The Philly Show Fall 2024: Part One - Room Tone

Being a collector without a steady paycheck is tough, you guys. 

I've been doing alright with it, freelancing and whatnot, making what I can and occasionally selling big pulls on eBay, but a lot of the time it's a better idea to conserve energy and funds rather than take a swing at 25 dollars for 7 packs mostly containing dupes. It's a shame that in a year where Topps has its most inspired flagship design in 10 years it still feels so uninspiring to collect it.

So I've only been collecting periodically. And honestly because every release date is pushed two months forward and everything Topps would have put out by now probably won't wrap up til February, I don't suppose I was missing much. But recently a few big paychecks cleared, and I had enough funds to comfortably spend money on cards again.

Interestingly, though, one of the people who employed me recently mentioned that the Philly Show was coming up, and he was planning on going. "We usually go Friday, there's less people, less signers." And that seemed like a good idea, if only to beat the rush.

Folks...you couldn't have been able to tell the difference. I think I would have had to park the same distance from the venue on a Saturday vs. where I parked yesterday. Hey, you have to admire the dedication of the hobbyists, I suppose. The Philly Show has only gotten better over the past few years, and it's done so by not catering solely to the mojo collector or the hard-case-lockbox type bro. There are still plenty of budget sellers in that room, and I made it a point to go through the majority of them. 

The most I spent for a single card was 33 cents. The least...well, let's get into the nitty gritty of the day:

Dealer #???-???

Okay. Let's go over the basics. When I go to card shows, I bring a ton of plastic containers to hold cards in, and for a while, until I start really running out of space, I designate containers to be specific to a dealer I get cards from. Ultimately I run low on space and just start filling the empty inches in preexisting containers. I go into card shows with a system of how not to mix up which cards came from who, and that system ends up dissolving into a disorganized mess. 

So, I apologize. The cards in this post probably came from one of three or four different dealers I visited throughout the day. But what we must make clear is this: they were all ten cents or less, and they were all very similar in output. There was one dealer with the patented Philly nickel bins, one where I every time I passed there were maybe three or four people crammed in front of the limited real estate. I got to talking to a Philly collector named John, who was next to me at the nickel bins, once I eventually edged my way in. Pleasant company. I later ran into John again at a completely different dime bin, where he even went 'this wasn't the one I left you at, right?'. 

Regardless of the jumble of different dealers throughout this post, I can confirm that I definitely enjoyed the crawl. A lot of the cards in here did feel like they were stretches for a dime, or nickel, bin, in a good way. Yes, the nickel bins were filled with Wander Franco cards, but you also found rookies that *had* gone on to good things. Or genuinely cool inserts, like this Tony Oliva from last year's Heritage High Number.
 

Still, the mix of the day did yield cards from sets I'd long held in high regard. These two were cool inclusions for the set of Upper Deck's Goodwin's Champions set, an underrated show of creativity undermined by the expiration of their license the same year.

This card of Luis Aparicio marked another in my conquest to eventually complete 2017 Archives.

Yes, there were current rookies. Getting a Topps PCA rookie for 10 cents is gonna be a serve in a few years. Same with getting a Wellsy rookie. My am I happy with what he's been doing in the bronx.

2023 rookies abound, including Greene and Mason Miller, two more I was surprised to see priced so low.

I'm puzzled by a great deal of the existence of these modern Topps Heritage Chrome sets, not only because it's kind of a wild idea to start Heritage over again in Chrome but also consistently committing to releasing it a year late. The one good thing about these sets is the checklist, which is routinely entertaining. 

A few recent Topps Holiday moments in time. I think these sets may be more important than Update in regards to chronicling late-season acquisitions. Bell and Benny's late season work with those teams haven't gotten much play otherwise.

A whole bunch of modern Stadium Club. I haven't been able to get my hands on the 2023 SC, so it's awesome to get some of these, including that AWESOME Ozzie photo.

Modern Topps inserts. I wish the 2024 Blueprint insert was on a similar stock to the Tarot of the Diamond ones from GQ.

Heritage Inserts. I found a lot of cheap Hunter Greene cards, and am relieved by that.

Various recent Topps 35th inserts. I like finding these, they're my kind of stuff. All three of those Sonny Gray's were in the same bin, the same row even. Was somebody just getting rid of their Sonny Gray cards??

Tons of really cool Chrome/Finest inserts here. LOVE the Heart of the City one. 

Various WBC cards from 2023. A nice smattering here of future MLB-ers [Lee], former MLB-ers [Didi] and up-and-coming MLB-ers [Duran]. 

Various Topps giveaway sets. The Hobby Rip Night ones were apparently very recent, so it was nice to find them in the wild.

Also cool to run into in the wild?

582 Montgomery cards. I'd never come across these before, as I am not wealthy, and there was a ton in some of these boxes. So I got as much as I could. I'm not sure they'd arrive at my price point again. 

Here's a whole pages worth of various 582 cards from over the years. Turner and Chisholm have since joined teams of mine, and so I enjoy finding their cards now.

I only did a tiny bit of prospecting yesterday, but all of these were understandable. Wood's supposedly gonna be huge, Manzardo's just heating up for Cleveland, and this Deyvison de los Santos character I've been following ever since he had an extremely good spring with the Guardians, though he'd be returned to the Diamondbacks due to not making the team. The Marlins have him now, and I do think he'll factor into the team's 2025 plans, especially since the roster seems to be so open. De Los Santos could be a major home run hitter for these guys going forward. So I figured I'd stock up.

An old Bowman brick rookie card of collection favorite Cameron Maybin, and a Bowman card of Luisangel Acuna, which I can admit to picking up just to ensure a Mets fan didn't get to it. 

One table had a ton of Upper Deck Retro from 1998. Like, I must have passed six or seven different swaths of purely the same 12 or 13 base cards, these ones included. Like somebody broke a couple tubs and they all came out the same. 

This did include some incredibly cool inserts, of HOFers, and a rare 99 Retro card of Scott Rolen.

These boxes did have some 2000s stuff to intrigue me, like some various 2000s Bowman Heritage material, and some requisite UD and Topps insert. I still don't know who Upper Deck was trying to fool with their 2010 sets. That's clearly a Twins logo there.

The 90s stuff did appear in droves, and an impressive amount, too. These were two very cool mid-90s Inserts. Like, any opportunity to get a Fleer Pro-Visions I'm gonna take, especially the super cool 1995 ones.

Various Topps inserts, ranging from subtle to dufex-friendly. 

A glut of 1993-era fun, including more SP base cards, as I feel like I'm finding these more and more in the past few years.

1996 Fleer E-Motion XL. Not a set you come across often. Even cooler that it also included a Padres Rickey. Gusto is right.

A lot of these 90s cards did feel a little bigger than dime box fodder. I found a couple Griffeys and Piazzas, and star cards from Collector's Choice. 

And we'll end this one on two very cool dime box choices- a Pinnacle Certified issue of Hideo Nomo, one I've searched for for a while, and a Baseball Heroes insert of Joe Morgan as a Philadelphia Phillie, a sight you don't see often at all.

Tomorrow, though, I'll cover the really interesting stuff. There was one table that I thought was made just for me.