Does this make me one of "them"???

I caved. I relented. I gave in. I conceded. For the first time in just over 19 years, I fell off the wagon. There were no 12 steps to save me. My dealer merely smiled and took my money.

I bought....... a Beckett.

For the first time since spring of 1992, I bought a beckett price guide. Even typing the words price guide gives me the shivers.
Did you know these things are now $10??? And that's only because my dealer wants everyone to be hooked so he doesn't charge the $15 cover price?!!
Not only that, but they are now 3/4 " thick! I should be able to read for hours! But no. Out of 168 pages, 14 pages of advertisements, 8 pages of stories, and 144 pages of price guide. All in glorious black and white, blurry newsprint.
Does this mean that everytime someone offers me a trade that I'll go sprinting over to check to see if I'm giving up a $40 card and only getting $38 in cards back? No.
I needed a handy printed checklist to look up cards because there are waaaay too many sets out there that I don't know about. After perusing this...... it may or may not work. Too soon to tell.

So out of this, I have two questions.... #1 Does this make me one of them? You know the guy I'm talking about...... I don't think so, but we're entering perilous waters here....
and question #2.... How do I tell my wife? Confused? Here's part two to my story....

Because I always need a good laugh, I started to look up some of my cards in the .... "price guide" section. I'm sitting there, chuckling away, when my wife happens along. She asks what I'm doing, and then offers to help. Now she rarely helps with anything card related except opening packs.... so I accept her offer.

Spending time with her, check. Still playing with sportscards, check. Good times, check.

I soon realized that it was a huge mistake. As I continued to pull out cards, she kept looking up their "worth". I was in big trouble.
After an hour, my wife had figured out just by using this small sample size, then multiplying by what I had upstairs, that we were millionaires. She couldn't understand why I wasn't as excited as she was.... there was no bursting her bubble. Deep into her beautiful brown eyes were dollar signs.... lots of them.
The next day I came home and there were vacation brochures on the counter. Belize, Bora Bora, and Montenegro.

I don't even know where Montenegro is.....

Then she comes home with a new car.

After reviving me, she explained it was just a test drive, and would I like to take it for a spin?

So I ask you, how the hell do I explain to her reality. And that this price guide is the furthest thing from it???
Why do they even print a price guide that haas no prices even close to true value???

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.

a dinosaur, the last of a dying breed...

I, am a set collector. I've been called many things over the years. People still give me strange looks at card shows when I ask if they have any commons boxes of 1999 Topps Finest Football to look through. But I can't help it.
It's the chase. The joy of the completed page, and yes, the completed set.

Today was a good day for this dinosaur. My 1977/78 OPC hockey set, is now complete. Picked up the last 4 cards I needed for it. It cost me $2. Well worth it.

This is Holmgren's RC. The guy wanted $5, but look at the OC... ended up getting it for $1.50. Still too much...... but I paid it. I'll upgrade him, and two other cards in my set, later....

but first I want to enjoy it for a little while..... flip through the pages, read the backs... you know.

a couple of generous bloggers helped with my Conlon set. Thanks to Ryan and Shane! Now I only need 18 more to finish, but I did finally put the rest in pages. They look awesome!

It'll take weeks to read all of the cool stuff on the cards, let alone the pictures...

I also finished off my 09/10 UD Hockey series 1 set today...

and am only 2 cards short of Series 2. A big thanks to the nice card show dude today who gave me the 8 cards I needed... free! Gratis! Such a nice guy... I went back and bought 2 sets from him just because of that. See? Give me stuff and I buy more.

Now an ebay purchase. I'm working on the 40 card All World insert set from this year's Upper Deck Hockey. The last 10 are SP's... with these two, I now only need 4 more.

the book value of these 2? Over $40!!! Mojo!!!!

Meh. $2.99 shipped to my door from the same seller. He wasn't happy about it, but it's his own fault for even owning a Beckett.

If anyone out there can or wants to continue my good mood... please check out the old wantlist and let's make a deal. Hopefully I'll have something you want.

Going to a cardshow and what did I find?

Sweet F.A. baby.

It's a smaller show (15-20 tables) held the first weekend of every month in the lobby of a hockey/curling rink.
There was a women's hockey tournament going on, so it looked like a lot of people were there, but in reality maybe 20 customers.
I have never seen so much overpriced cards in my life. No dealers, only wannabes. Every seller there was between 48-65 years old. Unwashed. Still living in his mom's basement. You know what I'm talking about. Stereotypes exist for a reason kids!

Everwhere you looked it was quadruple jersey autographed game worn jock super refractors. Millions of them. And no prices. Anywhere. Warning! Warning!

I found two dudes selling football and baseball, and pulled a Kenshin Kawakami '09 Ballpark autograph /200. No price. *sigh* "How much?" I ask. "Well son, that card books for over $80, but I've never seen it sell on ebay for less than $100. You see, he's Japanese! It's rare that us white folk ever get to see a card like this. Them Japs snap 'em up so quick!" he says, snapping his fingers. I look around, assuming I just transported into middle Arkansas. Nope. Still surrounded by women on skates. "But I'll let you have it for full book. A steal!" he says.

I'd already walked away. I found one when I got home. Better snag it before them foreigners do, eh?

Wow. It didn't get any better. Finally I paid some dude $6 for 18 cards from the '76/77 and '77/78 OPC hockey sets. I think I got raped on that too... but I was busy looking over my shoulder for the Japanese.

And then I left. Thank the gods it was free admission and I could go watch some hockey after...