I was supposed to go to the show on Friday, but my request for a day off was denied. No one to cover. It's a shame too, because Bobby Cox and Otis Nixon were signing. I wanted to get in early to try to pick off some good stuff before more Vultures like me arrived. It wasn't meant to be so I went today hoping to find some of the leftovers cheap on closing day.
The Civic Center had banners announcing the show all around in front of the center. If anyone driving on the 120 loop was interested in baseball cards, they would not miss out on seeing those signs and pennants. I pulled into the parking lot and went inside. The table was manned by two really bored looking women. I asked for a ticket and they gladly took my money and stamped my hand with a little smiley face. there was a box of 1991 Upper Deck packs on the table, but I didn't ask about them. To the right was a snack bar. To the left was a table with some people eating pizza, another open box of '91 UD, some bags with some ads in them and some door prize registrations. I asked about the prize and a guy in a baseball cap stopped chewing on his pepperoni slice long enough to help out. He pointed out the registration for BP and asked if I wanted to do a raffle for some softball team. I passed so I didn't get a goodie bag. I already had a bag and I jut wanted to get to the cards.
The Civic Center has two levels. The lower level was where all the action was, up top circling the lower level was the autograph booths. I didn't see anyone there at all at about 1:15
and honestly there wasn't anyone on the list I was interested in seeing. the schedule posted on the ticket table was somebody I've already forgotten, Braves prospect Tyler Flowers (who I thought was in Arizona) and Chris Chambliss. Now Chambliss I would have loved to have seen. He wasn't signing until after 2 though and his prices had apparently gone up ten bucks. I'll be honest, I didn't plan this out very well and I didn't have a whole lot of cash on me. One sig from Chris and I would be shuffling through nickel boxes the rest of the day. I took the stairs down and started checking out the place.
It's getting late so I'll go into more detail on all this tomorrow. First though, the wax.
I came into the show hoping to get a wax box of something. I didn't want anything new, as that would be too expensive. I was really hoping to find a cheap and cool wax box from the late '90s or early '00s. Something like this guy would open. Failing that, I planned to pick up a box of cheap junk for five bucks or something just to open. Well, there was practically no wax in that entire building more recent than 1992. A couple of open boxes of new basketball cards was about it. A few tables were empty though and a couple of people were packing up early so it's possible that the wax was sold out or packed up already. It just seemed really odd that there weren't a lot of boxes around. Maybe they just doesn't make enough money to be hauling them around the country to sell at shows, who knows. There were a couple of tables with 5 dollar junk boxes though. 1988 Donruss, 1990 Donruss, 1991 Pro Set Football, Pro Set Soccer, 1990 Fleer Football, 1992 Pacific Football, some Michael Jordan Upper Deck Locker boxes (anyone remember those?) 1991 Upper Deck Hockey and a couple of boxes of Topps Big. I almost got the Topps Big. I had the thing in my hand and decided to think about it and come back before I left so I wouldn't be lugging it around all day. I ended up not buying it because the dealer at that table was a little annoying with his prices and I honestly had better ways to spend five bucks.
I couldn't leave without any wax though so at the third to the last table I visited I found a couple boxes full of junk packs. I asked how much? the dealer said ten for a buck. That worked for me, I was willing to blow a buck on some crap wax. There was a who's who of junky wax in there. 1990 Topps Football, Pro Set Hockey, Racing cards from the early '90s (and not NASCAR racing, either) tons of really random non-sports stuff. Some packs of 1989 Donruss caught my eye. There was only one problem: I picked one up and noticed the wrapper was kinda loose. Really loose. Like, wide open loose. All the '89 Donruss packs were open. Just left wide open. Now, I had bought a bunch of '89 Donruss packs from dealers in my college years hoping for a Griffey pull and found zilch. If I had no chance with supposedly trusted dealers back in the day, what chance did I have with open freaking packs? I put the pack back in the box (almost accidentally stripping the wrapper completely in the process) and reevaluated the wisdom of this purchase. On one hand, the packs ain't but a dime. On the other, I have tons of '89 Donruss and I don't need more commons. In the end I compromised and got a dollar's worth of packs to sate my appetite for opening packs, but I only chose sealed packs with one exception. Here are those packs:
1990 Topps Big series 1
1990 Topps Big series 2

1991 Pacific Pro Plus football

1990 Weirdness

1987 Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1991 RockCards

1991 Desert Storm Victory Edition
2001 Enduring Freedom

1992 The Elvis Collection

6 comments:
If you pull a New Kids On The Block Rookie out that Rock Cards pack. Name your price!
There's a pretty good checklist for the Rock Cards on this site:
http://barrie.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-art-collectibles-1991-RockCards-by-Brockum-W0QQAdIdZ67031800
Good luck getting ANYTHING cool...
Hahahahahaha!
I can't wait to see what is inside of the Roger Rabbit pack.
I found a complete checklist of the Rock Cards...
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/allender/rockcard.htm
IGGY POP, BABY!
If my math is right there's about a one in twelve shot of getting an Iggy. That would make this The Best Card Show Ever!
I went Saturday morning with my son. Not many more wax boxes than what you saw. We ended up with a box of '92 Pro Set football because jr. decided he needed more football cards. The ladies at the front were all smiles, chatting up my 8 yr. old and giving him handfuls of the '91 UD. Our greatest success was with local dealers w/ decent prices on Braves autos.
Seriously, if you pull any hair metal cards (Warrant, Winger, Poison, etc) from the Rock Cards pack, let me know. I'm a HUGE hair metal fan!
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