Card Show....yeah.

 

Summer’s gone.

            And there’s finally a bit of crispness in the air.

            I’m of too minds about the autumn. I love the weather but I hate the dark. That didn’t used to always be the case for me. I used to thrive in the autumn with both the weather and the lack of sunshine. I used to say I had reverse SAAD. But when you’re younger you used to say a lot of things. I’m not so much a fan of the dark now. Hate waking into the dark. Hate coming home from work in the dark. Maybe this happens with age: people you love die; people you love get sick; maybe life didn’t work out the way you wanted it to; there’s no illusions anymore.

            You spend more and more time looking for the light.

            In my case, it’s an afternoon reading a good book on the couch.

            A documentary that I’m into.

            Listening to a favorite album.

            Going to a card show.

            And I mean, a GOOD card show.

            That’s what I did last Saturday. After a dearth of card shows in my neighborhood this summer, it seems the card folks around here are waking up. 

            I don’t know if this is truly Brooklyn’s #1 Card show…but I like it. And going to this particular show has, sadly, been a rarity for me. Been at least over a year since my last time at this one. I don’t know if it was fate or the cosmos cruel joke, but seemingly every single time Brooklyn’s Best Card show had a show, I was working. The FOMO on those days, my goodness.

There were a lot of vendors (at least 80) at Brooklyn’s #1 card show. Most of them were dealing in sports cards and not Pokémon, and a good many had vintage. A good many of the vintage dealers deal in cards that are not graded, something that I appreciate. Cards not being graded allows me to buy something like this without feeling my usual sense of guilt.

It’s a little loved but a 1969 Henry Aaron is a 1969 Henry Aaron.

I happened to buy that card off a guy who has his own YouTube show. In his videos he’s usually just walking around card show filming the vintage cases, and making guys like me jealous. Took me a minute to recognize him too. Feel bad because all I could do/say when we made eye contact was to point and say, “You Tube,” like I was some kind of monosyllabic idiot, before walking away in shame and spending the rest of the show convincing myself to go back and get that Aaron. I mean what middle-aged man just points at someone and says, “You Tube” like that anyway?

One of the dealers that I remember really enjoying was a man who deals in vintage. He brings everything from graded to non-graded stars, a priced-as-marked bin, a dollar bin, and, excitedly for me, a big huge box of common cards that he sorts by year. I believe he had from 1964 to 1982. I was glad to see him at that show. What I wasn’t glad about was that there was a single set collector at his table, checklist sprawled all over, single 1974 Topps cards scattered on top too, leaving no room for any of the rest of us to go through the boxes.

But I waited him out.

And got myself these.

I never pass up an Al Oliver/Grave Digger rookie card…especially for $2.

Things of note:

Of course, there were the young Braxtons walking around with the metal, square box card boxes, playing let’s make a deal. There were an increasing number of vendors who did not have prices marked on their cards, but would look them up online when you asked. I guess this makes some sense now, considering I’ve seen tons of buyers do that when the suggested price is listed. I’m still not a fan of it. I appreciate a vendor who had his/her prices listed. I like to know where I stand when I’m spending money. One vendor table was all Topps online cards: Living sets and Topps Now. The one table that I really liked, it had a bunch of older sports and non-sports packs. The kid in me wanted to drops $4 on the absurdity that is Rambo: First Blood Part 2 wax.

            Maybe next time.

            And apparently no one at the show knew how Konnor Griffin was….gotta love New York fans.

            The rest of my card purchases weren’t terribly exciting but fit a nice niche for me.

            All in all, a good way to stave off the darkness for a few hours.

            Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!