Recent Card Show Thoughts

 

Last Saturday I got to attend a card show at Bleecker Trading.

It was a small card show.

A free card show…which is a rarity.

About Twenty vendors.

The way Bleecker Trading sets their shows up, well, this one anyway, is…think of a long, narrow rectangle with the store at one end, the back patio of dealers at the other end, and the two other long lines made of narrow hallways holding all of the other dealers. And the collectors. A lot of collectors. I’ll admit it was hard to move, or even jockey for a space near the tables to even see what dealers were selling.

And what they were selling was…what passes for the usual these days, I guess.

Most display cases were full of auto cards, relic cards, numbered auto cards, numbered relic cards, and the usual colored, refracted numbered cards as well.

Most tables had a small side box for all of those auto/relic/numbered cards that didn’t fit in the display case.

1/3 of the tables were for Pokémon cards.

In essence, not much for a guy like me.

Seven years back into collecting and I’ve finally realized that I too am a relic in The Hobby. In a world full of backward hat wearing bros haggling over $900 Ohtani inserts, and packs of twelve and thirteen-year-old Braxtons whose only modus operandi seems to be to sell to dealers instead of buying from dealers; I’m the guy who’s looking for the ungraded vintage dealers, and the dealers with the huge quarter, fifty-cent, one-dollar, three-dollar, and five-dollar boxes.

Those kinds of dealers can be far and few between.

Especially at free card shows.

It’s also beginning to dawn on me that I’m becoming one of the older guys in the room. Not just at card shows…but anywhere else. Work. Bars. Restaurants. Meetings. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this development. I don’t think I like it. I try not to think too much about it I was definitely wearing the grayest on my face at Saturday’s show.

But I digress.

I didn’t actually go to the show at Bleecker Trading expecting much.

And my goals were modest.

I wanted two things: the 2026 Topps Chrome base card for Muneta Murakami and Konnor Griffin.

Did I succeed?

On one account, yes.

And I added two other Murakami cards.

As with Yordan Alvarez it is becoming standard that I buy a Murakami Topps base rookie card whenever I see one.

I didn’t find the Griffin Chrome base rookie card.

But I did find this.

His 2026 Topps Finest base. It’s my first Griffin card with that nifty Topps RC shield on it.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad time.

Bleecker typically does these shows the first weekend of every month but moved this one up a week because of Labor Day. I’d attend one again, if the work gods don’t have me chained to the reference desk that day.

A card show on a Saturday afternoon definitely beats standing in one of the many lines snaking through The Village, full of people waiting in tiny bistros for brunch.

Waiting in line for food?

Who DOES that?

Anyway….

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!