General Forum

When your at a card show.. what is your eye hunting for?

Option 1.

The loaded nickel boxes?

Option 2.

The 10 cent boxes?

Option 3.

The 11 for $1 box?

Aren't all 3 options basically the same thing?! The difference is so minute that I wouldn't care to differentiate any of them. My eye is only hunting for my teams and players in any sport. I wouldn't care about the price from first sight of the table,. Looking for what I need first and then the price determines if I will actually buy it from that seller.

True I agree they are close to the same and it depends what is actually inside the boxes one is looking thru. And if there is anything worth buying in any of the boxes. But my fav is the loaded nickel box if there is anything loaded in them

I found a Jordan card in a dime box once. The dealer was excited somebody found it as he put it in there on purpose.

So I enjoy all 3 types of boxes really

I haven't seen nickel boxes in years.  But I always start lowest price first.  I'll walk the show and look for any dealer with 10 cent boxes then I'll search them for anything that looks like something I'll need or want.  If it looks like they have something good I'll open this site on my phone and start looking up my want lists.  If I'm looking in $1 boxes I look for higher end cards that I need or older cards (over 50 years).  Once in a while I will buy cards from either type of box if something really jumps out at me as something I hadn't seen before.  When either my kids or I do that, we'll look the card up when we get home to see what kind of deal we got and who found the best deal for a buck.

The other option not listed that I'll look for are large mixed boxes for cheap.  Dealers will sometimes have binders of cards for a set price or random boxes.  Every now and then I'll find a 3200 count box for $25.  If I'm allowed to look in it and it doesn't look like all late 80s and early 90s, I'll pick it up.  I don't see those at card shows as often any more but I do find them in card shops.  But right now my wife wants me to clear out more of my doubles before I pick up any more large lots like that.

Found a dealer at the National (2022) with nickel monsters (3 of them). My son and I (mostly me though) spent an hour at his table and pulled and bought more than 400 cards. At my local shows, there is usually one person with the dime boxes (and he'll generally do 12 or so for $1 when it's a total over $5). For the most part, I am a low-budget collector, however, I will, when warranted, go bigger. (I did buy a 1953 Bowman Color Ashburn at the National as well.)

With the options presented in this thread, I would hit the nickel box first, then the 11 for $1, and then the dime box - that way, in case they have some of the same cards that I want in their boxes, I will get it at the lowest possible price.

I love baseball cards for sale by basketball card fans. They usually don't take the time to price accordingly. I've found many SPs, variations, and numbered cards for 10-50 cents.

My preferred option is going to my vintage dealers and seeing what they've restocked first. I always know I'll get a great deal from them, but I hit them up first before someone else can snag what I may need. Good thing is, with the relationship I have with them they'll set aside certain things they think I may still need before putting them out.

If I went with the options here, I'd probably hit up the nickel and dime boxes first. Takes a bit to get through, but you never know the gems you'll find.

While most of the sets I'm working these days are early 70s, I find that most of the vintage dealers at the shows I go to have their cards priced more on the higher end.  Still fair pricing, just higher than I'd prefer to pay.  Once in a while I do find steals.  Found a 71 Roberto Clemente card marked $3.  Asked the dealer if that was right, he said yes so I picked it up as fast as I could get my wallet open.

There are those fair share of dealers at these shows too, but I work with mainly 3 that I've known since before pandemic pricing kicked in. While I make concession that some market pricing is out of whack, they are still more than happy to take a nice penny off at the end. It helps that I buy more than onesies and twosies for the most part. Funnily enough I found all of them while trying to upgrade my mid to late 70s set and they all helped build my early 70s and now 60s sets. Two of them even give me a little extra if I bring back the penny sleeves and top loaders/card savers to the next show. For the ones that like to overprice, I move on without a second thought

Jimetal7212, I totally get that.  Even the dealers with the discount boxes will tend to make deals.  When I buy from a $1 box, if I pick 23 cards they'll usually round down to $20, things like that.

As for deals on the vintage, since I have a hard rule of not spending more than $5 for any single card, it makes it tough to pick more than 1 or 2 cards up at those tables since the cards I'm looking for are usually over $5 each.  Until I'm down to the last 5 or 10 cards to finish a set, I stick to the cheap boxes to fill them.  And sets that I need 200+ cards for I'll look for entire boxes from that year that I can get cheap.  For early 70s, if I end up spending less than $1 per card I actually need then I'm fine with a pile of extras for trade or resale.  For newer years I aim to average 10 cents or less for what I actually need.  So if I pick up say 100 cards from a newer year and I only need 50 of them as I pay less then $5 for the lot I'm happy.

I'm a complete cheapo that way.  But yet I'll think nothing of spending $1.50 on postage for a handful of junk era commons in a trade.  Go figure.