I attended the monthly Portland card show Saturday morning, arriving earlier than ever before since I had plans at noon. For the last month or so the Portland show has been a two-day affair – I attended day 2 last month, which was apparently a mistake since about half the tables were empty. The scene was more robust Saturday morning, but some of the dealers I frequent were absent – I hope they return next month. In their place were more tables selling high end singles, gobs and gobs of retail (with a steep markup, of course), and Pokemon – something I don’t understand, and will not otherwise acknowledge.
Thankfully there were dime boxes to be found, which is where I spent the bulk of my time. I loaded up on cheap refractors, because I apparently can’t resist a shiny object. There were some decent names among these – such as Bumgarner, Scherzer, Jose Abreu, and Al Leiter, whose kid was just the 2nd overall pick in the draft, which now exists solely to remind me of my own mortality.
I was also able to load up on lot of young A’s players and a few cards I was missing of other players I collect – I was particularly happy to find the Gold Label Boggs featuring the expansion Rays, and the Niekro Silver Bullets card.
I did splurge for a few fifty cent cards, which were clearly a worse deal but still filled some holes in the collection – Ginter rookies from last year, a shiny Judge, a couple Bowman Sapphires, which I’d never buy from a pack but were irresistible as cheap singles (Irresistible cheap singles? Talk about search engine optimization!). This group was rounded out by a Big Mac that had eluded me, and a Thick Joc Rookie (ok, enough with the search terms).
On my way out the door, and after having spent only $25, I impulse bought another box of Stadium Club, still riding the high from last weekend. Once again, I was not disappointed – with one big exception. First, more great hits!
The Mike Trout Beam Team Black is 75/99 (pack odds 1:1,205), the Griffey Instavision is a cool looking card another tough pull at 1:256. The Varsho red auto is numbered 1/50 and also helps push that mortality awareness, being another son of a major leaguer of my youth.
Now for that exception…
About half the packs were bricked! If it weren’t for the fact that I pulled the Trout from one of the first packs I opened, I likely would have tried to return the box. The next pack had the Griffey, and by then I was fairly certain a replacement box wouldn’t have done better. I haven’t seen bricked packs outside of the 90s… I guess Stadium Club really wanted to relive that sports card bubble… Actually, I assume this was connected to the 116-degree temperatures we had in the pacific northwest right about as these boxes would have been in transit, however it was still a major bummer. I’ve bought from this dealer in the past and I trust him, so I’m certain he had no clue. About 25 cards had what I’d call significant damage, most notable on their backs. So beware… and maybe open these packs in the shop in the future if you think they got hot.
That’s it for today… off to watch the All Star Game!