Antiquing

I made a trek to Missouri last week for the holidays.  I lived outside of St. Louis growing up, so I enjoy making return visits.  After spending the better part of the day in the car with a three year old, and a nine year old, there is no better feeling than driving the last few miles of Illinois and seeing the Arch. 

My parents actually no longer live outside of St. Louis, so it is now just a dinner stop before we drive two hours further west.  At some point on every trip we make time to do a few things around town.  

I used to always make stops at card shops in St. Louis, but those have dwindled since my favorite shop in South County has closed.  I am also pretty sure that my kids would riot if I made them sit in the car for 12 hours, and then took them to a card shop.  It would not be pretty.  

We spent the majority of our time in Columbia, Missouri.  If you are not familiar with Missouri, it is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, just north of Jefferson City.  The University of Missouri is there.  I toured the card shop scene in the town a few years back, and I just avoid it altogether when I go there.  There is also a Target, but it's in the mall.  It's a hot mess.  

Luckily, my parents like antiques, and my father spotted a bunch of baseball cards in one of the local antique malls.  I spent a little bit of time visiting one morning, and found some pretty good deals on some vintage cards.  If you are a Missourian, or nearby, it's the Veranda Antique Mall off of I-70.  

There were some non-vintage cards there too.  Plenty of junk wax era cards that were being sold in binders, football and basketball cards, and all sorts of other nicknacks.  This was the sweetest non-baseball card item that I found at the store.

I should have looked up my old Durham Bulls team sets to see how much the Steve Avery cards were worth back in 1989.  Probably a pretty penny.  Some other time.  

On to the cards.  

Again, I mainly checked out the vintage card boxes, which had a lot of 1960s and 1970s baseball cards.  Many of the cards were $1, a few were slightly more.  I think I spent a total of $25 in the store, and walked away with roughly half a dozen cards. 

Here is my haul.  I scanned both the fronts and backs of the cards.  

Curt Simmons.  Cardinal.  

Tommy Harper.  Seattle Pilots.  

Wilbur Wood.  White Sox.  Raleigh Capitals.  Strikeouts.  

Rich Nye.  Cardinal.  Bird expert.  

Walt Williams.  Durham Bull.  

Doug Rader.  Durham Bull.  Part of Bill McCool's card back.  

Gates Brown.  Durham Bull.  

Ron Santo.  Hall of Famer.  

Dave Kingman.  Strikeouts.  

Mickey Lolich.  Strikeouts.  

Ken Singleton.  Durham Bull.  Actually, Raleigh-Durham Met.  

Jim Bunning.  Hall of Famer.  

Mickey Lolich.  Durham Bull.  

Harmon Killebrew.  Hall of Famer.  

This was a pretty good haul.