Vacationing and Cardboard - Mammoth Purchase!

The wife and I took our son to Legoland this past weekend and stayed in a hotel.  A good time was had by all!  We were able to take lots of pictures, be together, and catch up with some good friends.  If you are a subscriber here though, you don't want to hear about that - you want to hear about the score, so I'll get right down to it! 

First off, when getting lost on the way, we found a Dick's Sporting Goods.  I read on the internet that they sometimes sell cards - I went in, and lo and behold - they had a 2011 Topps Value box ... yay!  I heard that Topps had yanked them, so I plopped a $10 bill down to grab it.  We went back to the car, and later on pulled an SP Nolan Ryan diamond sparkly looking card, a Topps Gold Kershaw, and a Red Bryce Harper.  It was a box that made me glad that we had something to open up as a family. 

The Cardboard mobile loaded up again!

Secondly, I had been conversing with an older gentleman who used to be a dealer up in the area where we were at for a few weeks.  I decided to drop off the fam at the hotel after Legoland, and go over to his house.  At first blush, I wasn't blown away with the stuff, and was prepared to walk away from the very pricey purchase.  I was able to talk him down several hundred dollars, and have him throw in a 1984 Donruss set, 1990 score fb set, 10 misc 5,000 count box cards and a 1990 Topps case - early production!  Not to mention 3 boxes of miscellaneous holders.  This all made it a better deal, so I pulled the minivan in his garage, gave him the cash, and loaded up.  When all was said and done, the cards were purchased at below 10% of book.  Lots and lots of fun stuff - mainly inserts!  There were plenty of cards like serial numbered diamond king Brad Fullmers (yay) but there were also various Ripken, Jordan, etc.  (YAAAY!)  Also some game used Jeter, Yogi Berra, Ripken, refractor Jordan, etc. 




The motherload!  I haven't gone through many of them yet, but look forward to it.


I tossed and turned that night because I passed on his deal of 95 unopened boxes of cards.  Playing with the numbers, I kept thinking can I make a profit or not?  That next morning, I ended up going back over to his place to see if we could do a deal, but in the end, it just didn't make any sense, so I passed it up.  I did, however, buy a nice little box of 1960's cards from him, which made the trip good. 




This is Herb.  He is an early production unopened case of 1990 Topps baseball.  Frank Thomas NNOF possibility?  He was my son's passenger friend on the way back home.  He didn't talk much though.  Herb didn't, that it.  My son doesn't stop talking. 

 So, we got back home and I unloaded it all.  It is funny - because I bought the cards on Saturday, and lef them in the car at the hotel, without bringing a single card up to inspect.  We got back home yesterday evening, and aside from unloading, I hadn't really touched them either.  Yes folks, that is right!  I have had the cards for 2 days now and haven't really done anything with them! 

I decided to bring one of the monster boxes in - I decided to pull in the one with some packs that I found.  What I found inside was rather exciting. 

WINNING

What you are looking at is over 280 unopened packs of cards - most of them are baseball, and most of them are from 2001.  Obviously, a popular year because of a man by the name of Albert Pujols!  Not to mention Ichiro.  I don't know what I am going to do with them yet, but this is certainly a fantastic start to the collection!