The card show that almost wasn't

There was a card show last Saturday. I really didn't want to go. The universe didn't seem to want me to go. I went anyway.

Cards haven't been doing much for me as of late, nor has anything else, which is probably why I've only managed to eke out five (now six) posts during the month of February.

Depression has been kicking my butt for most of the year so far, and there has been some more money woes - both of these things are not good for one's want to collect.

Last weekend's show was one of those twice a year 180+ table super mega affairs, which I always feel some obligation to try and go to. Also, I have owed five different people a return package for a couple of months now, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to find some cards for them. Spoiler alert: I was only able to find stuff for 1 1/2 of said five people, meaning that the other 3 1/2 can continue to think that I'm an ungrateful bum.

On Friday, the day before the card show, I noticed that the front tire on the passenger side of my car (it's an SUV, but you know what I mean) was looking a little droopy, and it wasn't the low on air kind of droopy, so much as it was there's a slow leak kind of droopy. I hadn't had to go anywhere for the previous two days, so this was news to me.

I didn't notice the wonked up tire until right before dark, which is conveniently when it just started to rain again (more on that in a second) too. I've mentioned it before, but I kind of live in the middle of nowhere, and when it gets dark here, it gets really dark (almost no light pollution). Because of nightfall's rapid approach, and the now steady rainfall, my want to change the tire was non-existent, so I took the lazy way out and asked my mom if I could borrow her truck. My request was successful, not that I thought it wouldn't be.

With this newly acquired bit of stress, the anxiety I was already having (it walks hand-in-hand with the depression) had increased to even more uncomfortable level, which I knew was going to make for very little sleep that night, and I was right. I finally fell asleep sometime around 11pm and woke up just after 2am. With the alarm set for 3, I knew that I wasn't going to fall back asleep, so I just laid there listening to the torrential downpour that was occurring outside, wondering if I should just skip the show and try to go back to sleep, I didn't.

Even though I got up on time, I still ended up leaving half an hour later than I had planned. Thanks to the rain, I was having a devil of a time trying to get everything loaded into the truck, so I was late. This probably a good time to mention that it had raining almost nonstop for six of the previous seven days, the east coast and the Midwest have been getting hammered with snow, we got rain, lots of rain. From what I've heard, middle Tennessee, my not so humble adopted home, has received more rain this past month than any other February on record.

With all of this rain comes the inevitable flooding, which I've seen a lot of so far, as the creek that runs by the house has been claiming part of the front, and back yard, as it's own, for about half of the month now. Part of the driveway has been underwater at various points as well, which can make trying to go out a little more interesting. It's a gravel driveway, so slipping off of it is a possibility, especially when it's dark. If one were to slide off on in the flooded area, one would officially be f*cked. On the right is a small pond that has formed from all of the runoff coming down the hill, and on the left (and down) is the front yard, and while that area wasn't underwater, it is like a bog, if you go down there even 4-wheel drive ain't gonna do you any good.

As mentioned, I left late, so I didn't get out of here until 5am. Made it through the driveway just fine, and spent an hour of the hour and forty five minute drive in white out conditions. I don't mind driving in such conditions, it's what I learned to drive in afterall, but I do sometimes worry about being out there with all the other people who tend to drive like they've never seen rain before. Thankfully it was just me, and the usual steady stream of semi's, truckers drive in the rain all the time so one doesn't need to worry about their driving abilities, or lack thereof.

I arrived at about 6:40, still raining. I knew I was going to have to park far away, so for the first time in my life, I actually took an umbrella with me - my backpack isn't waterproof, and I didn't want the boxes inside to get all wet. The son of the guy who runs these shows was walking out of the smaller gym (the big shows are in two gym's) just as I was walking in, and apparently he just couldn't resist the temptation to say something pithy my carrying an umbrella. Nice. Normally I probably would've directed a few choice four, and twelve, lettered words in his direction, but... depression, so I just kept walking. I won't forget the slight though.

Dealers were still setting up in the small gym, which was fine, because I never start there anyway, all the good stuff is an the bigger gym. Just as I walked in, I heard something that almost made me turn right around and start heading home. I heard guy off to my right ask "So much for both of the Smothers Brothers and the Max Baer Jr.?". Being mildly obsessed with Golden Age, I knew exactly what he had to be asking about, that being autographs from the 2013 set. The reply to his question is what made me want to leave before I even started looking. "How about $2 each?" was what I heard from the dealer... $2 f*cking dollars each! Are f*ucking kidding me! Christ, each one of the Smothers Brothers usually sells for $15-20 range, and Max can go anywhere from $10-20. I'm fairly familiar with this dealer, and he has never had anything like this before, so the odds of me actually looking through his autograph's box would've been low even if I had gotten there earlier, but still, did I have to hear that right as I walked by? It annoys me because I still need all three of those autos, and that was like one of those deals of century kind of situations. Most of me already didn't want to be there, but after having to hear that exchange, I knew that I was going to be having an even less enjoyable time than I had expected, and I was right!

I'm sure that some of you are starting to wonder if I'm ever gonna shut up and get to some cards, and my answer to that would be, yes... here's some cards:

This card was actually my last purchase of the day. I got it from the husband/wife duo who just come for the big shows, with their 5 or 6 table spread of nothing but vintage. I heard the guy mention that they just bought a huge collection, which isn't unusual for them, but what was unusual was that they brought a lot of that stuff here first, before they set up at The National whenever that is, usually it's the other way around - so I guess you could say that the folks attending The National are going to be getting some of Nashville's leavin's :)

I always just look through their "scratch and dent" tote, because everything else is a little too high for me, although this time they had multiple totes of bargain stuff. I spent way too much time looking through these totes to only end up buying one card, most of the prices were condusive to what I wanted to spend. I already had one copy of this card, and I still need a couple more, for $2 I was able to cross one more off of the list. Pretty good team that '57 Braves, loaded with familiar names - Aaron, Ball boy Blossfield, Conley, Mathews, Spahn, and Thomson.

The next two cards came from the guy that I got the '52 Bowman Casey Stengel for a dollar from awhile back. I didn't see that he was there again until late, he had his cards laid out on the table this time, most were still just $1 each, lots of empty spots where cards had been, so I probably missed some more deals, which is what happens when you're only one person, and there are this many tables.

I don't know if I've already mentioned it on here or not, but I recently started a Johnny Podres collection, which I had planned on adding this card to, "had" being the keyword there. I didn't notice it until a few days later, but the card has an indent/wrinkle thing going on, which is something that wouldn't bother me if I had seen it and still went ahead and bought it, but finding it after the fact is really bugging the sh*t out of me - burned by bad lighting again! Now I have to find another one for me, and figure out who to send this one to.

This was a much better dollar spent than the Podres. I already had this card, but mine was in much worse shape, so I opted for an upgrade. My other copy will be another one that'll eventually be sent out to some (un)lucky blogger.

It's been awhile since I've added anything to my 1972-73 set build, this Wilt all-star was a big (get it, cause he's tall) addition, and I was just starting to wonder if I even wanted to bother finishing the set. This one certainly isn't mint, but collector's always want Wilt cards, so this one has jumped up in price over the last couple of years, and nicer examples are no longer affordable... at least not for me.

Side note: I bought this card from the kid (I say kid, but he's probably around my age) that comes from Memphis to set up at these big shows, he also runs a show in Memphis, which is supposedly starting to grow, so collector's in that are who haven't already done so, might want to check out his shows.

Look at that, a hockey card! I had seen cards from this set many times over the last couple of years while doing the challenges on COMC, but I never knew anything about them - so when I came across this Lemieux in one of Jim's 6/$1 boxes, I felt compelled to grab it. For anyone who might not know, this comes from the 1988-89 ESSO NHL All-Star Collection set, but that's all I know, and it's all I need to know.

Side note #2: I dropped my cell phone on the laundry room floor a couple of weeks ago, it's a tile floor so you can probably imagine how well that turned out. The screen looks like a spider web now, but the camera still works, and I'm still using it for the stuff that the scanner can't handle (vintage). Having the screen all cracked has made trying to center photos much more difficult, so if you've noticed any of the oddly tilted pictures yet, that's why.

Hockey, and a graded card all in the same post, what the heck is going on here! I blame Chris for this purchase. I also blame him for the slight interest in graded cards that I seem to have developed. Bloggers are such terrible influences - mother's, don't let your children grow up to be bloggers!

Remember the guy with the stupidly low priced Golden Age autos that I missed out on, yeah well, he had a bunch of graded cards as well, which is another thing that he doesn't usually have. Most of them were like newer A&G, and Gypsy Queen, which I don't understand why anyone would get graded, but whatever, it's not my money being flushed down the toilet. Anyway, amongst all of that newer stuff were a PSA 7 1971 Willie McCovey and the Cubs team card above. I was interested in both, and was given a price of $15 for the pair, which seemed a little high to me, so I walked away.

After a couple of minutes I decided to see what they sell for on eBay, just so I could get a sense of what a good price would be. Turns out that the McCovey goes for more than $15 by itself. I walked back with the intention of trying to offer him $12 for the pair, he was on the phone when I got back over there, so I had to wait a minute. While I was waiting, I decided to take the cards out of the team bags that they were in. I'm glad I did, because the McCovey case had a bunch of scuffs and scratches, including a fairly deep scratch across the white section of the placard (I don't know if that's what the top part is actually called or not). I found it odd that those things couldn't be seen through a clear team bag, maybe because of the glare? Either way, I couldn't look past those scratches, so McCovey got put back. The Cubs case was scratch free, and at the newly quoted $5 sale price, I took it! Who would've ever thought that my most expensive purchase of the day would've been on a graded card, certainly not I.

Another graded card, seriously??????? I can't blame Chris for this purchase, at $1, I would've bought this one no matter what. I walked by table that had a shoebox of graded cards that said "$1 each". Like 95% of the box was nothing but cards from those not-so-legit grading companies, GMA, ACA, BBC, ABBA, CBGB - you know, those sort of places. Not only was Elvin here the only vintage card of the bunch, but he was also the only PSA card as well. I already have this card in my set, but for a dollar I would've bought another copy even if it hadn't been graded.

This is the rest of what I bought, mostly from Jim's 6/$1 boxes (lot's of 90's basketball inserts). It doesn't look like a lot now that they've been un-toploadered, but there's well over a hundred cards there. I will get to them sometime in the coming weeks (or months), since I don't plan on going to another show until at least May or June, there's really no rush to get everything shown here on the blog, plus I really don't feel like doing any scanning right now.

I ended up spending $39 on cards, and I bought a few much needed supplies, skipped a lot more tables than I normally would have though, if there were too many people (the weather didn't seem to stop anyone from coming) at a particular table, I just kept walking. Overall it wasn't a very fun show, and I know I probably sound like a dick for saying that, especially to those of you who don't live anywhere near a show, but that's how it was -- the best part of the day was getting to come home.

Epilogue: It never did stop raining on Saturday, but we did finally get a break on Sunday, hell, we actually ended up getting a couple of days of sun and blue sky. The water has receded, which was nice, more rain is coming though, which is to be followed by a couple of days of "butt cold" temperatures... yay!

As for the leaky tire, it had a screw in the side, which means it couldn't be plugged and had to be replaced...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.