Goal achieved! Went to the card show today

 When the year started I stated that my only actual goal for the year was to attend the Fishkill, NY card show at least once. Today, I achieved that goal, attending the show for the first time since June 2022! 

The show was a little different from the last time I went- it was more crowded for one, and many of the dealers were different. Two dealers I had known previously but had not seen at this show before were set up, and I made purchases from both of them. There were a couple dealers I couldn't really see because I couldn't get to their tables, and by the time I could the show was wrapping up, since it only goes to 2 pm. It doesn't really matter too much because I was out of cash at that point anyway, and even then I had borrowed some of that from my brother. The one dealer I was looking forward to seeing the most- the guy with modern hockey dollar bins, including Young Guns- wasn't there, unfortunately. 

However, the show was excellent. For being a small show there is a wide variety of cards for sale, from vintage to brand new. 

So, since I'm trying to get this post up and work on my monthly upload on the Cardboard History Gallery, here's some pictures. 

My first purchase of the day was the Webber and the retail Prestige pack from 2009-10. I've never opened that set before, and it does have Steph Curry rookie cards in it. Maybe I'll get lucky. The football are for my best friend who's a big Buccaneers fan.

While I'm a DC fan I will still pick up at least one example of the Marvel sets, especially when I can find them for a dollar or less. My first playing era Bobby Orr too. 

My first pink Dazzlers and my first cards from 2023-24 Metal Universe and 2024-25 Artifacts. The Winter Classic card is actually an insert in a baseball set which I didn't know until I got home and really looked at the cards. 

The Richter is embossed, pretty cool. 

My first card from the SPx set. I wasn't sure if I had the Karl Malone or the Elements Henrik Lundqvist but for 50 cents each I'm not going to take any chances. 

I know the Lemieux is a parallel but I haven't figured out which one yet. The Crown Royale Ovechkin may be a new set for me, I've got to look it up. I only have a couple Crown Royale cards from all the years combined and I haven't memorized which design goes to which year yet. 

As at the National, the non-sports cards I got are higher in number than sports cards and cover a much wider variety. 

There are three new sets appearing in my collection for the first time here. The Elvis set, the Pop Century Set and the Marvel set with the Captain America card. 

There are at least 6 new sets never appearing before in my collection here, and possibly 9. I need to look up the Topps Heritage and Allen & Ginter cards, which are technically baseball cards, and the Panini Americana card on the top right. (It's Ricardo Montalbon, but the card is not made of rich Corinthian leather). The only sets I know I have for sure are the Batman set and the Comic Ball Looney Tunes set. 

More new sets and some numbered cards show up. The two Panini America cards are color parallels, the base cards and black and white. I had to get the random baseball mascot. The Elvis and Cyndi Lauper cards are new sets, the Captain America is a new set I think, and I have no idea what set that lady Captain America is from, so I got it.

More new sets- believe it or not I didn't have any of the Star Wars stickers, and even though I'm not really into Star Wars much anymore, I still pick up some random cards here and there, especially vintage ones. (I added 5 today). I had no idea there were foil parallels from American Bandstand, and the two historical cards are both SN to 25 copies each. The Olympic card is a promo as is the lenticular Star Wars card as well.

More new sets! The Indian Motorcycle set, the Grease set (this is actually my second that I chose today- see next photo). The JFK set and the frog. Not sure what the set is with the pheasants. The historical card is another SN to 25, and the Marvel card appears to be a parallel to a set I got a few of when new that I didn't know had parallels.

I generally don't care for wacky packages, but I constantly joke about eating Smurfs so I had to get that. The Batman card is miscut so even though it's pretty beat up I still got it. A bootleg Wemby and a numbered John Adams. This was the first Grease card I chose. The Superman cards are promos and I had to get the King Kong card, because my collection is dangerously low on giant apes. 

More interesting cards. The Star Wars card is a First Day Issue from one of the Galaxy releases- #3 I think. I did not know that parallels existed for that set but if they are like the NBA versions they fell one per box. One of my earliest memories of watching Olympics was of Karch Kiraly so I had to get that, and when I lifted the card out of the box there was a drag racing card with it so I got that too, although neither are my first cards of them. The two Americana cards are SN parallels. 

I don't normally collect Mars Attacks, but I do collect Statue of Liberty...and then I noticed this was an autographed parallel SN 09/10. For $1. I'm surprised the dealer put this in his dollar bins but hey, win for me. I'm a big Edsel fanatic as has been documented before, and it's one of the topics I search on COMC and online trying to find random cards I need. This one from Happy Days constantly pops up so I decided to get it, even though it's kind of a dig on my Edsels. 

And that's that. I spent double what I wanted to, but I am a noted cheapskate. Hopefully I can start getting back to the show on a fairly regular basis. Once every three years is simply not enough. 

On the way home we were behind a McLaren, a pretty rare car to see.