My first card show in over twenty years

Until today, I don't think I had been to a baseball card show since I was a freshman in college. Last month, I started looking at show calendars to see if there might be any near where I live and sure enough, there was one at a Ramada hotel in Lancaster today.

Strangely, this was the first and last time the show would be held there. Apparently this is a regular show and they had just moved to this venue from another one. Someone took over the Ramada and the new management told the card folks that they would not be willing to have them there in future months. Go figure.

What I found annoying about the show is I wish the shows I had gone to as a kid were more like this one. This show had tons of vintage stuff, which I'm not really interested in at this point. The other option was high end cards. Only one dealer had packs. There were probably about 15-20 dealers in all and the show was doing some good business.

Interestingly, one of the dealers is a regular patron of the computers at the library and he was selling baseball books. He had a couple I was interested in but wanted fair value for them which I refuse to pay for baseball books. Thought maybe he would give his ol' librarian buddy a break but no dice.

I did pick up a bunch of cards and with the $1 I had left, I bought a pack of 2008 Upper Deck X. The guy had the one pack left, it was marked as $3 and he had it in a half off box. Even still, he gave me grief about asking for it for a buck. Dude, you can get this stuff at the dollar store. Nice to know card shows are still the same in that regard.

So what did I get? Seventeen Adam Dunns:



I got my first two autographed cards of Dunn. The one is on card. The other is a sticker and bat and is number to 25 copies. The double jersey one is numbered to 62. I was pretty jazzed, all in all.

I also picked up four 2008 Upper Deck X inserts for when I get around to building the set, an Obak card of native Delawarean Spook Jacobs, a pair of Mat Latos cards, and two cards for the day when Dave is willing and able to work a trade with me. Don't know if he needs them but I thought the Chipper was sort of cool looking and Bob Horner is one of the all-time greats. I mean, the guy is 53rd all-time in AB per HR despite playing in an era when 30 HR was a great season.

It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours. Had some fun, got some nice cards, didn't break the bank. Would have liked to have had an opportunity to get a box of Upper Deck X or some cheap baseball books but you can't have everything. The new location of the show is such that I don't know if I will go back to it in the future. Just to have look for some other ones.