Minneapolis 1/3

This weekend I was in Minneapolis for a graduation.  So I took the opportunity to drive in early enough on Friday to have plenty of time at a local card shop.  My destination was Twin Cities Sportcards in the suburb of Golden Valley.  I was there about a month ago, but didn't have time to really dive in.  So that was the plan on Friday afternoon.

When I woke up Friday morning, I had what I thought was pinkeye.  At that early hour, there was nothing I could do about it in South Dakota, so I made the drive to the Twin Cities and went right away to a MedExpress Urgent Care.  Thankfully, it was either allergies or an irritant of some kind in there and not pinkeye.  I filled the eye drop prescription, grabbed a quick lunch, and to Twin Cities Sportcards I went.

I had some really good luck.  This 2018 Donruss Rated Rookie of Rafael Devers was probably my favorite pickup.

I also found four 2017 Yaz cards I didn't have yet to add to my PC.  Here are my favorites.

My 1973 Topps set build was helped along.  I still need the Rookie Third Basemen card with Mike Schmidt on it.

I now have only five left to complete the set!

I picked up another 1975 Boog Powell to replace the one I mistakenly traded not too long ago.  So I'm back to one card left in 1975, the George Brett rookie.  The shop owner had just recently sold his entire 5000 card box of 1974's, so I didn't get a chance to find the last two I needed.

All the NHL playoff talk lately had me in the mood to chip away at my North Stars and Stars team set builds.

I picked up a bunch and am only showing a few here.

These are my first cards from this year's Upper Deck set.

This Bobby Doerr wasn't specifically on my want list, but it's one of those that talked to me the moment I saw it.

I was employee of the month in December so I had my prize of hundreds of dollars of Visa gift cards I planned on spending at the store.  But unfortunately, the owner had to close early on Friday afternoon to hit the road early for a trip to South Dakota and a coin/card show.  So I was graciously booted from the store with less than $20 spent so far.  I had planned to dig deep into his 5000 card boxes of 1970, 1971, and 1972.  So his loss.  But overall, he didn't know my intentions, and he's such a nice guy I don't hold it against him.  His store is one of my all-time favorite LCS's.  There were a couple other guys in there who were obviously regulars, but they included me in some really fun and engaging conversations about their collections, want lists, recent buys, etc.

So what to do with the rest of the afternoon in Minneapolis?  I was supposed to meet a TCDB friend in person while there, but had to leave before he showed up.  Stay tuned for part 2.