Pages

Chachi Checklists

Season Summaries

Virtual Wall Archive

Vintage Phillies Team Sets

Monday, March 7, 2022

Philly Baseball Card Show Report - Focus on 1965 Topps Set


Doug and I attended the Philly Show this past weekend, or the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, as it's officially known, held once again in the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia.  Having been somewhat overwhelmed by the Saturday crowd when we attended the show in December, we decided to mix it up a little and go on a Sunday.  It was the right call.

After a smooth drive with no traffic, we arrived at the show right after the doors had opened at 9am and walked in with a few other families.  There were no lines and the crowd was fairly thin for the first few hours of the show, allowing us to actually browse tables and talk with some of the dealers.  I know the dealers obviously prefer a larger crowd, but I felt I probably spent more since I never felt rushed and I spent more time looking through binders and studying display cases than I usually would.  The autograph guests for the day were all Eagles players, and most of them weren't set to arrive until after lunch.  It seemed the general vibe of the show for those early Sunday hours was take your time, find stuff you like, purchase, repeat.

While Doug set out to acquire a few cool J.T. Realmuto cards (mission accomplished - see above) I had my focus on acquiring as many of the remaining 114 cards needed for our 1965 Topps set as possible.  After an unexpected detour where I added four cards to my slowly progressing 1934-36 Diamond Stars set, I started looking for dealers with 1965 Topps commons binders.  My search netted 102 cards from primarily three dealers - America's Pastime, Uncle Dick's (again) and Sports Cards Plus.  I'll continue to chronicle each card acquired for our set over on my 1965 Topps blog.

Funds depleted, dents made to our want lists, we left the show early and were home by lunch.  Doug's new Realmuto treasures along with a few other pick-ups are already proudly displayed in his room, while I have another huge stack of cards to checklist and sort and I'm thrilled to know a 1965 Topps complete set is well within reach.  Just need to track down reasonably priced Mantle and Koufax cards . . .


Memory Lane
Valley Forge 1 - September 2010 - Thinking of my Dad
Valley Forge 2 - October 2012 - Doug's first baseball card show
Valley Forge 3 - September 2014 - Meeting Darren Daulton
Oaks 1 - October 2015 - Meeting Pete Rose and Steve Carlton
Valley Forge 4 - September 2016 - Phillies acquisitions and 4 Phillies Legends
Valley Forge 5 - December 2016 - Meeting Don Money
Valley Forge 6 - September 2017 - Doug's big day
Valley Forge 7 - December 2017 - Ben's first baseball card show with Mike Schmidt and Rhys Hoskins!
Oaks 2 - December 2018 - Meeting Matt Stairs and Cole Hamels
Valley Forge 8 - March 2019 - 5 Phillies Autographs and Vintage Phillies Additions
Valley Forge 9 - September 2019 - Closing in on 1971 Topps set and Andrew McCutchen
Valley Forge 10 - December 2019 - Finishing 1971 Topps set, Starting 1965 Topps set, adding key autographs from Ryan Howard and Brad Lidge
Valley Forge 11 - February 2020 - More 1965 Topps cards, Jimmy Rollins, Mike Lieberthal and Jim Kaat
Valley Forge 12 - December 2021 - Huge haul of 1965 Topps, Jim Thome
Valley Forge 13 - March 2022 - Easy like Sunday morning, close to completing 1965 Topps

2 comments:

  1. Very cool. All of it. And nice call going Sunday. I detest Saturday crowds.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a nice haul! If I don't need/want any Saturday autographs in the future, I will definitely look to do what you did--go on Sunday morning. Looking at your pictures, it couldn't have been more different on Saturday. It was so crowded, it was difficult to get around and even harder to shop. And the line to buy autograph tickets was close to an hour long, sapping a lot of time I might have had to buy some cards too. But I had never seen Ozzie Smith, Goose Gossage or Bill Mazeroski before, nor did I have signed baseballs of them. It was also cool to see Schmidt, Carlton and Rose all signing at the same time. Who knows how many more times that will happen. Still, it'll be Sunday for me next time.

    ReplyDelete