Card Show Day 3 And Hall of Famer Number 55

I scored big time today.  I also would like to mention that I did my 'scoring' today with minimal cash investment, which makes it that much more fun.

First off, today was a trying day at the card show.  Christopher forgot his 'listening' ears and was pushing my buttons all day long.  For some reason, a six-year old thinks the bathroom is a fun place and wanted to take a pee break seemingly every 5 minutes...  I think it was his way of saying "I'm bored, I want to walk around..." 

Anyway, other than that, he did really well for a six-year old bored out of his freaking mind at the show.  Sundays are slow days, but I still was able to sell a couple things, and I was able to have a good talk with blog readers Robert and his dad.  Really nice folks who are from the area that I always enjoy talking with at the show(s).

Well, I didn't buy myself any cards at this show, but that was mainly due to not being able to spend more than a few minutes browsing around, however, including yesterday's Reggie Jackson, I am now 4 Hall of Fame baseballs richer....

I got the above Johnny Bench via a semi-trade with another dealer.  I saw the ball yesterday while I was walking around.  The guy wanted $50 for it (it is a really toned ball, but looks cool).  I waited around today to see if my TTM Doug Harvey ball would sell, but after a few people looked at me like I was crazy for saying "Yes, this UMPIRE is in the Hall...", I decided to see if the guy would trade for it.  I was told by the JSA guy in attendance (and I remembered from seeing a couple on Ebay) that a Harvey ball would sell for about $50.  The dealer said that he would do the trade if I threw in $20 extra in cash.  I figured that was fair enough, since Bench baseballs go from $65-80 online.  Plus, I really only paid about $30 for my Harvey ball when you factor in cost of the ball itself, postage for the TTM and the $20 authentication fee...

So, my 55th Hall of Fame signed baseball is that of Johnny Bench!  I could have gotten Bench TTM from his website, but swinging this trade was a lot more fun.  So, if you do the math correctly, I traded an umpire and cash considerations for a 14x All Star, 2x MVP catcher.

Bench played in the majors from 1967 to 1983 for the Reds.  He won the World Series in 1975 and 1976 and was MVP of the NL in 1970 and 1972.  He was also the 1968 NL Rookie of the Year.

Stay tuned to see which were the final two baseballs that I was able to get.