Sticker shock at the LCS

 I have never had an instance where I went to a card shop, pulled a bunch of cards, and then put them back because the price was just so high. That is, until today. I think part of it has to do with me growing up in the '90's and seeing '80's and '90's commons being listed for 5 cents, with semi-stars being 10 to 15 cents. I just think for what and for how much I was getting, I should've gotten some kind of discount. 

I was off today, so I got to entering my last team into TCDB. Only got through 2005, but it was something. Pop's Sportscards, the local shop in DeLand, opened at noon, and I had to pick Kyler up from school at 2:30, so I had about 2 and a half hours to look for cards. I looked through the Rays and Tigers portion of the quarter boxes first, and found about 5 cards I wanted. I was really looking for some Topps commons to help out with sets. They did have the mis-numbered 2021 Topps Update David Hale card in the Phillies 25 cent box, so my 2021 Topps Update set is officially done. Behind the counter, they had some 'vintage' boxes, and I asked for the '81 to '85 portion, which was 2 boxes worth. I spent about 2 hours digging through them, organizing them by number so I could cross them off of my wantlist. None of those suckers were in order either. After getting what I needed, it was a good 300-400 cards. Not really any stars either. Just '80's commons mostly with the random Tom Seaver or Mike Schmidt thrown in. I was hoping for maybe 40 or 50 bucks for the whole lot. It was just 90% common guys anyways. So I go to ring everything up, and the store owner had stepped out, and his wife was running the register. 'This could either be really good or really bad', I thought. It turned out to be bad. She called the owner, and he said the 'vintage' cards were 50 cents each. I told her I couldn't do that and dug through the stack for cards I really wanted. She must've texted him because she told me he could do them for a quarter each. That still would've come to 100 bucks for early '80's commons, so I purchased the cards I wanted, only like 20 cards, paying 10 bucks (I still think I spent too much), and left. The whole situation kind of pissed me off. They were the kind of owners who talk really softly when you are there, like they don't want you to hear that they are talking about you, even when they were just talking about cards prices or whatever. The lady acted all pissed when I told her I wouldn't do .50 cents on the cards. Whatever. I'm not going to pay 25 cents per card of just commons. I'm taking 400 cards off of your hands, mostly '80's commons that no current people will probably buy, so why not cut me a little bit of a deal. I just don't understand why they charge that much for what I feel are 10 to 15 cent cards. Let's look at what I did end up getting.

I figured I would get the oldest cards I found in the box (a few '70's ones that snuck in there), and anything that I thought was worth a little, plus the Tigers, Rays, and the '21 Update Hale. I really don't think any of those were worth 50 cents. I was glad to get the '85 Bergman as it completed the '85 Topps Tigers set. I think the Carson Williams card might be my first of his, and the Lowe is an SP. Not really regretting the total purchase, but I don't know how much longer I will go to Pop's with prices that high. 

In my Topps Wantlist, I have wanted to just put the price of a common card from TCDB with each set, and since I might be judging the price a little too low, why not do some of that now?  In the '71 Topps set, it was 20 cents. All of the other sets I got were 18 cents. I wasn't off that bad. Maybe I just don't know who commons and stars are. I understand they have to make a profit, but 7 extra cents for each card for just commons? The shop by where I work will do deals for volume. I'm pretty sure I can get all of the '80's Topps commons I need at 17-20 cents each and just have to pay once for shipping at JustCommons or a similar site. I just want to know what you think. Am I out of touch?

In other news, a guy on a FB junk wax site is helping me finish the '86 Topps set and is sending me all of the commons I need. Just 8 more to finish that set, and they all should arrive soon. We got good news with Karen's biopsy. They said it was benign, and that they would just check it yearly. I was really expecting the worst news with my luck lately. It still doesn't take away all of the other medical crap going on (recent lab work has some numbers back where they were when she was in the ICU last month), but at least it's not a case of figuring out what to do in 5 years if she isn't there. I have about 10 more days of freedom before Karen's mom moves in. I'm hoping to have a date night as a last night of privacy without her tagging along to things. With Karen's health, it might not happen, but maybe with all of this happening, Karen will let me buy cards a little more. 

The pineapple in my front yard is getting bigger. A few days ago, it had some nice purple things growing from the fruit, but I think they went away because it's so hot and the fact that they are kind of brown. I hope we get some of the famous Florida afternoon showers soon. I've seen some ants on the plant, and I really want this thing to be as healthy as it can so it will grow pretty big. Plus, it would be a shame to have waited 3 years and not get a tasty fruit out of it. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy