I hit the Nashville card show this past Friday.  Since I had the wife with me and we had other errands to run, I was only able to spend about 2 hours at the show.  That is probably for the best because I only brought a couple hundred dollars to spend.

The show was great!  It was very busy for an early Friday afternoon compared to the last few shows.  There was alot of post-war vintage, some pre-war vintage, and of course lots of modern shiny stuff and Pokemon too.  There was one dealer who had a ton of European and non-sport pre-war vintage too.

My main goal for the day was to find a 1962 Topps Lou Brock rookie card.  Lou Brock was the first baseball Hall of Famer I ever got an autograph from.  I remember him asking me who my favorite team was and at the time it was the Mets since my favorite player, Darryl Strawberry, played for them.  This was  probably within a year or two after they won the 1986 World Series.

There were several Brock RC's at the show.  I ended up buying an ungraded one in about VG condition and paid $110 which was about $100 less than the next nicest example that I found that I liked.  Someday I may choose to upgrade it, but for now it fills a want that I've had on the list for at least a couple of years now.  Now I can move on to some other want list targets.

I also picked up an ungraded T206 of Lee Quillen with polar bear back for $50, a couple of 1950 Bowman commons for $5 each, a 1961 Topps MVP of Al Rosen for $5, and a 1983 Topps Wade Boggs rookie card for $20.  I also found up a 1938 PM8 Our National Game pin of Lou Chiozza for $10.  I had never seen these before, so I figured for $10 it would be a nice addition for my collection.  I finished up the day by buying a few one touch magnetic holders. 

The next big-ish Nashville show is the Music City Collectibles and Autograph show (different promoter than the Nashville Sports Card Show) at the end of Sept/beginning of October.  It will have several autograph guests that I would like to get auto's from including Ryne Sandberg and Steve Garvey.  I may get another auto from Ozzie Smith too.  Maybe even Roger Clemens. 

Then right after that in mid-October is the next Nash-ional show like this one was this weekend.  That may be rough to have those two shows back-to-back. 

After leaving Champion Sports Cards, I decided to check out one more local Atlanta card shop.  So I headed over to Dave's in the Roswell area.  I entered the shop (which is a two room store) noting they also have non-sport and Pokemon cards as well as some comic books. 

Heading into the second room, I see there are several showcases with hockey, basketball, football, and baseball cards.  There was also a showcase which house what I assume is Dave's personal Mickey Mantle collection which was quite nice. 

The shopkeeper (not the owner) greeted me and was very attentive as I looked at several vintage cards from the showcases. There were a bunch of ungraded vintage HOFer cards.  They also had some poor-fair condition 1933 Goudeys, which I looked through.  I ended up picking out 3 of the Goudeys for a total of $50.  Then I saw a card that caught my eye - a 1956 Topps Luis Aparicio rookie card that looked very sharp.  It had a $20 price tag and was noted as marked.  Upon inspection it has a large "4" ink stamp on the back.  The front has a bit of ink/print marks as well, but it presents really well.  I thought it was well worth $20 to pick up this HOF RC from the mid-1950s.  

Dave's also had several 5000 count boxes of raw, low condition 1940s-1970s commons and HOFers.  I searched through these and found a bunch I would normally have bought.  I was near my spending limit though with the Ashburns from Champion, the 3 Goudeys, and the Aparicio RC.

We will be back in Atlanta in late April, and I plan to visit Dave's again to see what other prizes I can find.

We're in Atlanta for the weekend for a dance competition with my daughter.  I decided to check out some local card shops.  I asked for recommendations from the Net54 board, but no one had any suggestions.  So I decided to try Champion Sports Cards in Marietta, GA. It was about a 25 minute drive from downtown Atlanta where we were staying. 

Upon arriving at the shop, I was greeted by the shop owner (?).  I made a quick circle around the shop I noted some random graded 1950s-1970s cards, a showcase of graded vintage '50s-'70s HOFers, and a case with raw HOFers from those same years.  The store also had a ton of autographs - cards, mini-helmets, baseballs, etc. 

I then scanned through a few boxes of star cards.  They had to have a few million cards all organized in 5000 count boxes alphabetically by player name across all sports.  If you were looking for modern or ultra modern cards, this place would probably be a gold mine!

Once the shopkeeper finished with another customer I asked to look at several of the graded and ungraded vintage cards.  I immediately picked out two Richie Ashburns that were quite nice.  A 1953 Bowman Color in PSA 5 ($50) and a 1954 Bowman PSA 4 ($15). 

Then I saw a newly graded 1952 Bowman Musial PSA 1.  I love that Musial card.  The price on it was $150, which was very tempting.  I asked the shopkeeper if he would take $200 for all three cards, and after checking comps he declined.  So I ended up picking up the two Ashburns. 

I would say Champion Sports Cards is worth a visit if you're looking for graded or ungraded cards back to the 1950s.  They did not have much in the way of pre-war cards though.  The only ones I noted was a R319 Goudey and a couple of others.  No tobacco cards, Batter Ups,  or Goudeys though. I plan to re-visit this store when we're back in Atlanta in late April. 

I had been waiting anxiously for the next big Nashville card show.  Finally, March 10th arrives and I head out early to the Nashville fair grounds.  I splurge $30 for a VIP pass to get in 2 hours early (10AM vs. Noon).  Once inside I make a right turn and start scanning the tables looking for graded '66 and '67 Topps Mantles, Lou Brock rookie cards, and the big card I was hoping to pick up - a 1954 Topps Ernie Banks rookie card.  Along the way I looked at several 1968T Johnny Bench rookies, some 1980T Henderson rookies, and various other random cards.  Unfortunately, there were not many Banks RC's in my price range, so I would leave without checking that off my want list.

After my first round around the floor, I make it back near the start where I look through a small stack of raw T206s and some 1934-36 Batter Ups.  I ended up picking up 3 T206 commons, one with a Polar Bear back and another with a Sovereign back.  I also picked up a '34-'36 Batter Up Rick Ferrel... my first ever Batter Up card.

I saw a '55T Berra that would have been a good fit for my '55T beater set.  It had two pin holes, but otherwise presented pretty well.  So I ask the dealer how much, and he says $300.  I wonder if he saw my eyes because I was shocked.  I put it back on the display rack and the dealer started to say it was a $600 dollar card... so something along those lines.  I responded by saying yeah, but it has two pinholes in it.  Then I walked off.

I ended up getting some other low grade HOFer cards from some sale boxes.

The big pickup of the day though came in the afternoon when I returned to a dealers table for maybe the third time.  I had thoroughly searched the show for both raw and graded '66 and '67 Mantles but hadn't seen this dealer's copies because he had previously been busy with other customers and I moved on.  This time I asked to see both.  The '66T PSA 4 was priced at $395 and the '67 PSA 4 was priced at around $350.  I asked for the best he could do on the '66T and he came down to $340 but offered to match comps.  I searched comps and found them ranging from $240 to $380+.  I figured $325 was fair, so I took it.  I think I came away with the best looking PSA 4 1966 Topps Mantle at the show!  It looks great!

After making several more laps around the floor, picking up some supplies and looking for junk wax boxes (which I didn't buy), I finally left at 4PM with some very sore feet (partly due to an injured Plantier Fascia ligament I am dealing with).

All-in-all it was a great day at a card show.  I think next year though, I may convince the wife to let me travel to Philly, Strongsville, or Chantilly to get a change of scenery and see some new dealer inventory.

Recently there was a ~950 card lot of T206s auctioned off all with the Howe McCormick back stamp.  I used to have a Howe McCormick stamp, but I think I sold or traded it to the guy on Net54 (Howe Hunter) who was trying to re-assemble Howe's collection.

Many of these 950 cards are now showing up on eBay.  So, I went ahead and grabbed a T206 Birdie Cree with Old Mill back and the Howe stamp.  The stamp is pretty bold and easy to read, plus this one adds another off back and helps with my attempt to build a set of mostly off backs.

There are some Southern Leaguers and HOFers with the Howe stamp on eBay too.  I may try to pick up one or two of those as well.  I only need two more cards to reach my 2022 goal of picking up 24 T206s for the year! If I reach that goal, that will be the most T206s I've ever picked up in one year.  I started collecting T206s back in the early 1990's and am now at 130 cards for my set. I've been at this for so long, but am trying hard to make steady progress as I push for a 520 set... maybe someday I'll be able to complete the entire 524 card set too!

I had to take the kids to their home school co-op yesterday, so while they were there I decided the check out a card store that I've had my eye on for a while.  It's located in Shelbyville, TN right off of the downtown square.  It's called John English Antique Sports Cards and it is amazing! 

The shop takes up two store fronts with one side being mostly sports cards and the other side being all kinds of vintage memorabilia including a whole wall of antique baseball gloves, two racks of antique baseball bats, and several display cases of all kinds of other collectibles dating back to the late 1800's. 

They had a very large selection of $5 boxes of 1950s-1970s cards which I thought were all commons at first.  But after flipping through them these boxes also contained several HOFer cards, some in decent condition.  In those boxes I bought 3 commons for my 1960 Topps set.  They had several more hits I needed from that set, but didn't want to spend all my money on commons.  I will definitely be back there when I need to fill in my set needs though.  I also picked out a $5 1959 Topps All Star card of Stan Musial.  It's only in fair condition, but I've always liked that card and for $5 felt it was a good addition to my HOFer collection. 

The shop also had several stacks of nicer condition 1950s and 1960s cards.  Unfortunately I didn't find any hits to my 1965 Topps set.  I also looked at the sole T206 they had, but it turned out I have the same card with the same back already.  They also had 4 T3 Turkey Reds ranging from about $325-$475.  The shop owner made it sound like he could go lower on those since they had been there awhile... I may go back and see how low he will go. 

I was kind of rushed this time around to John English's store, but plan on visiting again soon and often.  I think they have by far the best selection of vintage, including some pre-WWII cards that I have found here and the prices didn't seem too bad.  I may even try to pick up an old bat or glove or other collectible to add to my collection.

The big card show was in Nashville this weekend and Friday was my off day at work, so I decided to check it out.  I arrived just a few minutes after 10AM and paid the $30 for VIP early access (prior to the normal opening time of 12PM).

The card show took up two rooms this time compared to the one last Spring that was only in the one building.  Since it was Friday and I got in early the crowds hadn't started building yet which was nice.  When I went to the Spring show it was packed and very difficult to maneuver in the aisles.

My goals for this show including picking up at least one Mickey Mantle card, probably a '66 or '67.  There were plenty of '66-'67 Mantles at the show, but I ran into time limits... more on that in a bit.  I also wanted to pick up an Ozzie Smith RC and/or a Rickey Henderson RC.  Again, there were lots of those at the show to choose from but finding an Ozzie Smith RC that is decently centered is very difficult.  My other wants included hits to my 1965 Topps set which only has 17 left on the want list.  I was hoping to pick up 2-3 hits of players like Yastrzemski, Koufax, Drysdale, Clemente, Mathews, Banks, Rose, Perez. Finally, I wanted to pick up at least a couple of T206s since I have so far acquired 19 cards for my set this year.  My 2022 goal was to try to average 2 cards/months, or 24 cards for the year, as I continue my journey to complete the T206 set.  I may try to bump that to 3 cards/month or 36 for the year in 2023, but I am not sure... getting 24 seems to be challenging enough for me right now.

Overall the show was very good.  There were a bunch of tables selling ultra modern, refractors, autos, relics, etc.  I passed by most of those unless they had an odd vintage card or two in their display cases too.  There were also a bunch of tables with extensive selections of 1950s-1980s cards.  This ended up being where I spent most of time.  Honestly though it took me about 3 hours to just walk through the show once.  There were also a handful (maybe 8?) tables that had enough pre-war vintage to warrant a stop and look.  I had hoped to find more ungraded T206s, but I did find some so I wasn't totally out of luck.  A few dealers had graded T206s in the PSA 3-4 range, mostly with common backs, which I just find are too expensive for what they.  I prefer ungraded and non-Piedmont/non-Sweet Caporal backs.

First up post-war vintage...  I love looking through the vintage value bins.  You never know what you will find in there and being that I got in pretty early, I figured they were worth spending some time on.  At the very first table I stopped at I probably spent 30 mins or so in the value bin.  I found a few keepers including:  1962 Topps Orlando Cepeda All Star card for $3, a 1960 Topps Elston Howard in fantastic condition for $1.80, a 1955 Bowman Richie Asburn for $12 (it shows some where, but I am an Ashburn fan so I usually end up bringing one of his cards home with me when I go to a card show), a 1955 Topps Camilo Pascual for $4.50 to replace the one from my '55 set that I traded away because I thought I had a dupe when I arranged a trade, a 1958 Topps Jim Bunning second year card for $12, and a 1961 Topps NL HR Leaders card with Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Ken Boyer for $7.50.  That same dealer had a sweet nice centered 1959 Topps Duke Snider that I got for $40 too.

The very next dealer I went to had some graded (PSA 2-4) T206s with all common backs, but the prices for graded T206s are just stupid in my opinion.  So instead a went through his value box and found a really nice 1955 Topps Camilo Pascual rookie card.  I know I had just bought one for $4.50 at the table before, but this one was so much nice and only cost $7 so I decided to get it for my set (it will be nicer than almost all the other cards in that set) and keep the lower condition one as a dupe for trades.

After some hunting for 1965 Topps hits I finally settled on a Carl Yastrzemski that was marked as $95, but the dealer accepted $85 for it.  It turns out that was the only hit to my 1965 set that I was able to get at the show so I was pretty disappointed in that.

With respect to the T206s, I was able to pick up two hits to my set wantlist.  The first is a Bill Shipke with a Sovereign 350 back.  It's around Very Good condition and cost me $90.  This same dealer had a couple of other off backs that I was interested in, but he wanted $175 for one of them and $125 for the other, so I passed on those.  The next one I found was a Dick Hoblitzell with an Old Mill back.  I got it for $50 (after a fair bit of discussion because the dealer didn't know how to price T206s or so he said so I made an offer and he agreed), but it's only in fair condition.  The dealer had a George Davis and Iron Man McGinnity with Piedmont backs and uninteresting stamps (one a light circle and the other with GWT on it I think).  Again after much hand-wringing I asked if he would take $120 for the Hoblitzell plus one of the HOFers.  He wanted at least $100 for each of those though, so I passed since I am really trying to get the HOF'ers with non-Piedmont/non-SweetCap backs. If the back stamps were more interesting I would have paid the $100 or more, but they weren't so I moved on.  So I netted 2 more T206 commons for my set bringing my 2022 adds to 21 and my set to 129 cards total.  I have 2 more months in 2022 and will try to find 3 more on Net54 or somewhere to get me to 24 for the year.

I looked at probably a dozen 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson RCs and found a couple that I would probably have bought.  There was also a PSA 7 one that was marked for $110 that caught my eye... I probably should have snagged that when I saw it.  If I looked at a dozen Rickey's, then I looked at 2-3 dozen 1979 Ozzie Smith RC's.  Almost all were horribly O/C, but many were nice otherwise.  Prices ranged from $40-50 up to $375.  I found a couple in the $80-110 range that would have been nice to have and now regret I didn't pull the trigger when I saw them.  I also looked at probably 10-20 1966 and 1967 Mickey Mantles.  Prices for ones I liked were around $265-350. 

After I had made my first pass through the show, I started coming back to check out a few tables for a second time.  That is when my wife called saying we needed to leave soon to make it back to pick up the kids from school.  I was about to go back and get one of the '66 Mantles and decided I had better go so we wouldn't be late.  So I left the big Nashville show missing my Ozzie RC, Henderson RC, and '66/'67 Mantle that were my big 3 targets of the day.  The next time I am going to go and make sure I have the entire day to spend!  I also may try finding my top 2-3 cards first thing before I spend time in the value bins or looking at second tier wants.

All-in-all though I had fun at the show.  I think the next big Nashville show is in Feb or March 2023 and I plan to attend after I save up some money to get the big cards that I want.

While on a business trip to Fredericksburg, VA I took a little time to hit up a local card shop there.  I chose The Card Cellar in historic, downtown Fredericksburg.  The Card Cellar is a bit of an odd card shop in that it has all kinds of other stuff.  With respect to sports collectibles, they have a large selection of autographed photos, helmets, etc.  Also a couple dozen autographed baseballs. 

The store looked to have a good selection of unopened wax boxes from all four major sports plus Pokemon.  They also had some value boxes priced at $1/card, $3/card, and $5/card.  I went through one of the $5/card boxes and found a Bowman's Best Vlad Jr. card that caught my eye. 

The store had a small selection of vintage singles, but I did find a few to bring home with me.  One was a 1970 Topps Carl Yastrzemski in probably EXMT+ condition that cost me $10.  Another was a 1978 Topps Andre Dawson in NRMT condition that set me back a whopping $2.  The oldest card I picked up was a 1967 Topps White Ford in EXMT condition, but a little O/C left-to-right, for $30.

All-in-all it was worth the 10-15 minute drive from my hotel downtown to check up The Card Cellar.  I pan to take my wife with me one day during a business trip to let her see the sights in Fredericksburg.  I'll probably hit up The Card Cellar again next time I'm in town as well.

My family and I drove up to Nashville today to check out the Nashville flea market which we had never been to before.  I was of course on the look out for baseball cards and other baseball memorabilia such as tobacco packs, old ball gloves, etc.

Just after arriving I found a dealer with a very small number of 1970's vintage cards.  Not knowing if I would find any other baseball cards at the flea market, I picked up a 1979 Reggie Jackson in really nice EXMT+ condition for $5, a 1977 Brooks Robinson in excellent condition for $5, and a 1976 Willie Stargell in maybe VG/EX for $3.  Even if I didn't find anything else, I was happy to have at least picked up a few vintage HOF'ers.

Luckily, this was just the start of a good day of card hunting.  Inside the flea market pavilion were a few other sports card dealers.  I hit one up who had a couple of display cases, one filled with stacks of stars and hall of famers from 1950s-1980s.  After going through several stacks I picked out a 1957 Robin Roberts which cost me $25 and a 1972 Rollie Fingers which was $5.  I will come back to this dealer in a minute...

My wife and kids were basically done looking at this point, but I asked to go over and check out the area that I hadn't gotten to yet.  Not too far from that last dealer was another one who had several display cases of vintage baseball and football.  He also had a bin of 70% off vintage cards so I started to dig through those.  During my search, I found out he was a semi-retired dealer who only did the flea market any more but he lives about 20-30 mins from me and he lets folks come to his house to buy cards!  From the 70% off bin I found a 1961 Richie Ashburn that is nearly perfectly centered with just a little corner wear that cost me $4.  I also found a 1964 pitching leaders card with Whitey Ford, Camilo Pascual, and Jim Bouton on it that ran me $2. This one has some waviness at the top that I didn't notice when I bought it, but it was $2 so no big deal... it can go in the dupes trade box if nothing else.  In talking with this dealer, he pulled out some 1947-66 Exhibits and I picked out a Larry Doby for $8.  That is the first exhibits card that I've ever owned.

Now back to the previous dealer.  I went through his 50% off boxes and found two winners.  First was a 1967 Joe Morgan which is a little O/C left-to-right but otherwise pretty nice for $7.50.  Then I found the big score of the day.  A 1973 Mike Schmidt rookie card which after the 50% discount applied only cost me $2.50!! In the condition it's in, that is a $100+ card! Made my day and knocked off a HOF rookie card that was on my want list!

I'll be going back to the Nashville flea market for sure!

I am in Columbia, TN from time-to-time so I had to checkout the local card shop called Dad's Dugout.  It's a small chain with a bigger store located up by Nashville (Franklin, TN I think). I have been to the Columbia location twice now.  The Columbia location is a small showroom with some junk era and ultra modern unopened wax, ultra modern slabbed singles (auto's, parallels, etc.), and value boxes (all sports mixed in) to peruse.  They also have some Pokemon cards.  However, they have essentially zero 1950s-1960s vintage or pre-WWII vintage so that was disappointing to me.  I have went through their value boxes and picked out some singles that caught my eye... some base rookie cards, Mike Trout cards, Peyton Manning cards, etc.  The next time I am up in the Nashville area and have some spare time I will try to check out the Dad's Dugout home store there and see how it compares.  Hopefully they will have a better vintage selection.