Hoops Hobby

I ventured out to the largest card show in my area recently, in the Upstate of South Carolina. Even though the show is bi-monthly, I hadn’t been able to attend since last August, and I was ready to look through some boxes and find some Pacers.

As I started making my way around the room, it took me awhile before I found a table that was worth stopping at based on my collecting taste. I quickly realized I would picking up quite a bit less at this show than the previous time I attended, but card show opportunities are so few and far between that I was just enjoying being there. Plus, it only takes one card to completely change the narrative of a show experience.

The first table where I spent significant time had a mix of 90s, 2000s, and more modern cards all together, but mostly it was 90s inserts and parallels. The prices could have been a bit lower in general, but that’s the way these cards are trending from what I can tell. It’s getting harder and harder to find ‘deals’. I can also appreciate the cost and effort involved in setting up at shows, so that must be factored in.

While I’m constantly refining my focus for pickups for my collection, it always includes keeping an eye out for Pacers parallels, and that’s exactly what I grabbed for my first purchases of the day. I grabbed this 1999-00 Stadium Club Chrome refractor of Mark Jackson first. Stadium Club Chrome is one of my favorite sets from that year and across all years, honestly, and I’ll eventually put together a Pacers set of refractors. I’m halfway there, still missing Chris Mullin, Rik Smits, and Jalen Rose.

I snatched up this 1995-96 Rik Smits Metal Silver Spotlight parallel featuring another hall of fame center. The scanner didn’t do this one justice so I had to take a picture on my phone. The Silver Spotlight parallels are 1 per pack, but I don’t often see them in person and the price was fair so I grabbed it, which brings my Smits collection total to 125 unique cards.

Finally, I set this Reggie parallel from 1998-99 Black Diamond to the side and decided to grab it after bundling the three cards from this table together to get a solid deal. People love Reggie, and the price tags tend to be higher than I expect them to be, even ones out of 3000. I’ve got probably 5 copies of the base card but no parallel versions, so it seemed like time. Happy to have any serial numbered Reggie.

After spending a significant amount of time digging through at least five boxes at this table, ultimately adding the three Pacers to my stack, I moved on and made my way around more of the room. After not having any luck passing by a dozen or so tables, I found a table with a box of cheap autographs and relic cards. A couple Jeff Foster Press Pass autographs made me smile, but I only set one card to the side.

I’ll grab a cheap Danny Granger relic every time if I don’t already have it in my collection. I do have a 2005 Press Pass relic, but this one I didn’t recognize. Turns out it’s from 2006-07 Press Pass Legends, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t recognize it. I wouldn’t have expected a college jersey relic in a product not from Granger’s rookie year. I like the clean design, and the red jersey swatch really pops off the card.

I kept moving and walked up to a table where I noticed some stacks of newer cards, so I thought it might be a spot to pick up a new Jarace Walker, which was one of my low-key goals of the show, coming just two days after the draft. And sure enough, the table owner said he had just opened two blasters a day earlier. I looked through a stack of new Bowman Chrome U cards, and I picked out the two Jarace Walker cards and was on my way after a brief discussion on the state of the Pacers and Knicks.

The final fourth of the tables didn’t have anything exciting. I was hoping to find a dealer from the previous show who had lots of relics from the 2000s, but no such luck this time.

I was about to head out when I remembered see a stack of modern rookies when I first walked in and I figured I would see if there were any cheap Holos/Prizms I would feel ok about purchasing.

These will be binder material at some point, but for now they go into a box of modern Pacers rookies. I don’t go after all the parallels, but cheap holos/silvers of recent Pacers I’m happy to pick up when the price is right.

While I didn’t find too many gems for the PC this time, it was fun to talk cards with fellow collectors, dig through a few solid boxes of 90s and 2000s cards, and pick up a few cards of the newest Pacers first round pick. I’m looking forward to attending the show again in a few months and see what I find. Hopefully there will be a few more boxes like the one dealer where I picked up the Pacers parallels. Seeing the cards in person instead of scrolling on my phone is such a treat. Until the last card, there’s always a hope of uncovering that key PC card. Digging is what makes it fun.