1) If you live anywhere near Akron, Ohio, and if you love 10 cent boxes, head on over to Cardboard Dreams. You'll see why below, but to briefly summarize: they're super nice, the selection of cards are amazing (they've got a lot of good box stuff too but I buy singles) and they're fun to chat with while you browse. Awesome store. Trust me.
2) None of the cards in this post are for trade. I posted some cards I got the other day and got a lot of responses - so many, in fact, that I'm now sending out 6 packages tomorrow, with 3-4 potentially going out Tuesday. I'm going to throw up another trade bait post in a few days to cover the stuff from CD stop 1 and the stuff from CD stop 2, and a few of these may join the list (but only like 2-3). But for now, just oogle.
Okay, glad that's out of the way.
Anyways, I spent Thanksgiving with the girlfriend's family in the Akron, Ohio area. I knew that my girlfriend and her mom were going to go shopping on Black Friday. So I decided to use my Friday morning wisely: I did an area card shop assault.
Simple enough. Googled "Akron+Baseball Cards" and put down every card shop I saw on a piece of paper. Made myself a little itinerary and there you go, I was good to go.
The shops were not ready for me though - so many issues. I left at 9:45am, which is already a problem (as you all probably know) because card stores don't usually open before noon. But then to make things worse, shops 1 and 3 on my journey were no longer even in existence. Shop 2 (All Pro Sports Cards) looked nice, but it wasn't open when I stopped by (it opened at noon). Shop 4 was in a reallly sketchy area and had a weird sign in the window (and also wasn't open til noon), and so I moved on. Shop 5 was the very unassuming Cardboard Dreams, which opened at, surprisingly, 11:30. It was like 11, so I went to McDonald's, grabbed an early lunch, did a little homework, and then headed back over.
And OH. MY. GOD.
Box upon box upon box of dime cards. A $1 box. A $2 box. A $1 packs box. The stuff a singles/packs buyers dreams are made of. Cardboard Dreams even! I bought $9 worth of stuff on that first trip. And when I was bored the next day and my girlfriend was bored, I went back and bought another $7 worth of stuff. All told, about 150 new cards (I bought some card sleeves too). A ton went into my player collections, and those are all well and good (and you may see them someday). A ton went into stuff for other people, and those will be posted as trade bait soon enough (if they aren't already shipped off tomorrow). The rest? Well...I want to show you those. So here's some of the wacky non-pc, non-McGriff (I did get one McGriff though), non trade bait stuff. A lot of it is great names and great photos - very silly stuff.
First these two Pablo Sandovals. Kung Fu Panda is one of those 3532324541245 guys on the verge of being part of my player collections, mainly because he's so goofy, but I didn't have any cards of his. Now, however, I do. Just his first Bowman card and a gold Bowman from the next year. Just 20 cents. Nice, huh?
Less cool to anyone who isn't me are these three cards, 2 Kyle Bollers and a Kevin Faulk. Boller has been on my PC list before, then he dropped off, and he'll probably rejoin it. Faulk may someday join it - he has got to be one of the best Patriots of all time, and I like this portrait picture on his Victory card.
Some real oddballs here. 1981 TCMA #15 Michael Cole, 1979 TCMA Dave Hilton, and 1986 TCMA All Time Blue Jays Rick Bosetti. I had never even heard of TCMA cards, but I think they look pretty cool. Although Dave Hilton and Swallows - looks kind of silly on a card, sorry Yakult.
2 more oddballs. My first Razor, the ever lovely Jennifer Tilly, and a Donruss Americana of the girl from Better Off Dead. I used to think Jennifer Tilly was such a babe when I was younger. Now one of my fellow bloggers uses her as the Mendoza line between curvaceous/overweight (for the record, I still think she's babely enough).
Two cards that may kill the Don if he doesn't have them (pretty sure he collects CJs), but which I realllly want to hold on to. I shopped Johnson around like crazy when this fantasy football season started, but found no takers. Now I'm in first place by so much and everyone wishes they had accepted my proposals. Considering that this may be my last year of fantasy football, Chris Johnson has skyrocketed up my favorite current NFL player list. So I was happy to spent 20 cents on some Chrome-y, Thread-y goodness.
Okay, here's one pc thing, but it's an oddball of sorts. 2003 Bazooka Manny Ramirez. Not really a card because it's flimsy and has no back. But it's listed on Beckett, and I really like it. Again, sorry Don. Haha I hope you'll like the stuff I did get for you!
Two soccer cards. I know what you're thinking, and no, I don't reaaaally collect soccer cards. I did open that pack of MLS stuff a few weeks back, and I was psyched to pick up a jersey, but I don't follow much soccer at all.
That said, my family has season Revolution tickets, and I am a huge fan of a few Revs, specifically Shalrie Joseph and Kenny Mansally. So imagine my excitement when I saw a 2007 Shalrie among the 10 cent things. No Mansallys, but I did manage to pick up a Luciano Emilio, who I saw play against the Revs once. I remember him because he had Ronnie Turiaff's hairdo that day, and because his last name reminded me of Night at the Roxbury.
Ah, already well into this post, we finally come to the wacky pictures. I picked up so many goofy photos from this box, and I hope you chuckle as much as I did.
First this Samuel Deduno. Memorable because he has the goofiest look on his face, and because he's holding a cup! Best (only) baseball card image of a paper cone cup ever!
Next is Steve Kline, putting this little kid into the Lex Luger torture rack. This card made me laugh so hard when I saw it - I think I talked to the shop owner about it a little.
This card is literally, hands down, the worst card of all time. Some of the glare on this card is me, but a lot more of the glare on this card (namely, the glasses lens on your left) is actually part of the card. Apparently whatever was causing the glare also caused Peterson to squint like crazy, giving him this weird "ew who just farted?" look. Add in a few pimples, a terrible senior portrait backdrop, and an oddly placed lower left shield, and the awfulness of this card is just too much to avoid. Sorry Kyle, but your card is awful. No offense meant to you.
A little Dead Poets Society here, aka "Oh Captain My" Captain Munnerlyn. I don't know how this guy evaded my consciousness for so long (he was drafted this year after all), but he's on my radar now, and that first name is just too great to pass up.
Speaking of preparatory school, this card wins for douchiest card ever. That pose is just so "my dad makes a lot of money and I'm living off his coattails." Man - some card photographers are just awful. Can you imagine the guy here? "Hey Robbie, just sit on that rock over there. Now put your hand under your chin with your finger pointed up like you're thinking about money. And you better put your hand on your knee so you look like you're the f***in' man."
The best part though? His last name is Beckett. Leave it to Beckett to look like a douche.
Just a few great names here: a Pokey Reese rookie and Tallmadge Nunnari. Tallmadge is probably funny to only me, but I'll let you know why. Tallmadge, OH is near Akron, and it has the most churches per square foot of any town in the US. So to see a guy with the first name Tallmadge and the last name Nunnari (Nunnery) makes me chuckle a lot. It's okay if you don't laugh hahaha.
Two more great names, one random, one classic. The left is Devaris Strange-Gordon. Not too weird, but he looks Strange, and Strange couple with Gordon makes for a...strange...last name. Then a Gaylord Perry Fleer Greats of the game card. It looked cool and I didn't have a Gaylord Perry so now I do. But if someone wants it, that will be one of the trading block cards, because I'm not super attached.
Two AMAZING CARDS. Two of my favorites. The left is Quincy Carter, famous for spending forever in the minor leagues before giving up baseball and switching over to football quarterbacking. He was supposedly the Cowboys QB of the future for a bit, but he never really made it and he's now out of the NFL. Cool guy though. On the right you've got Milton Bradley with an enlarged head which, given Milton's typical season, seems fitting. He looks like he's about to explode and I love it. Zoom in if you have to - I'm sure I'll take more pictures and repost this card because I can't say enough how awesome it is.
Last but not least, this Dmitri Young mini. Dmitri Young is just a good, solid ballplayer. And this card of him looks really cool. So I was happy to pick it up.
Any that's it. Amazing store, well worth all of the money I spent. The only thing I regret? They had like 10 copies of one Robin Yount mini from 88 or 89, and I didn't buy them because I wanted to save a little money. Mistake - those would've been cool. But I think I did well anyways, hope you agree, and you all can look forward to a trade bait post once I get through some of my homework this week!
I wish that store was near me. I'd go in and not emerge for another 5 hours!
ReplyDeleteThe TCMA cards rock. I love TCMA. I also like the Kline card and that Tilly card is interesting. Is that some sort of poker set?
All in all, that would make my Thanksgiving.
Haha I wish you all lived near it. The worst part is that my post doesn't even touch on the tons and tons of Bowman/Upper Deck/more recent Topps/Fleer stuff that I passed over to get these cards. The stuff definitely could have finished off a few 07/08/09 sets.
ReplyDeleteI think I pulled all of the TCMA cards that he had. That said, there were so many cards, so I may have missed one or two. But those were definitely among the most random stuff in the box.
And yes, the Tilly is from Razor, which is indeed a poker set. I had never heard of it before either, I just saw her and said ooo gotta have it.
Weird because I have very few TCMA cards, probably less than 10, but I have both the Cole and the Hilton.
ReplyDeletehahaha wow, that is weird indeed.
ReplyDelete