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Saturday, February 27, 2016

Buying Cards for their Cases (card show recap)

Man, what a week! It was my first week at my new job. It's my first time ever working downtown. And my first time ever relying on public transportation to get around. I really hate driving (or should I say I hate shitty rush hour traffic), so it's kinda nice to just hop on the train and not worry about stop-and-go traffic, photo-enforced stoplights, and all that crap. But it's definitely a different experience for me dealing with all the homeless and crazies that you encounter on public transportation and downtown. I might need to start carrying a couple ones on me for when I'm accosted by sweet old hobos (true, most of them are not sweet).

The job is fine, just going through a huge spreadsheet flagging duplicate accounts (as a baseball card collector, weeding out dupes is second nature to me, so it's right up my alley), but I'm still extremely pooped at the end of the day. The cool part is my wife works there so we can eat lunch together. We celebrated her birthday yesterday, and much food and drink was consumed.

But anyways, after the big week I felt like I "earned" this month's card show, so I was looking to be a big spender and hoping to land a bunch of celebratory cardboard for myself and trader buddies. It wasn't my best card show haul ever, but I did alright. I think I'll break it up into 2 or 3 posts.

Today's post features a few cards I got for about 71¢ each (7 for $5 deal). A common trait these all have is that they came in magnetic one-touch cases. Those cases are pretty cool, and are like a buck or two each new, so it would be a decent deal for like-new cases even without any cards in them! Throw a decent card inside, and I can't pass that deal up.


These four I would have gotten even if they were in traditional top-loaders. Austin Hedges is great defensively, and hopefully his bat will come along this year for my Padres. The Jose Altuve is the action photo variation and seems to be worth a few bucks. And then there's a couple of Windy City studs.


These cards I probably wouldn't have gotten were it not for their cases, which I will soon harvest for other cards in my collection. I kinda regret the Josh Hamilton purchases since those 2 cases are scratched up. The card on the right is #'d /199, though.
UPDATE: Just realized the Jonathan Lucroy is the Color Swap Variation, which is pretty rare based on the fact there's only one on eBay right now ($33) and it's sold out on COMC. I damn near put this card back but now I'm glad I didn't.. Might be my best pickup of the day. Hey Tony L., I just mailed you off a package today, but looks like I'm already working on the next one.


And here are a few more cards I probably wouldn't have been as likely to buy were it not for the sweet magnetics. I suppose these 6 are trade bait (and probably the previous 5 as well), so let me know if you want any of them (cases not included!)

So yeah, not a bad haul for under $11.. especially when you factor in the value of the cases. I'll show more cards I picked up today throughout the week. Thanks for stopping by!

22 comments:

  1. "We celebrated her birthday yesterday, and much food and drink was consumed."

    Dunno if you're a Monty Python fan, but when I read that I immediately thought "and there was much rejoicing."

    Anyway, this is the same kind of thing that I do all the time. On a couple of occasions, I've encountered big, gently used 3,200 count boxes of mostly common cards for $5 at flea markets/thrift stores. Since those boxes themselves are worth a Lincoln flash card, I'll take that deal anytime; if there's any cards that call to me, that's almost a bonus!

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    1. Ha, I do like Monty Python, but I'm more of a causal fan, not a can-quote-everything fan. The reference was probably intentional, somewhere deep down. And yeah, getting those big boxes cheap with "bonus cards" in them is a nice deal too.

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  2. Great pick ups!
    Schwarber +1
    Altuve +1
    Abreu +1
    Degrom +1

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  3. Altuve! I love a good deal on a like new box which also happens to hold thousands of cards.

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    1. Yeah, it pays to keep an eye out for deal like that.

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  4. 1990 Leaf Griffey for 71 cents? How is that possible? I couldn't even afford 90 Leaf at my LCS back in the day. Is everything from that time considered junk wax?

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    1. Pretty much, yeah. I keep hoping to find a 90 Leaf Frank Thomas in the buck bins, but everytime I do, after a split second of excitement, I realize it's a reprint type card.

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  5. Feel free to toss that Fernando into our next trade batch :)

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    1. Maybe, but I've been toying with the idea of starting a Fernando PC.. he's an all-time Padre great, after all!

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  6. I'm interested in the Mauer clubhouse collection. I have mass quantities of quality cardboard with which to barter.

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  7. I'm interested in the Mauer clubhouse collection. I have mass quantities of quality cardboard with which to barter.

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    1. Sorry, I've already promised it to xavier higgins. :)

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  8. Replies
    1. Thanks! Yeah, I always try to check out cards in thick cases in the dollar bins, figuring they must be decent if someone thought highly enough to put the card in it.

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  9. Those Heritage variations can be pretty sneaky! I had a similar encounter with a blue ink back out of a pack recently.

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  10. Nice pickups especially on the lucroy

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  11. I'd be interested in the 90 Leaf Griffey.

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  12. I would have never known about that color variation.

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  13. Great deals on some nice cards. The cases just make it that much sweeter of a deal!

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  14. Great deals. I'm especially a fan of the 81TT Fernando. Took me three decades to add that card to my collection.

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