An enjoyable afternoon surrounded by vintage!

This weekend is TriStar's big San Francisco bay area show, held just four miles down the road at the Cow Palace. Tomorrow and Sunday includes autographs from a bunch of players, including several of the World Series champion Giants players. I'm not buying any autographs, though - I go to card shows for cards.

I was going to try to meet up with someone at the show, but as I mentioned before I have family in town and free time is limited. Most of my posts this week were written long ago, in fact. There's one more post coming tomorrow and then I need to fire up the neurons and write some more! I haven't designed any new On Location cards, but I do have some stuff to share. Anyway, back to the subject. Instead of going to the show this weekend, I went this afternoon to what amounts to a "preview" day. There weren't too many customers there, but most of the vendors were set up.

I now have three big stacks of cards to show you, so you'll be seeing a bit of it each day for the next week. Aren't you happy? If you're in the area, let me tell you, this is a decent show. There were many vintage dealers, so if that's your thing you won't be disappointed. I found some quarter boxes, dollar boxes, fifty cent boxes, etc. Two dollar jersey card boxes. I think I saw a dime box but when I went back to look through it I couldn't find it again. Then there are the tables that have stuff that I can only dream of owning. One table features an unbelievable collection of high-end Babe Ruth relic cards. Tables featuring dozens of autographed balls, memorabilia, you name it. One dealer must have had at least 50 intact Pablo Sandoval game-used items, ranging from gloves and bats to cleats and his bat bag ($300!). Beckett, JSA, and PSA are all there, as are a couple other companies I've never heard of. And then there is the always-present dealer with large overpriced framed signed photos, and of course one dealer selling sealed boxes. I should have picked up a box of something, but I did fine without it.

This show was so much nicer than the usual shows in the area, at least as far as my interests are concerned. Most of the dealers were worth looking at, and as you'll see, there was a ton of stuff I wanted. Gone were the dozens of tables of toys, comic books, and DVDs. It actually felt like a card show! And I've said it before, I'll say it again - the cheap boxes are the bread and butter of any dealer. I think the most I paid for any one card was $3, but I spent over $75 on cards. 

Next month, the only other card show I really enjoy comes back to San Leandro. I'll have to balance my money between that and Topps Series 2 (and Pro Debut and Bowman Platinum, to a lesser extent).