The new season begins for card show booty.

This past weekend brought the very first card show of the 2010/11 season in Calgary. It's a small show held in the lobby of a curling rink/hockey arena. If you were with me the last couple of years, you've heard me talk about it before. This is the show where I learned that most card dealers are paranoid xenophobes. Remember?

Anyways, a new season brings new hope. I walk in to see the same dealers near the entrance as last year. But it's an 'L' shaped hall, let's see what's around the corner....... meh. Not much. Oh well, let's dive in.
The first dealer on the right as you walk in the door. He actually has a little stack of 1971 OPC baseball in the middle of one of his tables. Around 40 cards.... all commons. Surprise! No price. Okay bud, how much? Here's where it gets good. And I'm not making this up. He looks over at me, looks around, looks back at me with this wide-eyed expression, and says to me, 'Hang on a minute.' and leaves. He crosses over the hall to a dealer around 30 feet away and preceeds to BUY A BASEBALL BECKETT FROM HER!!!! He jogs back over madly flipping through the pages until he finds the page listing for '71 OPC and begins to tell me what certain cards in the set book for.
Sweet mother.
He finally stammers out that he'd let some of the cards go for around $2 each. Others might be more.
He doesn't even know what the hell he's selling.
I chuckle and walk away, not even looking at whatever else he has. How many people around here are collecting the 1971 OPC baseball set? You lost out dumbass.

Not a lot else at the show caught my eye, except for one guy off in the corner. He had a few monster boxes of cards that were all labeled, sorted, and PRICED! Every card had a price. And it had nothing to do with Beckett either.
I looked through a few rows of cards, grabbing 5 I knew I didn't have.

A 1971/72 OPC Doug Favell
Three 72/73 OPC's.... first Rogie Vachon

Dunc Wilson

and Jim Rutherford

finally, a 70/71 OPC Al Wilson.

This guy prided himself on top condition cards, and these are. His sticker price on these came to $8, he gave them to me for $5. Without me asking.

We chatted about the old days, collecting these cards, laughing at some of the wonderful photoshopping. He'll see me again next month.

The other guy? Not so much.