Impulsive Buying for Geeks

One thing we have been doing a lot this past year is going to baseball card shows. I know, WAY nerdy. It started in the winter time. If I say nothing else about Red Sox fans, it is this: they know their baseball, and they love their baseball memorabilia. So during the long winter, there are frequently baseball card shows within an hour drive of us or so. We usually do it on Sunday mornings, there is no traffic and we breakfast at a diner we find along the way. It gets us out of the house and there is some superb people watching. Dean isn't a huge baseball card guy per se, he likes autographs so he usually gets a ball, a photo or a card signed by the old retired Red Sox player the show hires to come sign. Then we giggle over the crazy Sox fans and the big fat card collectors that probably live in their mother's basement. Plus, I get an ego boost being one of the only women there and likely the best looking. I'm not usually vain or self-promoting, so the fact that I can state that with confidence is an indication of the clientele.

My biggest complaint about these shows it that all the stuff is Red Sox stuff. I mean ALL of it. I knew I probably wouldn't find any cards of obscure Twins players from the "dark years" (mid- to late-90s), but I expected to see some Mauer stuff or some Rays stuff. They were, afterall, the AL champs. Nope. Nada. But they do occasionally have non-sports related memorabilia, and after I become saturated with Sox stuff, I gravitate to those tables.

Last weekend we knew would be our last show in Massachusetts. As I said before, Dean always gets the autograph of the headliner. He occasionally also finds some cards he wants like some cheap sets from the 80s. (He likes to mail them to retired players' homes to sign and send back, but that is a different blog post.) But I have never bought anything for myself. I'm not opposed to some self-indulgence and I know the sports collectors circuit has been hit hard by the economy. I just haven't found anything I wanted. Until Sunday. My one memorabilia purchase from a Massachusetts collector show:

A rare Bobby Kennedy presidential campaign button. This particular one was only produced for one campaign stop (I actually believe the guy because he seemed super nerdy like me and was thrilled to talk about political memorabilia in a sea of Sox talk). I thought that with my recent obsession with New England history, politics, and all things Kennedy, it was perfect. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. But I'll probably display it along with my rare Kucinich for President button, which was eventually replaced by my not-so-rare Obama button.