Card Show Pickup - 1947-66 Exhibits Virgil Trucks

At Saturday's card show, I was able to find an interesting addition to my Virgil Trucks PC.  This oversized card, a 1947-66 Exhibits card, was only $4.  As you can see from the scan, it is pretty rough, but I think it still looks cool.  The card had to have been produced between 1953 and 1955 as those were the seasons Mr. Trucks was with the White Sox.

Not a bad pickup, if I do say so myself.  I got this card from the same seller as my Jimmie Foxx pin that I posted yesterday.  So, two really awesome PC additions right at one booth.  I definitely was off to a good start at the show.

I don't need too many more Trucks cards for my PC.  I know there are several oddball items out there that I still have yet to pick up.  I also still need his 2011 Topps Black Diamond Autograph.  That card would be near the top or any Top 10 wishlist needs, that's for sure.  Hopefully I can find one at a reasonable price sometime soon.

Card Show Pickup - Jimmie Foxx 1938 Our National Game Pin

One of the coolest things I picked up at this past weekend's card show was this tiny little piece of metal.  It is a 1938 Our National Game Jimmie Foxx.  I had to look them up and they are part of a really cool set of little metal pins that hook to a piece of cardboard with the little point that you see at the top.  It is about the size of a dime.

Right now, I have it in a snap case, but I'm going to put it in a top loader, I think.  Maybe in one of those cardboard holders you see in coin collections.  This definitely takes the oddball cake, though.  I saw it in an album, and had to get it because I figured it would make a cool blog post and it is a nice addition to my Foxx PC.  When I was looking them up, I noticed there was a Feller in the set, so I think I may have to add one to my Feller PC as well.

The best part of all of this was that I got this little beauty for only $35.  I little higher than I wanted to spend on cards at the show, but I couldn't let this pass me by.  I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do because I couldn't wait to catch up with Scott at the show (he had moved on to other tables) and show it off.

Card Show Pickup - Bob Lemon Hall of Fame Signed Baseball

I had one of the most productive visits to a Raleigh Card show in recent memory when I met my good friend, Scott, on Saturday.  We met up at 9AM and went inside and went berserk on the tables until we couldn't take it anymore (and we got hungry).

I wasn't going to buy any baseballs, being this close to Christmas, but when I saw the above Bob Lemon that I needed and heard the price the lady was charging, I jumped all over it.  She wanted $60 but said she would do $50, plus is it JSA, so I took the deal.

Lemon is my 96th Hall of Famer.  The ball is a Bobby Brown OAL ball.

Bob Lemon (b. 1920 - d. 2000) played in the majors from 1946 to 1958, all for the Cleveland Indians.  He had a career record of 207-128 with 1,277 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.23.  He had 20 or more wins in 7 of his 13 seasons, not bad.  He was the league leader in wins 3 times (1950 - 23; 1954 - 23; 1955 - 18).  He won the World Series with the Indians in 1948 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976 when he got 78.6% of the writers' vote.

COMC Pickup - 2010 Topps Chris Davis Wal Mart

Here is another 2010 Topps Chris Davis card that I pulled off of COMC recently, this time it is the Wal Mart black card.  I like the current incarnation of the Wal Mart parallels, since they are a lot harder to confuse with the Black border parallels.  These are ok, though, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything.

(references are no fun if you have to point them out, but see what I did there?)

Anyway, I got this card pretty cheap and was able to get to work pretty hard on Davis's 2010 offerings during this COMC binge, but I've had to lay off of buying PC needs at the moment with Christmas right around the corner.

I hope to add more Davis cards after the new year.  We'll see.

Card Shop Pickup - 2013 Bowman Chrome Hunter Harvey

Two days ago, Hunter Harvey turned 19.  In the photo on the card above, he looks more like 14.  This is the first Hunter Harvey card that I have been able to add to my collection and it came via a jumbo pack of 2013 Bowman Chrome that I picked up at the card shop several weeks ago.

Harvey is another in a recent line of pitchers that the Orioles have taken in the first round of the Amateur draft.  Being that he is from North Carolina, and more specifically, Bandys High School in Catawba, NC (a few miles up NC Highway 16 from where I used to work), I am rooting especially hard for Harvey to have a long and successful career in the majors.  I'm always a fan of NC-born players, so I was really happy when the O's drafted him this past year.

He performed pretty well in his limited experience this past season, posting a 1.78 ERA with a record of 0-1 over 25.1 IP (8 games).  Not bad for a kid fresh out of high school.  Here's hoping Harvey can make it as far as Frederick next season so I can say hello when the Keys come through Zebulon, NC to play the Mudcats.

COMC Pickup - 2010 Topps Heritage Chris Davis

I always think to myself that one day, I'll put together the Topps Heritage set and every year, I put it off.  I mean, come on, look at how nice these cards look.  The 2010 Topps Heritage set is a re-making of the 1961 set, a very classic design.  Simplistic, yet stylish.  The '60s were a boon for the Topps designers for sure.  Of course, the '50s sets were nice as well.  So, I picked up this 2010 Topps Heritage Chris Davis without consulting my PC box and found out that I already had the card.  Whoops.  Oh well, it's a nice looking card, so I'm ok with having a duplicate.

This had to be one of my favorite heritage years.  I actually opened quite a bit of Heritage in 2010.  I haven't gotten much of it in the recent years, mainly because it flies off of the shelves at my LCS.  I try to buy a box of it here and there.  I do know that I will be getting some when 2014 comes out, since it will be the classic 1965 design.  I've been awaiting those for quite some time now.

Deja-vu All Over Again

Wow, this post looks an awful lot like the one I posted last night.  Well, kind of, except for the retro Topps Logo in the top left corner of the 2010 Chris Davis card that I have pictured.  This is the Topps Target parallel, before the Target cards were red.  What I also like about these is that Topps used the old-type cardboard on these throwback cards.  I fondly remember searching boxes upon boxes of cardboard, specifically looking for the 'gray' cardboard since it signified older Topps, which I was hoarding in order to build starter sets for later set building projects.

I have almost built every year of Topps set that has the grayish-brown type cardboard (starting in 1971 and ending with 1991), I no longer use it as my visual guide when looking at boxes of cards at shows.  I now look for specific things as opposed to partial sets.

I do miss that old gray cardboard, though.  I'm not one for the new slick stuff and please don't get me started on the over-glossed mid 90s stuff (that, incidentally, sticks together and makes the packs and sets pretty much worthless).

As you can tell, I picked up quite a few variations of Davis's 2010 Topps card.  By my count, I have 2 more to show.  Stay tuned!