My first real big card show

Before today, I hadn't been to a card show in 20 years, at least. I had been to some small shows in the early '00s when I got back into collecting. I don't even remember what I bought at those for the most part. I do remember going to one show in the middle of a mall where I made the decision to avoid vintage. (Maybe not my best decision.) 

For the past couple of years I had been thinking about going to shows again, partially from reading many other bloggers' posts about them. Since joining OBC, I've heard a lot more about their success at shows, so I decided to go to the big one here at Hofstra University today. 400 tables - maybe about 50 dealers or so.

For the first time I saw the infamous bros with their hard cases, and I'd say over half of the tables were just new stuff. Still there was no shortage of vintage all over the place. I went with Sal Domino, an OBCer who lives a few towns over from me. Sal very kindly showed me around, introduced me to dealers, advised me on purchases and helped me get some "OBC discounts".

Sal and I had a few cards for each other. Neither of us had mentioned doing so beforehand, but the OBC folks are always very generous. I gave him some '70s football needs and he gave me these four much older cards.

The first dealer he introduced me to was a guy named Frank (I think). Frank had a small box of beat-up stars, and said we could have half off the sticker price. Aaron was listed as $20 and Rose for $30. I asked if he'd do $20 for both and he did.

These were from a guy named Steve. I'd actually bought some cards from him at the flea market a couple of years ago. Found some '69 and '70 high numbers, some '70 Topps booklets . . .

. . . . a Scratch-Off and some stamps. All were $0.50 each.

He also had some beat up stars at some good prices. I'm realizing I've got to loosen up the change a bit for big stars. I think these are some good prices. My favorite is the Clemente with the writing, capturing an important bit of baseball history.

A different dealer named Lenny had some really fun $0.50 boxes. I wish they were dime boxes, lots of fun newer oddballs. Because of the price I stuck with vintage and found some great stuff. Topps needs . . .

. . . stamps, a decal, Star Wars . . .

. . . lots of vintage oddballs! OBC discount brought me to 3/$1. Pretty good.

Pulled these from someone else's $0.50 box of almost all newer stuff.

I was feeling a little weird about spending more money on cards than I usually do, but having so few. There were no dime boxes but there was someone with Yankee cards that were $15/100. I asked if he'd do 400/$40. Probably ended up with more than 400. Lots of great newer stuff, oddballs, minor league, shiny stuff. That'll be another post.