1966 Topps Baseball Wantlist

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

TriStar 2017


This past weekend was the annual TriStar show at the Cow Palace in South San Francisco, just yards away from SF city limits. As Usual, I left my house early, fueled up grabbed some Mickey D, and drove the hour twenty minutes arriving an hour early-yes a hour-never know what traffic issues could arise. I love the Cow Palace that magnificent work of concrete.

Last year the show seemed more focused on vintage, which it typically is, in comparison to the previous year-in other words dime boxes were few and far between. I can’t say for sure this year because there seemed to be a bounty of dime boxes-though I consider dime boxes to be anything less than a $1 per card-hey this IS the Bay Area.

I stood in line a few minutes early and eavesdropped on a conversation between a Dodgers’ and a Giants’ fan regarding grading and PSA strategy. PSA and Beckett were both in attendance-and they were there to drop some cards off and to look for vintage-one of the guys is trying to finish the 1948 Bowman Basketball set and he is apparently close. Next year I will bring some cards to submit.

I walked in turned the corner and ran in to two tables of monster dime boxes by team-a few minutes in I remembered I went through these last year. I picked up 300 cards-a good many I ended up not needing.  From there I hit some 5 for $1 boxes that had many Topps paper parallels. Then a picked up some nice autos for 3-$5 per-and hit more boxes. Ran in to Mr Fuji-legendary blogger of San Jose Fuji, who had emailed me the day before asking I could use some pages-indeed I could and I let him know. Alas, he had a big paper bag filled with goodies-I am saving that for last. I love chatting with him while we look at cards. The last table had some nice dime boxes and I picked up some decent cards. Bummer is I didn’t look at any vintage-the oldest card I picked up was a 1981 TCMA Football card.

In large part this is because I have a source for vintage cards on the Bay-and when he says NRM they are-so I have been picking off a few cards here and there.

Also, like last year a player signing got on stage and talked baseball which was really cool-last year it was Reggie, this year Will "The Thrill" Clark-I hated him when he was on the Giants-and liked when he was on the Redbirds-yes he was on the Redbirds.

When I hit a show or buy a lot I “process” the cards by checking my Excel spreadsheets then pick a few nice cards to show off-but alas I must of deleted the TriStar recap-so all I can show off are the Yadis, Autos, relics, and Non-Topps and Bowman cards. Which I hope do in two-three more posts.

4 comments:

  1. Damn. I missed Will? Oh well... at least I got to hang with you and Mr. Haverkamp.

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    1. it was good to see you-and again thank you for your generosity. I am saving the best for last! I missed Mr. Haverkamp? bummer

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  2. I was working at my friend's table, we were directly across from the Beckett grading area...but you never made it to that aisle cuz of all the quarter boxes you were digging through!

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    1. true, so true! I got lost in the forrest of boxes

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