Monday, November 18, 2019

Diverse dime boxes


Now that this year's Secret Santa has officially been set in motion, I can start catching up on things that normally would've been covered by now, namely the rest of the haul that I brought home from September's super mega card show.

I do have a few more thank you posts to do, but with the aforementioned Secret Santa, I've got some shopping to do, which means another card show will likely be in my future, and hey, there just so happens to be one in less than two weeks -- and if I do go, I can't imagine that I won't end up bringing anything back for myself, so I'm gonna try and get the last show's stuff taken care of real quick, that way I don't end up having two shows worth of stuff to catch up on. Hopefully the people that I owe public thanks to for items sent my way, won't be upset by having to wait another week or two before I gush over their generosity.

For those that don't remember, and why would you, the end of September show was one of twice a year 190+ table affairs, hence the super mega card show distinction. Oh, as a quick aside, I just saw that the next big one, which is at the end of February BTW, is set to have 240 tables with wares from 130+ dealers! Just goes to show what can happen when shows are promoted by someone who isn't motivated by greed, after all who would've thought that Nashville could hold shows that are now being compared to The National, and according to dealers who have set up at both, The National is losing ground to what's going on here. Oh, sorry, aside #2, I also just read that the September show had the usual array of dealers from various states (midwest to upper east coast), but apparently there was even a guy from California there. California to Nashville is a long way to travel just to try and sell some cards! I wish I would've known what table(s) was his, as I would've tried to buy something from him, but unless you're the sort to talk to every single dealer (I am not), there's really no way to know where everyone is coming from.

Anyhow, I've already mentioned that despite there being a gajillion sellers to choose from, I only ended up buying from four, two of which have already been covered (here and here), so let's move onto the third (even though it was actually the second purchase of the day). There's an older seller who's always there, and who always has a bunch of 3200 ct dime boxes from the three major sports, as well as some higher end vintage and autos. I've bought stuff from him many times over the last couple of years (although I still don't know his name), so I do always stop to check out his wares. He was obviously bringing out the big guns for this bigger show, as in addition to his normal set-up, he also had a dime box of non-sports (3200 ct), as well as a bunch of quarter boxes (or 5/$1) that were separated into baseball, basketball, boxing, football, hockey, and wrestling. Even though I bought from both tiers, I'm just going to focus on the dime boxes today, and save the quarter boxes for Wednesday.

Seeing as how non-sports cards are a bit of a rarity here (despite the bonkers amount of dealers), and don't ask me why, they just are -- so with that in mind I opted to search through the new non-sport dime box first (don't worry, there's some sports further down in the post). I found the three Bart Broder's within the first couple of cards, with my recent propensity for collecting duplicates, I of course had to grab all three. This particular Broder is new to me, given it's subject matter though, it's not too hard to figure out roughly when it would've been made.

As exciting as it was to find a dime box of non-sport cards, I was a little disappointed to see that at least half of the cards in the box were in pretty rough shape, with the bulk of those being from mid 90's DC and Marvel sets. This Deadpool was just about the only one that didn't have any smushed corners, otherwise I probably would've bought just about everything in there.

I was surprised to find these in there, and even though I don't normally go for cards that are this rough, I couldn't leave them sitting there. I'll be hanging on to the Man on the Moon, at least for the moment, but the Monkees are available to whoever wants them.

The one bad thing about dime boxes is, that because everything is only a dime, it can be awfully difficult to say no to things, even things that you normally wouldn't give a second look. Here's a perfect example, did I need expired game cards from the 1992 Winter Olympics? I'm pretty sure that I didn't, but they were only a dime, so...

I don't remember this particular contest, but I do recall quite a few others from the time, as well as a number of the promotions that were linked to that year's Winter Olympics. My favorite was the free plastic hockey stick that one could get if you bought X amount of Wheaties boxes, I think it was two or three. We lived in Beaverton (OR) at the time, and there was an Albertson's not too far away that was participating in the promotion, it was a pretty big deal for me and a lot of the other kids my age (9). The details are a little fuzzy, but basically you just went there and bought a couple of boxes of Wheaties, and they would hand you this beautiful blue and white plastic hockey stick (it came with a puck too) right there in the store, no sending away for anything, no waiting for it to arrive, talk about your instant gratification! This promotion also just so happened to start right around the time that rollerblades were exploding in popularity, so it didn't take long before a lot of us kids were playing roller hockey, even though no one was familiar with hockey in the least. I had two of those sticks, both had been broken and duct taped back together, until my mid teens, but a garage cleaning would eventually see them being thrown away. At this point in my life, it should come as no surprise to hear that I wish that I still had them, as they'd look really great up on the wall... duct tape and all!

There were some A&G mini's in the baseball boxes, but this was the only one from the non-sport box, and in case you can't tell, it's pretty fantastic! I kind of want to talk about the Carpathia some, but this post is getting kind of a long, and I don't even think that I'm to the halfway mark yet, so maybe I'll revisit the topic another day.

My days as a wrestling fanatic are long gone, but it was still pretty cool to find some of these 1987 NWA Wonderama cards. I remember seeing ads for this set in the back of magazines, always sold as a complete set BTW, but I had never seen any in person before. It's hard to tell from the crappy scans, but these are basically like mini photos, the image quality is that good.

I was such a big fan of The Powers of Pain when I was a kid, so the group shot featuring part of Paul Jones' Army is definitely my favorite of the bunch.

I don't know if anyone cares, but here's a back just in case.

See, I told you, sports! Another new to me set here, but Sportflix was a brand that I never bought any cards from, no reason why mind you, it just wasn't on my radar. The lenticular action of these backgrounds is pretty nifty, they sure don't scan well though, and the photograph that I used here isn't much better.

You're now looking at the first card from the '86 Topps set that I've ever owned (I've since gotten another one from Robby). I forgot about this one when I went to scan everything, so I've added this photo right before hitting publish. It has a bit of a punky corner, but was still probably a pretty good deal, what with it being The Fridge's rookie and all.

Some random shiny stuff, finding cheap Prism is always a good thing!

T-Mac was hanging out with The Fridge, and as such is a late another addition to the post. As far as base cards go, this one is pretty nice, now if I could just spot a famous person in the background...

I've mentioned many times before that I wasn't a Jordan fan growing up, but for some odd reason I still have an affinity for a number of his early 90's base cards, these two being a couple of my favorites. My fondness for these cards has grown even more since I started created my dozen or so player binders earlier this year, and since I also now enjoy finding as many duplicates of cards that I like, I'm not about to pass up a few more cheap copies of these two.

If memory serves, the 1994-95 Collector's Choice gold signatures averaged about one per box, maybe it's just me, but with those kind of odds, one shouldn't expect to find any in dime boxes -- yet I've done so in the past, and I did it here again. Obviously Clyde wasn't no scrub either, so why he was relegated to such a box, I do not know, I can guarantee you though that he's now in much better place... that being in a binder with other Drexler's! Anybody who's ever tried to scan or photograph these probably already knows that they are difficult to get a decent image of, this photograph isn't too bad, certainly better than the scan...

Wow, that looks terrible!

It's amazing how much difference can be made just by taking the photo at a slight angle. Definitely another one of my favorites from that day. I thought that finding one was pretty fantastic, but then...

... I found four more! Not quite on par with Clyde, but I'm not going to complain any. I've got player pages for Otis Thorpe and Jeff Hornacek, and Scott Skiles and Anthony Peeler will be headed to my team binders, which are basically just where by put all of the neat stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else -- although if I could find a few more interesting cards of Scott Skiles, I would likely start a page for him as well.

Looks like we've reached the end, but not a bad a couple of bucks spent if I do say so myself! They weren't as diverse as these dime boxes, but I did alright with his quarter boxes as well, and as mentioned I'll be taking a look at that stuff next time, so until then!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

24 comments:

  1. Quite a mix of stuff. Those Olympic game pieces are great. (I had one of those plastic Olympic hockey sticks, too)!

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    1. You know, I've never encountered anyone else who had one of those sticks, at least no in my adult life... kind of nice to know that someone else remembers them too!

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    2. The blade was blue and the shaft was white, correct? And it wasn't a full-size stick. That's what I remember, anyhow. I wonder if I still have it somewhere. Might have to check the family garage next time I visit.

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    3. That's the one! It had a blue cap on the top of the sick as well. It was full size for me at that age, but yeah it probably wouldn't have worked out so well for an adult.

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  2. " according dealers who have set up at both, The National is losing ground to what's going on here." So you're saying I should scrap my plans to go to Atlantic City next year? ;P

    So many nice finds here, this is why I'm annoyed I couldn't make it to the CT card show this month. I've been dying to go dime box diving. Anyway..I'm trying to remember those Olympics scratch-offs and I just can't. Guess I missed that promotion somehow (In my defense it wasn't until that summer that I became a regular Olympics viewer)

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    1. Thanks for quoting a section with a typo in it! But at least I was able to fix it. Being so far away, I wouldn't tell you to change your plans, but having these twice-a-year big shows so close is why I would now never even consider going to The National. Well that, and the whole corporate feel of The National doesn't really appeal to me either. One doesn't need to take out a second mortgage just to attend the Nashville shows either, so that's kind of good thing too.

      I'm pretty sure that 1992 was the only year that I actually cared about the Olympics, and that was really only because of The Dream Team that summer.

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  3. A lot of good stuff, but those Wonderama cards are a thing of beauty. I've never seen any in person either.

    I probably would have got the Olympic cards too, not that I would need them. I think you did pretty good.

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    1. I hadn't thought about that set in years, but back when I cared about such things, I just kind of always assumed that I never would see any in person.

      They are interesting to a degree, but again, I don't what I'm supposed to do with them!

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  4. Oh man, Monkees cards! I always at least do a brief dig through cheap non-sports boxes at shows to see if there's anything music-related in there, as those are really the only non-baseball cards I'm interested in. Can't say I've found Monkees ones for a dime before though!

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    1. You're lucky that you get to have so many non-sports boxes to look through, this was the first one I've seen in the 4 1/2 years that I've been going to these shows.

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  5. Wait.... What? You played a form of hockey?? That statement blew my mind.... Those wrestling cards are outstanding. It's funny because they can show "blood" on a wrestling but has been hugely frowned upon in the hockey card world. Looks like you scored a bunch of great cards out of those dime boxes.

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    1. It's crazy, I know! Maybe I'll talk about that more at some point on here, or I can always talk about it in an email, the email route would probably work better, because I don't think too many people are going to care about that. I didn't know about blood rule when it comes to hockey cards, I could've swore though that someone made an insert or memorabilia set just a few years ago that had something to do with blood.

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    2. You are correct. In The Game did a set called Enforcers. They added "blood" in actuality speckled red spots on the frame of the card. Even did their sticker autographs to look like a band-aid. Because most casual hockey fans don't collect "goons", the set didn't fair to well on the secondary market and hence boxes can be found somewhat on the cheap.

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    3. I remember those now! I'm pretty sure that some of them were shown on the blogs at the time. Thanks for verifying a foggy memory :)

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  6. Great variety. I love oddball stuff like those Coke game pieces.

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    1. And this is a rare instance where "oddball" actually seems like an appropriate term for something!

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  7. 1986 Topps is my favorite football set out there -- it's the first football cards I had ever seen, and my uncle gave me a bunch of cards from loose packs that he had bought (most of which I still have). Refrigerator Perry is just a beauty on that one! Nice pickup.

    That set has so many intriguing pictures (Walter Payton - looking into the sunlight, Nolan Cromwell, Too Tall Jones, Bart Oates, Jerry Rice rookie [$$], Cris Collinsworth, Stump Mitchell, Bruce Smith) it really helped to see who the players were. It didn't focus much on action shots, although there are a few of those.

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    1. It's a nice set, and it certainly stands out from just about every other football set ever made. It's not hard to understand why it's so popular with collectors, especially set collectors. I'll have to go refamiliarize myself with the cards that you listed off, as I can't recall any of the images off of the top of my head, although it's also entirely possible that I've never seen a few of them, but either way I'll at least know what you're talking about soon enough.

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  8. That Man on the Moon card with the APollo 11 astronauts in quarantine is pretty cool! Nice pick up!

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    1. Yeah, even in it's current state, a dime was a pretty good price for it.

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  9. Shame about the comic cards almost all being too wrecked to bother with, but that's still a fantastic haul. Especially fond of that Fridge RC (still need to get myself a copy; Rice & Boomer Esiason are the only two rookies from '86 I managed to get my hands on when I was actively chasing RCs) & the Glide gold signature.

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    1. It is, especially since a lot of them were from sets that I had never owned any singles from. By owning the Rice, you've obviously already got the key card from the set, other than the Steve Young, everything else doesn't seem to sell for very much, including The Fridge.

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  10. It pains me to see Jordan dunking on Ewing. Such a rivalry in the 90's and watching the Knicks lose to them every year was painful

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    1. Between the Bulls, Heat, and pacers, the Knicks really had a rough go during the 90's.

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