I finally picked up a Jerry Koosman rookie card!

Yesterday I attended a monthly card show. I arrived about an hour after it opened and was pleased to see that it was packed upon my arrival. The hobby appears to be flourishing, at least in my neck of the woods.

My first stop was the guy with the 20/$1 5000 count boxes filled with new stuff. I picked up some 2019 Stadium Club and Allen & Ginter. Actually, the first time around I only looked through the Stadium Club. There was another guy going through the box with the modest stack of Allen & Ginter, so I moved on and came back later and picked up a few additional cards. I also picked up a  2019 Allen & Ginter Charles Martinet relic card. He's the voice of Mario.

I then went through another guys 10/$1 box and found 20 cards. I picked up a nice variety of vintage oddball. Some 1975 Topps minis, a couple of 1970 Topps booklets, and a handful of 1961 Golden Press cards.

Next I went through a box of $1 vintage and pulled out 4 cards, all of which I already have, but these are upgrades in condition. I was about to leave his tables when I saw this...

The corners are in rough shape, but the centering isn't horrible and there aren't any creases. The asking price was high, but not outrageous.I had to take a closer look, so I asked him to see it. He obliged and mentioned that there was a mark on the back of the card.

I'm not sure if it's the number 3 or just some random marking, but whoever used this green marker on this card saved me a lot of green.

I tried to get him to come down a bit on the price, but he wouldn't budge. I did however, get him to through in this card for the same price.

I need this for my Topps Hank Aaron collection, so I was happy to add it to my collection and in my mind it brought down the price of the Nolan Ryan card.

As a kid, I would drool over the Nolan Ryan rookie card every time I saw it in a Beckett magazine. I don't recall really ever seeing it in person, prior to Saturday. But even as an adult it always seemed out of reach. That is until yesterday.

A good price, coupled with the fact that I had a birthday earlier this month and my family was getting together the next day to celebrate my birthday, along with 6 other July birthdays in our family, led me to pull the trigger and I couldn't be happier.