The August card show took place last weekend (the first of two August shows, it turns out – time to budget!). What it lacked in the crowds, selection, and general buzz coming out of everyone’s National posts, it made up for in Spirit! As a longtime attendee of this show, I’ve seen it move from the pre-renovation Beaverton Mall, to the pre-demolition Jantzen Beach Mall, to its location of the last several years- the perpetually circling-the-drain Mall 205.
The sign hanging over the entrance this time signified the Bed, Bath and Beyond had entered the Great Beyond… at this point the monthly show might be the Mall’s most reliable non-big box, non-governmental agency tenant. As a person who likes attending shows on the regular, I hope the mall hangs on long enough via Halloween and calendar store tenants to allow for this even shorter-term tenant to continue to thrive, even if I’m not entirely convinced that the Portland show can sustain the current two day configuration… but hey, I went both days, so who knows?
That concludes the local interest portion of this show post – time to roll that beautiful dime box footage!
As usual, I focused my attention on the dime boxes of a few reliable dealers on day one. Above are some of the baseball (plus one NWSL card) gems that I found, here with mostly young players taking the spotlight. A formerly young player, Jurickson Profar, is shown in a pie-in-face SP that was still a steal for a dime, and the Victor Robles is a team name color change variation that was another steal. I was also able to load up on some players I am collecting in Ramon Laureano (damn PEDs), Deivi Garcia, and Alex Verdugo.
A smattering of now-retired players, including a trio of 80s Twins rookies, some well-worn Wonder Bread cards, local boy made good Ben Petrick, and the typical shiny stuff I always buy.
The stars among the “other sports” portion of the dime box finds were the 1987-88 set fillers (Chuck Person and Robert Parish – both solidly in NM condition) and a stack of SPX basketball. The Mikal Bridges School Colors card is numbered to 23 – it’ll probably be sold.
Rounding out some of my favorite dime cards are Presidents! This set escaped me when it came out, but the 2009 Topps American Heritage set seems weird and random enough to half-heartedly chase down at some point.
Day two was mostly spent on high value (for me) cards… the intimidating dollar boxes:
I think I did pretty well with the few buck cards I picked up… some autographed 1961 Topps, the Heritage minis #’d to 100, the un-numbered but super tough Stadium Club Member’s Only of Andrew McCutchen and Lourdes Gurriel Jr, Hall of Very Good pitcher Billy Pierce, and two more local boys done good in Adley Rutschman and Danny Ainge.
These were mostly 50 cent cards – and a decent mix of stars, rookies, and autographs – almost any autograph is worth buying for fifty cents in my book (which is something that resulted in a regrettable unintended consequence at this show, and which I’ll likely write about in the future).
The dollar “other sports” pile wasn’t as populated this time, and I probably over-spent on the ‘85 Bears, but I was very happy to pick up yet another local boy in Neil Lomax, an Ernie Irvan autograph, and a Zach Ertz rookie- even happier when I got home and realized the Ertz was a gold parallel numbered to only 25.
Although my purchases were decidedly scattershot, I did actually fill a major need. I’ve recently decided to focus on finishing my 1992 Bowman set, but was missing the two biggest cards – the rookies of Mike Piazza and Mariano Rivera.
Down to one missing rookie now. I was able to pick up both of a dealer’s Piazza rookies for the amount I’d budgeted for one nice one. Since Piazza is a guy I collect, I am probably going to keep both, but I might also sell or trade one to help fill the Rivera need. But for now, I have two of a major card I’ve wanted since Piazza exploded on the scene when I was in middle school.
As for the second show of the month in two weeks, I may actually need to budget for something. I found a vintage card I’ve always wanted that might be attainable, if it manages to not be sold over the next three weeks. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but if I pull the trigger it’ll be the single biggest purchase I’ve ever made on a card, which makes me incredibly nervous, as well as thankful that I’ve been able to sell some extras this year to help with the play money budget. Here’s hoping this blog sees a major post to end the month…