At the best baseball card show of my life, three incredible things happened: , I opened a coveted Frank Thomas rookie card in a 1990 Leaf pack and I won a Lou Brock autographed baseball as a door prize.It was a trifecta that even now makes me happy. I was 14 or so when I wandered those endle s rows of tables that day, at a ma sive show at Cervantes Convention Center in downtown St. Louis. Id gone to dozens of Masahiro Tanaka Jersey smaller shows before, and went to dozens after. I would walk around my binder the one with Upper Deck stickers on the front cover hoping to find someone who would give me $3 for one of the Tom Gordon cards on that page of Rated Rookies so I could buy more packs.Even then, I wondered what it would be like to be the person on the other side of those tables. They seemed to have, well, everything. Their tables were stacked high with boxes of cards, some that were sold as sealed boxes and some that were opened so you could buy individual packs. Their display cases had cards protected in hard cases marked with dollar signs followed by numbers three or four digits long. I was in awe.MORE: But then I went to college and became a bit obse sed with traveling and fishing. I drifted far, far away from the world of collecting, for more than two decades. Every once in a while, Id find a couple of packs at an antique mall, or a box of junk wax (loosely defined as baseball cards over-produced and sold between 1987 and 1993).Then, a few months before the pandemic hit, the collecting bug bit, hard. Finding deals became the goal, whether it was on eBay (that became pretty much impo sible by June 2020) or at local card shops or on Facebook Marketplace or antique malls Aroldis Chapman Jersey , once those places re-opened. The thrill of the chase and all that good stuff.I built a collection of bargain-hunted junk wax that would have been the envy of 14-year-old Ryan. Its made 40-something Ryan happy, too. Ive shared small bits of the collection on Twitter pretty much every day since February 2020, with and then with the . Its fun to share the cards; its better to hear your stories. Its been a daily bright spot in whats been a pretty crummy year. A few months ago, after attending my first card show since probably 1993, I decided I wanted to see what it would be like to step behind the table and experience that element of the hobby (also, I need to clear space Drew Hutchison Jersey in our cramped basement).My first show was Sunday, June 13, about 10 miles south of the Ali/Thomas/Brock show.It was a blast. I really, truly did enjoy the experience. Walking into a mostly empty room at five minutes past 7 a.m. to set up, interacting with the collectors and handing out free packs to the kiddos there with their moms and dads? Lots of fun.And my favorite item of the day, a signed Derrick Goold card from the 2020 Allen & Ginter Topps set, sold quickly. Goold, of course, is the outstanding and past BBWAA president. Topps gave him a card in the eclectic set after he . Goold signed and dated this card for me in the Busch Stadium pre s box, as I took video. I thought that would be a nice, unique bonus. I priced it at $25, with every dollar going to the .The collector who bought it, Chris, was thrilled. He said hed spent his childhood reading about the Cardinals in the pages of the Post-Dispatch with his dad, and hed read Goolds work since he starting writing about the Cardinals 17 years ago. Chris bought the card for his dad, and of course I sent him the video, too. It was a really, really cool moment.this auto has been my favorite things to sell today.proceeds going to the scholarship fund. Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) My buddy Marc, whos been a close Roger Maris Jersey friend since college, drove over from Kansas City and split the tables with me. Because of the pandemic and life-is-busy reasons, we hadnt hung out in person since I moved from Charlotte, N.C., to St. Louis in the fall of 2019. That was a huge part of this equation; I wouldnt have done this by myself. Its about sharing an experience with a friend. We had a good mix; he collects mostly newer stuff and singles, while my offerings were mostly nostalgia-driven.The only way the day could have been more nostalgic was if I had eaten a piece or two of stale gum. Good times, for sure. But honestly? I feel like that get a table itch has been scratched, and I kind of doubt Ill do it again. I sold enough cards to pay for the table and make a small profit, which was really the bottom-line goal. So thats good. But I couldnt shake the sense that it wasnt everything I had hoped it would be. Thats just the truth. I built the experience up in my mind too much, after bouncing around the walls of a junk wax is the best echo chamber on Twitter.I set up a table that would have sent me sprinting to an ATM, had I stumbled acro s it at a show. There was a tiny wall of junk Alex Rodriguez Jersey -wax boxes probably 50 or so set up, marked below the average eBay sold price (no shipping fees at a card show!). I did a lot of research in the weeks leading up to the show, just to make sure I wasnt pricing based on, lets say, January eBay sold listings, when things were REALLY crazy. I had stopped by a new-to-me shop earlier in the week and started talking with the owner. Hed done shows in the past, but nothing in a long time. He said: I always look at it like this: Its better to make a fast nickel than a slow dime.MORE: In this current roller-coaster hobby climate, though, its hard to know which price is a fast nickel and whichprice is a slow dime. The best example, maybe, are standard-size top-loaders, the go-to e sential supply for anyone wanting to give a decent card a little protection. For years, theyve sold for maybe $3 or $4 for a pack of 25.Right now, though, top-loaders are scarce. Even the suppliers cant get or keep product in stock. This shortage is a thing nobody in the hobby could have Andy Pettitte Jersey predicted, but really, isnt that theme for the past year or so? Now, theyre . Yikes. I stopped at a different local card shop a few days before my show and they were limiting customers to two each, and you could only buy those two if you spent $100. What?!? He said his supplier told him it might be six months before their next shipment. Who knows whether thats true.Because heres the thing: At the show, maybe six tables over from Marc and me, a guy was selling top-loaders, and he had lots of them. He was limiting people to four each, and selling them for $4 a pack. I know this because right before I packed up for the day, around 1:30 p.m., I went over and bought four myself.Lots of boxes on my table could be had for $15 thats 36 doses/packs of nostalgic goodne s at 41 cents a rip and only a couple above $30. I had maybe a dozen boxes sitting open, with packs marked at 50 cents, $1 or $1.50; not including 20ish packs from 1981 and 1982 Fleer priced w