A successful spring expo

A week ago today, the Toronto Spring Expo started.  I only get to two card shows per year – this one and the Fall one.  They’re excellent shows but I attend them specifically for two reasons: they are accessible (not too far away) and they open on Friday rather than Saturday, so I can get there for an hour or so after lunch.

I’ve taken to going there with general purposes in mind rather than aiming for specific cards.  This year, my goals were to

• knock off a few of the remaining cards from my ’73-74 OPC master set
• get 3-4 of the all-time greats from 1960-61 Topps.  These ones are always a pain online.
• find one or two really nice 1952-53 Parkhursts
• serendipity

Note that I set no baseball goals anymore. For the largest of the Canadian shows, one would think that OPC baseball would be a reasonable find.  It’s not.  I think most of the baseball dealers are from the States and the one guy who has older OPC rarely has them in a state I want to pay for.

So my serendipty find was a bit of a shocker:

1969 OPC baseball.  The guy I dismissed had a bunch that were just fine and dandy, thanks.  I was particularly happy to find the leaders card, as it had eluded me and gives me a complete first page:

Hooray!  1969 OPC set status: 192/218.  Getting there.

So with those safely in my pocket, I set off to tackle item 1.  The 1973-74 master set is two complete sets, one each in the light and dark backs.  Everything I still need is a second-series dark back, which seem difficult.  Nailed a few:

The Mahovlich was a dupe because I couldn’t read my own list.  Still, only $3 misspent. Set status: 507/528.  Also getting there.

Got my 1960-61s from the same dealer.  This got me enough of a discount to account for the second card bought in error:

The second one is #10, Bill Cook. I needed #10 in 1959-60, not 1960-61.  Got too excited. Not sure what I will do with this.  I may use it as trade bait in the fall.  Set status: 33/66. Exactly half.

I was looking for one particular vendor for my ’52 Parkies as he always has a few, his prices are decent and he always knocks off a bit.  Couldn’t find him.  I ended up making three circuits before finding him at precisely the same table he always has.

Another person was wading through the ’52s already, so I had to wait.  I spent my time repairing stacks I kept absently knocking over.

Finally, it was my turn.  Remember, I wanted one good one – two if I got lucky:

Glory be!

I was particularly happy with the Butch Bouchard (bottom right) because a card in that shape will always run at least $40 online.  This, with my discount, was less than half that amount and in the local currency, to boot.

Set status: 84/105 – precisely 80% of the set.  This one may yet get done.

A good day, all in all, and $10 under budget.