A Collector Is Born At Cleve's Today- For Only 50 Cents

The lovely wife took my 7 year old to a birthday party today, which meant I was in charge of entertaining my 3 year old daughter.  We made our usual rounds of Toys R Us, Barnes and Noble and the pet store.  I came very close to buying Bryce Harper and Tony Gwynn McFarlane figures at Toys R Us, along with some 2013 Topps in hopes of getting a Jurickson Profar purple parallel base card, but impressively refrained from all of it.  I'm a little bit regretful of passing on the Gwynn McFarlane.  It was pretty cool.

On the way back, I was able to get my girl to agree to go to Cleve's for a bit so I could see what was up for auction Tuesday, as well as pick up my winnings from last week.  She reluctantly agreed but made me carry her inside.  Once inside, she put a death grip on me and I couldn't put her down.  It made it rather difficult to look at the auction items, much less write in bids.

Then I remembered the sports card vending machine Cleve had in his store.  I gave my daughter a couple of quarters and she eagerly went to work.  In went a quarter, and after a turn of the basketball slot handle out popped a quartet of cards:

Next, she went for the baseball slot (much to my excitement) and after a turn of the handle, out popped a pretty darn nice trio of cards:

One Hall of Famer and two other potentials.   Not bad at all for a quarter!  It didn't really matter who she got, my daughter was really proud of her cards.  She showed them off to Cleve who made a big fuss over them and stopped what he was doing to get her a cool little bag for her new treasures:

I paid for my auction wins, which I'll write about tomorrow, and packed up my daughter in my truck.  She poured over her cards all the way home, and has not stopped since we came through the door.  In fact, she's calling me right now to come look at her cards with her, so I better wrap this up.

I have to say, the quarter vending machine was a stroke of genius by Cleve.  What a great, kid-friendly way to spark youngsters interest in the hobby.  I've never put money in it myself as Cleve's adult customers have always understood the vending machine is for the kids that come in. 

I don't think it will be tough to talk my daughter into going back to Cleve's with me again.