. The Heritage and Co-Signers came out of a quarter box and are numbered. Good finds for the ol' Pudge collection. I usually find a ton of new Ripkens in the dime boxes, but only a few this time around. But that's fine. I found lots of other goodies.

And what do I look for after these player collections? Certainly not Cabrera and Verlander cards. Those are too pricey at card shows in Michigan. But that doesn't mean there aren't other good Tigers cards to find.

I love all of these Tigers cards, and all out of the quarter box from the dealer who sold me the questionable Keller that has been deemed genuine by my brilliant readers. Topps Gallery was an amazingly well-designed set. The Greenberg is fantastic. And you can't go wrong with an Art Deco Trammell short print.

So what the hell is the Jeffcoat doing in this bunch, in this post about Tigers and player collections? Mostly, it represents my laziness in cropping scans. Secondarily, this card reveals where my dime box hunting gets a little weird. The Jeffcoat is not just any old '91 Topps card. It's from the Desert Shield set. I was always curious about this set, and I've never actually seen one of the cards. And when I see something in a dime box I haven't seen, time to snatch that up. Of course, I'd much rather have a Desert Shield Tigers card, but Jeffcoat will stand in as my cardboard history of the Gulf War for now. And yet another reason to love a dime box: the ability to find war memorabilia for a dime.

Moving on to more bargain box Tigers...

Most of these were a quarter, I think. The Denny Martinez rookie was perhaps misplaced as a Tigers dime box card, and now I don't know if I should put that card in the vintage Tigers binder or the vintage rookies binder. A good problem to have. Of course the Aber is great, and the Zernial was an absolute steal for the condition. But one surprise to me was how nice the '61 set looks. I dig these posed shots, which go a little farther than just being headshots. Chiti and Osborne look classy in the poses of their positions.

Now we're moving on to the real meat of the bargain boxes. I found these and the rest in this post in a 50 cent box. I was never a fan of the '58 set, but its crazy colors are growing on me--Maxwell looking like a Valentine's Day card--and, of course, they use the awesome fat-faced yellow Tiger spewing blood, or maybe that's its tongue.

Sure these are beat-up cards, but in fine shape for me to put together a team set with. There's especially something nice about the hole-punch that I appreciate. I see it a lot. Does this mean some kid strung their cards up on a string? I dig that.

Here are the most-destroyed cards of the bunch, but still for 50 cents, an awesome deal. Birrer hit two three-run homers in one game, which got him his nickname of Babe. Unfortunately, that was about all he did in his career. That, and join the Vealtones Battered Vintage Tigers Collection.

I have a few more dime box treasures I'll save for my final card show post.