One of my favorite things as a kid was of course Summer Vacation. Now for me, a dream summer vacation would be to go out to other cities and hit all the Wal-Mart, Targets, K-Marts, and Toys R Us. To me, that was way more fun than an amusement park! In the summer of 1998 we decided to go to Houston and hit up the Tri-Star Show. I was very excited because although I had been to card shows before, I'd never been to a huge one. Surely there had to be deals galore! Our trip started out awesome as lo and behold we hit a K-Mart and found packs of this..
I was BEYOND ecstatic. The year before had been a huge a hit, and I picked up all the packs at retail level I could find, hoping for the big Duncan or Van Horn hit (best hit was a Ron Mercer RC). This was a terrific start to our trip to Houston. When we got to the show, it was HUGE to say the least, but the first spot we stopped at was a booth full of SLU's. All for 7 bucks. I was in heaven! SLU's for basically the retail price! I picked up rookie pieces of Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen, Steve McNair, Marcus Camby and other lineups that were hard to find. I couldn't believe the luck I was having. Keep in mind the timeframe, it was rare to find harder to find pieces at retail level cost. These pieces usually sold for double or more at local card shows and flea markets. I loaded up on a ton of different pieces.
A sample of the goods I got at the Houston TriStar Card show
These were great but there were two "steals" that definitely made my day. I was able to get the Keith Van Horn 97 rookie piece for $7 and the 98 Nomar Garciaparra rookie piece for $10!! Two of the hottest pieces at the time, for retail and little above retail! I was so stoked, I couldn't believe it! The haul rivaled my Christmas haul just a few months ago and I never had such luck at a card show again. This was definitely the most fun I had at a card show and it didn't even involve cards!!
Nomar Rookie Piece of 10 bucks!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Sign me up!!
I wanted this piece sooooo bad, imagine my astonishment to get for 7 bucks!
These were great but there were two "steals" that definitely made my day. I was able to get the Keith Van Horn 97 rookie piece for $7 and the 98 Nomar Garciaparra rookie piece for $10!! Two of the hottest pieces at the time, for retail and little above retail! I was so stoked, I couldn't believe it! The haul rivaled my Christmas haul just a few months ago and I never had such luck at a card show again. This was definitely the most fun I had at a card show and it didn't even involve cards!!
I need to find a Nomar SLU for the collection... didn't realize his rookie was produced so late in the decade.
ReplyDeleteDid they have any SLU show exclusives for that show?
As I recall, there were no exclusives. I was in hardcore SLU mode at this time, so if there were, I'm sure I would've snapped them up
ReplyDelete