Dime-Boxing at Valley Sports Cards

The day before Thanksgiving I was going to travel from my house in Ventura County down to my in-laws house in Orange County.  However, it seemed like everyone else in the state had the same idea.  The freeways were PACKED.  I would either have to suck it up and sit in traffic going through LA, or find some way to kill time until the roads were less busy.  Kill time?  How about a card shop!

Valley Sports Cards in Tarzana is technically my "Local" card shop since there aren't any closer, but even on a good day, it's still 30 minutes away, so I don't get there often.  I think it had been about a year and a half since my last trip there.  However, it's right off the 101, so it made a perfect pit stop while I waited out my fellow travelers.

This is not a big shop...and part of their space is used-up by their picture framing business, but one thing that I knew they had in abundance last time I was there was DIME BOXES, and that was my goal when I walked in.   As I entered the shop, the place where the dime boxes had been before was now a basketball cards display.  Not to fear, the dime boxes had been relocated to the back corner.  There were probably twenty of the 3,200-count boxes packed to the gills with baseball, football, basketball, and some assorted sports (hockey, golf, MMA, etc.).  

So was I able to kill time here?  Yep.  Three hours.  The end result of that was 225 dime-box cards, plus a few from the quarter and dollar boxes.  Take a look:

There is my stack of cards that I was keeping for myself....that's not the whole 225, since many of them were to trade away.

As part of my quest to collect guys with great mustaches, I felt I had to go for these Craig Stadler cards.  Ian Woosnam had some neat plaid pants, so I grabbed that one, too.

Here are some vintage Kickers and Punters that were no-brainers for ten cents.

A few other vintage goodies.  There were six Chuck Muncie cards in a row in one of the boxes.  He and I essentially wear the same style of glasses.  So I knew I would need to grab my spectacle-buddy.

Here's three for my "Spoiled Wide Receivers" collection.

And three more for my PC...Kurt Warner and Troy Davis (Iowa State alum).

Two of the 3,200-count boxes were full of old Allen and Ginter commons, going back to 2006-2012.  As you can see from the middle, I grabbed a big stack of them, and am showing some of my favorites here.  I FINALLY got my paws on the Revolving Door card -- which is probably my favorite Ginter card ever.  I had never seen the Groundhog card before, but could not resist a face like that.

Here's a sampling of the Royals that I picked up.  I loved the Gaylord Perry in a KC uniform, and another copy of the Sluggerrr card (even though I had it already).

I mentioned that several of the dime boxes were basketball.  I only collect a FEW basketball players...mostly Kyle Korver and guys who went to Iowa State.  Because of this, I wasn't going to waste my time on the basketball boxes.  However, as I was putting away one of the football boxes, my arm brushed across the top of a row of basketball, and it opened up to this card:

That's a rookie of my favorite Cyclone player from my early youth.  That I didn't have.  In a dime box I didn't want to look through.   :-)  It's just so freakin' cool to me.

Here's several stacks of miscellaneous cards I pulled out for other traders and friends/relatives of mine.  The Carolina Panthers stack is large enough to cast its own shadow. 

After the dimeboxes were done, I looked through the quarter and dollar boxes.  Here were two of my favorite pulls from there.  The George Brett was only a quarter for a Panini Black Friday exclusive from last year.  I'll take that!  The Bo Jackson was a little weird...mostly because I had never seen one, so was asking myself WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS CARD?  Apparently "Ames" was a discount/department store in the Northeast, and this card was part of a boxed set that was made exclusively for them.  I didn't know if a dollar was a good price for it, but if I have learned anything from "American Pickers" it's that the time to buy something unusual is when you see it!

Mike and Frank approve of me buying the Bo.

As they were getting ready to close up the store (yes...I was closing them down), I noticed they had boxes behind the counter of various years from the '50s, '60s, and '70s.  I figured this would be a good chance to make a dent in my "vintage Royals" (only going back to 1969...is that vintage?) needs, and asked for the '69 box.  I was able to quickly pull out 12 that I needed before the clock struck 7:00 PM:

All of those, plus some more quarter-box stuff I didn't show, plus a discount for paying cash means I got everything for $30 even.  I was a happy camper!  And by the time I left, traffic was smooth sailing all the way down to the OC.  :-)

What say you -- have you ever stopped at a card shop to avoid traffic?  What about to avoid your family?  :-)

Bombs Away - The Grand Finale

Due to work, life, health, etc....I've been slow posting lately, so I figured I would just dump the rest of the pics from Jaybarkerfan's ridiculous PWE Bombing of me.  It's kind of like at the end of the fireworks show when they just shoot off everything that is left....

Alive and Kicking

1999 Omega - Jason Hanson

Very occasionally, a baseball player will spend 20 years with one team.  Less-than-never does a football player do so.  Except that's what we have with Mr. Jason Hanson.  When this 1999 Omega card was printed, he already had 6 years with the Lions.  He is STILL their kicker.  All those years haven't helped his hairline.

Cards of kickers are fun fun fun.  Punters, too.

I pulled off another great Zistle trade with Steve D. (user SDre31 - go trade with him if you can).  In exchange for a whole mess of Yankees (who wants those anyway?) I got the Hanson card and all the following sent back to me.

2005 SPx Signature - David DeJesus - #29 - #'d/225

Beautiful!  It's a sticker autograph, but the card is great.  And one of my favorite players, too. 

It would have been a great trade with just one relic card, but Steve included this one, too!

2011 Bowman Sterling Rookie Relics - #MM - Mike Moustakas

That's some good stuff.  Here's a #'ed Guillen parallel, too.

And here is an example of how Zistle rocks.  When you are a collector of lesser-known players, it is pretty rare that someone will send them to you in a regular trade.  However, when they are on your Zistle wantlist, EVERYONE there will know that you want them.  So it's easy to make a match with their automatic system.  And that is how I received a card of Iowa State alum Loren Meyer (from Ruthven, IA, FYI). 

1995-1996 Topps Loren Meyer - #213

Obak at ya'

2011 Obak Football - Morten Andersen - Green Parallel - #/25

Contests.  I love 'em. 

I love entering them.
I love hosting them (keep an eye out for the return of the "BIG PILE" contest this fall).
I especially love WINNING them.  My online luck hasn't been great, but I have managed to win a few contests here and there...This is one of those stories.

Drew from Drew's Cards (naturally) had busted a box of 2011 Obak football, and was giving most of it away.  He split the box into 5 chunks and randomed each one off separately.  Not only did I win a chunk, I won THE CHUNK I WANTED -- "American Heroes and Best of the Rest."  Why did I want this piece?  Well...my main collections for football involve Kurt Warner and Kickers/Punters (see sidebar ----->), and this set netted me the Morten Andersen parallel above (#'d to 25), TWO Kurt Warners (regular and mini), and a Ray Guy.  Yep...that hits almost everything I like.  Too bad there wasn't a Tebow in this set.  :-)

2011 Obak Football - Kurt Warner Mini

2011 Obak  Football - Ray Guy

This was a set focusing more on the history of the game rather than current players.  Here's a sampling of the other stuff I got.

Running Backs with great nicknames and huge shoulder pads.  I remember learning how to do the "Ickey Shuffle" when I was little.  Man I was a cool kid.

A few modern guys.  Dennis Byrd is the "Rise and Walk" player.  They thought he would be paralyzed after a freak spinal injury, but he overcame that to walk again.

Quick question...which linemen would you rather face? 

These guys?

Or these guys?

Yes...those are US Presidents...but they all played football in college (and/or the big screen).


So thanks again, Drew, for the awesome contest.  These will all find a great place in my collection.

Burgeoning

burgeoningpresent participle of bur·geon (Verb)

Verb:

Begin to grow or increase rapidly; flourish: Put forth young shoots; bud.

My Royals collection is big, but the rest of my collections are still burgeoning.  I picked up these two guys for free off Listia.

For the Kickers/Punters collection:

Bob Scarpitto - 1968 Topps Football - #147

 For the Iowa State Basketball collection:

Kelvin Cato - 1998-1999 Topps - # 61

Slow and steady, good sir.  Slow and steady.

Stephen Gostkowski - Net Fusion

One of my goals to fill out my collection in the future is to expand my collection of NFL Kickers and Punters.  When I saw last Fall that Pacific was coming out with an insert set of ALL kickers, I knew I would have to get part of it.   Kickers + "Net" Manu-Relics???  I'm IN.   I was all set to get it...until I saw the prices.  They were WAY too high - at least for my taste. 

During a recent Ebay scouring, I saw this guy -- Stephen Gostkowski of the Patriots.

2011 Crown Royale Net Fusion - #15 - Stephen Gostkowski

I ended up with this for $4 + shipping, which was finally within the "reasonable" range for me (that's still the 2nd-most money I've ever spent on a card).  It looks sweet.and will feature prominently as the centerpiece of my kicker collection for the immediate future. 

Sewing Machine Guy HOOKED ME UP - Football Style

Not the "REAL" Sewing Machine Guy....

Late last year I responded to the Want-List of the Sewing Machine Guy and sent him a Jason Castro along with a miscellaneous stack of Tigers, Lions, and Pistons.  I sent about 2-3 team bags worth of stuff to him.

So then I got a package back from him.  It was a BOX with six team bags worth coming back to me.  He hooked me UP!

It's too much stuff for one post, so I'm just posting the football here.  SMG paid very close attention to my want-lists (on the right ------->).

He started off by showing me some Kurt Warner love:

2006 Score, 2006 Topps, 2006 Heritage Kurt Warner

 Then TEEEEEEEEEEEEEBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!  That Topps Magic set is sweet.

2010 Upper Deck, 2010 Topps Magic, 2010 Topps 52 Insert Tim Tebow

A couple of Iowa State alums...

2008 Topps Sage Rosenfels #29 and 2007 Topps Seneca Wallace #40

Men of the Foot!

Chip Lohmiller, Neil Rackers, Matt Bahr, Sebastian Janikowski

And 3 (ex-) coaches...The Mike Smith card is way thick.

Tony Sparano, Mike Smith, John Madden

These were exceptional, SMG.  I am SOOO happy.  There's still a huge stack of baseball to post....but those will have to wait until tomorrow.