Junk Wax Jay: October 2025

I did it.

I finally did it.

It took 6 years.

And a lot of stops and starts.

But I finally did it.

I attended my first sports card show since returning to collecting the September of 2019. It wasn’t a huge card show. But it was a good size. Maybe fifty vendors. Maybe more. The show was held at one of the local Catholic schools. In their gym or in whatever extra rooms they build onto churches and Catholic schools for social gatherings, or mass exorcisms, or whatever it is that Catholics do these days.

I’m a lapsed Catholic and am not currently up on the goings on.

But there was a card show.

They’ve actually been doing them quarterly, but this is the first time that I had off of work when one was being held. First thing: I forgot how overwhelming it can be when you first enter a card show. The room size. The buzz of other collectors milling about. All of the tables and showcases laid out in long rows.

Yeah.

I could feel a little bit of anxiety mixing in with the excitement.

I kind of began walking up and down the rows aimlessly. Like a zombie maybe. Yes, yes, I can acknowledge that there are cards. And people selling cards. And collector’s haggling over cards. Sifting through bins of cards. Talking about cards.

But I felt kind of out of body at first.

Like what am I doing here?

What’s collecting?

Wait…I collect!

Where’s my list?

That’s right…I made a list. A wish list. Something to ground me when I got to the card show so that I didn’t aimlessly wander rows like a zombie or alien observing an ancient ritual on earth.

So much for the list.

It was a dealer selling older cards where I finally found some semblance of balance. He had cards from the 1950s into the 1980s, all arranged by year, all in those flexi-sleeves, and all with the prices clearly marked on them.

I got these guys from him.

The 1964 McCovey was a nice surprise find.

I kind of casually collect Willie McCovey cards. Which mostly has meant that if I find one at a flea market for a good price, I’ll get it.

I also managed to stick with older cards. It’s not that I didn’t want newer cards but newer cards are way more readily accessible to me. Plus, a lot of the newer card dealers were dealing in graded cards. That’s not to say all of them did. But anything that I wanted that was newer was graded. I don’t do graded cards. I’m not against graded cards. Not at all. It’s just not a facet of collecting that I’m interested in.

But I was interested in these guys at .50 cents a pop.

And another dealer had this legendary guy right in my wheelhouse.

Maybe you'd buy that 1975 card for Keith Hernandez.

But I bought it for Phil “scrap iron” Garner.

Made a small addition to the budding Lou Brock and Rod Carew collections as well.

Oh, Captain, my Captain....I finally have some of your rookie cards

And I did buy one big ticket item.

The dealer who sold this to me must’ve been under the assumption that I was at the card show to buy and then sell. Or do we call this flipping? He said, well, I hope you get a good deal for it somewhere. I said…are you kidding? I’m keeping this.

All in all, I had a great time. I forgot how fun card shows can be. It was nice to be around other collectors. Made me miss the collecting community that politicians and tech bro wankers have split up online into several social media outlets.

I even had some card show spillover into the next day when I found these at a street festival in my neighborhood.