…Where Life's a Pitch

(Card)Show and Tell

Posted on March 4, 2019December 31, 2020 by BBCARDZ 4 Comments

(Card)Show…

The weekend of February 22-24, we were lucky enough to have a decent-sized cardshow in our area. This cardshow, known as the West Coast Collectors Expo, was put on by Hall of Fame Sports (not to be confused with my local card shop, Hall of Fame Baseball Cards). They used to hold these cardshows at the old Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood until it got torn down to make way for the new Rams stadium (60% complete so far, opening in 2020).

This particular cardshow was at the Pomona Fairgrounds and had a “Raiderfest” theme. They had over 60 autograph guests appearing (for a fee of course) on that Saturday and Sunday. Besides former Raiders, other signers included former Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, celebrities and pro wrestlers. Some of the weekend signers weren’t listed on the flyer below, such as Tom Flores, Melvin Gordon and Dawn Wells (Gilligan’s Island) .

Because I’m not a real autograph hound, I decided to go to this show on Friday night. There would be no signers and the entrance fee would also be a few bucks cheaper. I figured the crowd would also be lighter (which it was). That helps when there’s a bargain box to explore and you don’t want to wait for someone who’s there exploring it before you.

Show hours for that Friday was 5:00 to 9:00 but I didn’t get there until 5:30 due to rush hour traffic. Goodie bags were also given out to Friday night attendees. Contents included a Bob Miller (retired LA Kings announcer) mini-statue, basketball documentary DVD, and a few hobby supplies. The mini-statue is a smaller version of the actual Bob Miller statue residing outside Staples Center. These were originally given to fans attending the Kings vs. Tampa Bay Lightning game on January 3rd.

Although this show was not nearly as huge as a show like the National, four hours was still not enough to thoroughly check out all that the show had to offer.

So as always, whenever I go to a cardshow, I focus on trying to find cards to complete my incomplete sets (including insert cards). I ended up with only 37 cards but some of those were vintage baseball. I even picked up a vintage football card I needed. Here are the cards I got:

The fifteen cards above were all from the same dealer and only cost me $10. Unfortunately, I didn’t see at the time that the 1970 Casey Cox had a crease down the middle of the card. I also didn’t see that the ’72 Ron Santo In Action card had a printing error–the ‘C’ in “ACTION” is missing some of the black ink. This is ok though because I also collect these minor variation cards too. I also picked up some recent Topps Gold parallels and some 2018 Topps Heritage High Number inserts from a quarter box:

The 22 modern cards above cost me $5 with a discount. Notice the slightly miscut “Miracle of ’69” Cleon Jones card. There’s a horizontal yellow strip running along the bottom of the card but I don’t mind. The card is otherwise mint.

I must say too that all of the people I talked to at the show were very, very nice. The ticket sellers, dealers, food vendors and parking personnel were all so nice and helpful. I will definitely be making plans to attend the next one whenever it is planned.

…And Tell (New Contest Links)

Check out Sports Card Info’s “Phillies Topps Finest Auto Contest!”. Contest deadline is Friday, March 8, 2019 @ 8:00 p.m. EST.
Mark is a running a 9th Anniversary of Chronicles of Fuji .contest. Deadline is March 9th @ 3pm

And in case you hadn’t noticed, Stadium Fantasium has a sort of “contest-roll” (like a blogroll) in the right sidebar above the blogroll. I call it the “Blog Contests Lineup” and it’s purpose is to let you know of any current contests going on around the hobby blogosphere. If your hobby blog is running a contest, please feel free to let me know and I’ll add it to the Blog Contests Lineup.

Until then, stay tuned…

Author: BBCARDZ

4 thoughts on “(Card)Show and Tell”

Base Card Hero says:

March 4, 2019 at 5:55 pm

Nice pick-ups! It sounded like it was a pretty fun show.

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Jon says:

March 4, 2019 at 7:07 pm

That ’72 Santo is really great, that’s a wantlist item for me as well. And are you sure that the miscut card isn’t some sort of variation? Seems like something that Topps would do and call a short print.

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nighttimeowl says:

March 4, 2019 at 8:25 pm

Good call. I would have gone the day there were no autographs, too. It’s so much easier looking for cards without big crowds and dodging lines. … Don Newcombe listed as a guest makes me sad.

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BBCARDZ says:

March 4, 2019 at 11:18 pm

Ryan – I had a wonderful time. I just wish I had more time. Next time, I’ll take more of my set wantlists.

Jon – It is strange to find a modern card that has been miscut, but the codes on both Miracle of ’69 inserts are identical. I suppose it could be a sly homage to vintage miscut cards but on an insert card? I think I might have to check out COMC and ebay to see of other Heritage cards were miscut.

Greg – Some time ago, the show promoter posted on their Facebook page that Mr. Newcombe would not be able to attend the Expo. Later they posted about his passing (but still before the show). Mr. Newcombe was an exclusive signer for them.

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