Nutter Center 25th Anniversary Card Show Recap

This past Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the monthly card show at the Nutter Center. Lately, this show has become my show of choice to attend simply because it's easy to get to and it's not overly crowded. A while back, I specifically earmarked this show to attend since it was the 25th anniversary show and I knew the promoter was going to go all out. For this show, he doubled the number of usual tables to 99, gave away some big prizes, and, as always, made sure to personally thank and chat with every person he saw come through the doors.

I've already sorted and organized my purchases so I don't remember what cards came from what table but these came from one of the first tables I visited. Along with a bunch of high dollar inserts and what not (which I wisely strayed away from), this particular dealer had a bunch of cheap vintage cards he said he picked up at an auction recently. A quick thumb through the box yielded these for about 25 cents each. 

These came from the same vintage box that the 75 Topps cards came from, again at 25 cents each. At that price, you really can't pass up names like these on 70s cardboard.

Continuing with the vintage, these were the only two cards I purchased out of a showcase all day, at a cost of $5 for the pair. This is my first card of Billy Williams and maybe only my second or third of Rod Carew in his prime. 

A few more bargain vintage cards. Robin Yount is severely under represented in my collection and an old school Fleer card will fit in nicely. The bottom two cards I just absolutely couldn't pass up. The dark blue card is a 1981 Fleer Star sticker of longtime Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman in a Twins uniform of all things. The other is a wonderful Drake's card of Gary Carter.

The bargain bins were not plentiful but there were still some decent deals to be had. I found a few that were nothing but Reds cards at various tables and also some good deals in a few dime boxes. The top three cards came from the same place the 75 and 77 cards from earlier did, the Foster Drake's card was from a 50 cent bin, and the Duvall and Morgan were dime box finds.

Some more Reds dime box finds. Two new cards for the Bronson Arroyo collection, some mid-90s action with Bret Boone and Jeff Shaw, plus Edwin Encarnacion and Dave Concepcion!

These Kellogg's cards were four of my best finds of the day and they only ran me a quarter each, since they suffered from some severe curling. As soon as I got home, I stuffed them in top loaders and penny sleeves to (hopefully) flatten them out. Curling issues or not, I just couldn't pass these up.

Last year's Diamond Kings cards have already found their way into the dime boxes as well. The Griffey Jr. card was going to cost me $4 last year, eight months later though? Purchased for mere pennies.

I'll wrap up the baseball portion with a bunch of random cards I purchased at various points throughout the show. My favorite of this batch just has to be the card of Metropolitan Stadium. I might have to consider putting together that whole subset from Allen & Ginter.

With the Blue Jackets doing so well this year, the number of vendors selling hockey cards was pretty much crazy. Last time I went to this show, the closest person selling hockey cards was probably in Kalamazoo. This time, every other vendor had something hockey related. These I picked up for a buck each from a guy who kept trying to push Blue Jackets relic cards on me. The top three cards are from the 1973-74 Topps hockey set. I just had to get them because they featured two defunct teams, the North Stars and the Golden Seals. The bottom two cards are 1972-73 Topps cards. While I'm not familiar with the players, they are definitely some fun looking cards.

Some more random hockey cards, including two from the 2015-16 SP Authentic line. All the cards on the top third are UD Canvas cards that were acquired again for a buck each from a 10-year old kid that was there selling cards with his dad.

Two new cards for the Brodeur collection. As soon as I saw that the one on the right was a National Hockey Card Day card from Canada, I knew it must come home with me.

Here's something pretty unique ... a six card set of the 2009-10 Dayton Gems. If you're not familiar with the Dayton Gems, it's quite alright. The Gems were a short lived team that replaced the long running Dayton Bombers. They debuted in the 2009-10 season as part of the original IHL and then played two more seasons in the Central Hockey League (CHL) before folding. In time, I'll go through these players one by one as these are just too unique to just gloss over here.

I don't really collect basketball cards but I couldn't pass these up, especially the Prizm cards, for a dime each. Old school players on current cards is always a winner.

More cards from the dime boxes, this time of the Bengals variety. I tried to focus on players from the 90s but the A.J. Green card was too good to pass up. I think my favorites were the Topps Finest cards of Darnay Scott and Corey Dillon.

Ok, moving on from the dime box cards now. This was my most expensive single card purchase of the day at five bucks. I'm not a soccer card collector at all and don't follow it but this is a big, yellow swatch and I just couldn't resist.

Now for my best finds of the day. First was this Martin Brodeur Starting Lineup figure for just a buck. That's right, this only cost me one whole dollar for a figure of one of my favorite players ever.

At one table, there was a box full of packs listed at two for a dollar. Did I comb through that box numerous times? You bet I did! There was all kinds of random baseball packs, mainly from the late 80s to the early 90s but I found some gems ... just look at this pile! There's a rack pack of 1989 Topps, a jumbo pack of 1983 Topps, a jumbo pack and a wax pack of 1986 Topps, a pack of 1986 Donruss, plus some random stuff from the mid 90s and 2000s. I plan on opening these one by one and sharing the contents of each on the blog.

Finally, my best finds of the day ... two WHA media guides for $5 each, which I managed to talk down from the asking price of $8 each. I haven't really had the time to dive deep into these but just flipping through them on the surface, there's all kinds of team rosters, stats, and lots more. There are two interesting tidbits on these you can see just by looking at the covers. First, one the 1977-78 guide, WHA MVP Robbie Ftorek wearing a Cincinnati Stingers uniform. Second, is the 1978-79 guide by itself. That season was the final season for the WHA as they merged with the NHL after that season.

While most dealers had lots of cool stuff, most of it out of my price range, I still think I managed to find some pretty good deals. Most of the cards I was able to get for less than a buck each and my biggest purchases were the media guides. After the show, I stopped by the card shop ten minutes from the show venue but that's another story for another day.