NSCC "The National" Prep - Who's going? Can I borrow some money?

I am hitting my first national show in about a week. My brother and I are coming getting into town Thursday evening, staying down the road and hitting the show all day Friday and Saturday, and coming home after. Is it normal to feel like I will have the least amount of spending money in my pocket? I think I am just the type of person that feels unprepared and under-gunned in this type of situation. I can dig a local card show for 3 hours and spend $5 and I have more than that at least. Are any other bloggers going?

Can I borrow some money? Lol. If anybody who isn't scraping up nickels to go to the show is taking advantage of all the panic-priced cards right now; let me know players/teams you are interested in and I can show you what I have. Paypal preferred. Also, don't give me a shopping list. Dennis is the only one I will accept that from. Trust me, if I treat this show like the others I will end up buying 90% trade bait and a handful of cards for myself.

If anyone is familiar with the Rosemont area and knows the of some cheap parking hit me up. Our hotel wants $32 a night to park. That is a lot of cards. I am thinking the bus station might be better as it is cheaper and between the show and our hotel. If anybody has a better idea PLEASE let me know.

Recent Pick Ups

Despite trying to squeeze every penny for gas, food, lodging, and entertainment for my trip to the National, I have had some decent cards show up lately.

Solak was a retail pack pull, Blue JaCoby is 01/75, B&W Stewart is 50/50 so a couple cool numered cards. 

Baker is /50.

The Flair is /100 and awesome!

Totally impressed with how fast these Stewie redemptions got to me from Topps. 

BIG POST: Too Many Verlanders, Not Enough Card Shows

BASEBALL IS BACK! and so is Lauren. 😎

MARCH CARD SHOW 

I am so lucky to reside in Michigan, home to the best card bloggers on Earth. Dennis from Too Many Verlanders  is one of my favorite bloggers and all around awesome guy. He must ask me to meet him at card shows 30 times for every one time I am able to go. Lucky for me, he still asks and we were able to meet up at my local show. As usual he brought me a big bag of goodies, including (above) this Nolan Ryan fascimile auto baseball for Nolan. As usual I owe Dennis a ton of better cards and need to venture into finding him some non-card goodies too. He brought me a Canseco SLU and a stack of cards including a ton of Thome #'ed cards, Tigers, everything I like.

This is my card show haul and stuff from Dennis. It was a great day. Always a good time when I get to hang out with other bloggers. Not sure if I even qualify as a blogger being that I post so rarely nowadays. A closer look below. Now Dennis is the kind of guy that searches a dollar box while you search a nickel box and says "I can't find anything else in here. Find a couple cards you want so I can get the deal." Who does that? Crazy generous. Sorry Dennis if your inbox gets flooded with card show invitations.

WALLET CARD 2019

This is my first wallet card. Dennis saw me find it in a dime box at the show. It deserved some attention. 

BIG NEWS!

My wife bought me tickets and hotel accommodations for me and my brother to go to the National this year! I get overwhelmed in the little card shows I go to locally. My head is going to spin for a long time at this one. Now to sell everything I own for spending $! 

HOF TTM Returns!

Great Pull

I dabble in all cards. I pulled this Collin Sexton auto from a Target 3 pack hanger. If you look on the back and sides of the card you can see some random sharpie marks from when he was signing them. I don't think I have ever seen that before. Just my luck it probably makes it worth less money instead of being the high dollar ebay 1 of 1. 

The other strange thing I had happen was buying a hanger pack of Topps Opening Day from Meijer which states 3 exclusive cards inside. Mine only came with 1 purple inside instead of 3. Anybody else have this issue? It was a Touki RC so I am not super upset. 

Topps Home Run Challenge Time!

This picture is from a TCDB trade. I only traded for the 4 Home Run Challenge cards but the dude sent all this! I have Bryce Harper for my first code uploaded hitting a home run tomorrow (03/30/2019). Wish me luck. I have close to 20 of these challenge cards right now and am working on getting more. I love them. I finally got my hands on an Ichiro RC through a TCDB trade too!

THRIFT STORE FIND

I see guys finding cards at thrift stores on Twitter all the time. I rarely find anything and probably look at the 4 shops on the way to my son's school once a week. I did find this bobble the other day though. If anyone needs it hit me up. 

FIRST HOBBY FAILS 2019

This is NOT how you package a single card.

Front

Back 

 Kudos to the Tigers broadcast team for jinxing J-Zimm.

Fail goes to the guy who put this card I found in his quarter box last year. Just sold it on ebay for 100X that.