Garage Sale Grabs #1: Private & Personalized

When it comes to shopping for collectibles locally... I prefer flea markets over antique stores, card shops, card shows, social media, or garage sales.  That being said... there's no way I'm passing up the opportunity for a private garage sale with items specifically catered to me.

That's what happened back in April when this woman was helping out with her friend's estate sale.  She had invited me to a street sale, but by the time I arrived, some of the sports related items had already been sold.  She told me there were still plenty of boxes that hadn't been sorted or organized at her house and invited me to come over the following weekend to see for myself.

When I arrived, she had four tables spread out in her driveway and garage with a ton of sports and card related items.  The gentleman's collection was truly impressive.  Unfortunately most of the interesting stuff was more than I was willing to pay.  I did find a few items within my budget...

Purchase #1:  1967 Topps Posters Lot  $50

This was the item I was most excited about.  I really love the design of the 1967 Topps Posters and when I saw that the lot included Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, I immediately set aside the lot.

1967 Topps Posters #6

1967 Topps Posters #11

The posters were stored in two pocket PVC pages (the thicker gauge plastic pages that people used in the 80's), which made removing the posters a challenge.  They're printed on very thin paper (like newspaper), so they're very fragile (especially along the folds).  

1967 Topps Posters #12

1967 Topps Posters #15

As a result, more than half of these posters are torn or have missing pieces.  I should have examined them at the garage sale.  If I had, I would have asked her to reduce the price or put it back.

Purchase #2:  Ticket Stubs  $40

Giants vs. Dodgers 9/30/99 Ticket Stub

This ticket stub is from the last San Francisco Giants' game at Candlestick Park, which is one of the ballparks from my childhood.  As much as I wanted to add this to my collection, her asking price was a little steep.

I asked her if she'd toss in this ticket stub:

Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran 6/20/80 Ticket Stub

She had a stack of these at the flea market.  This was another situation where I should have paid closer attention to what I was buying.  I thought this was an actual ticket stub to attend the fight.  However the fight took place in Montreal, Canada... not Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

In other words, this was a ticket stub to watch the fight on CCTV at the Sioux Falls Arena.  At least it's content for a blog post.

Purchase #3:  Vintage Lot  $70

The third and final purchase ended up being the best deal... with a pretty cool surprise.  It consisted of ten vintage sports cards:

The key card was the Willie McCovey rookie card:

1960 Topps #316

This is a card I have wanted to own for a long time.  I always assumed it was a high valued card (even in poor conditions), but lower grade copies like this one can be found for under $50... sometimes under $25.

I also added this reasonably priced HOF rookie card to the stack:

1952 Bowman #5

Hidden among the eight remaining cards was this interesting surprise as this card ended up being worth more than the McCovey and Minoso combined:

1963 Post Cereal #119

At first glance, it looks like your standard 60's Post Cereal card.  However after doing a little digging, I discovered that Willie Davis is one of the short prints in the set.

There's also a Jello version of Mr. Davis which is more common and affordable.  The easiest way to spot the difference is look at the red line in the stats area.  If it ends where the blue stars end, then the Davis is from a Jello box.  If the red line extends well past the blue stars, then it's a Post Cereal card.

Well that wraps up my first trip to a garage sale in years.  Not sure if I'm gonna start seeking them out on a regular basis, but if I do... I'll start a Garage Sale Grabs series.

It's not high on the priority list, but you never know.

Until then...

What's the coolest item you have ever found at a garage sale?

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments down below.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Sunday Sort: Patches, Planes, & The Professor

The past six Sundays, I've dedicated at least a couple of hours to sorting and scanning with the majority of the cards coming from fellow bloggers.  Sadly... after today I'm down one free Sunday.  After that, I head back into the classroom for my 29th year.

I'm hoping to continue to set aside part of every Sunday to work on hobby related stuff, but we'll have to see how things play out.  The start of every school year is usually very busy.

Anyways... let's get some of the highlight's from today's sort.

Let's start off with some Oakland Athletics that John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me last month:

2026 Topps Rainbow Foil #122

This card features two cool patches.  Lawrence Butler has a Las Vegas patch on his right sleeve, while Nick Kurtz features the Tower Bridge in Sacramento on his left sleeve.  I'm not exactly a patch collector, but this card motivated me to go out and purchase a pair of those tower patches for my Athletics PC.

2009 Topps Triple Threads Emerald #128 (#'d 31/50)

Back in the late 2000's, Cahill was considered one of the A's top prospects.  Unfortunately he only had one notable season with them before being sent off to Arizona.  Player aside... this autographed relic is a great looking card with OAKLAND being the center of attention.

1999 SP Authentic Chirography #EC

Whenever I think of Eric Chavez, "underrated" comes to mind.  He never played in the Midsummer Classic, yet he won six consecutive Gold Glove Awards and hit 20+ home runs in seven consecutive seasons with the A's.

John also tossed in a trio of O-Pee-Chee A's:

1984 O-Pee-Chee Baseball

One of these days, I'm going to sit down and build a bunch of team sets.  1980's O-Pee-Chee A's and Padres will be high on the priority list and these three cards will go toward the 1984 A's team set build.

Next up is this really cool Kurt Suzuki insert:

2020 Topps Archives Snapshots Walkoff Wires #WW-KS

This card commemorates Kurt Suzuki's three-run walk-off home run off Edwin Diaz back on 9/3/19.  The Nationals entered the bottom of the ninth trailing the New York Mets by six runs, but walked away winning 11-10.

Here are a few other Japanese guys for my collection:

And a few mascots:

2019 Topps Stickers #'s 210, 227, & 234

And a quartet of vintage airplane cards:

1957 Topps Planes of the World #15, 38, 53, & 60

My dad would have appreciated these cards.

He worked at Lockheed for a few years in the 60's on the SR-71 Blackbird.  I'm hoping Topps will one day produce another set of airplane trading cards and include the famous reconnaissance aircraft.

Rounding out John's care package was a giant stack of Greg Maddux cards.  Half were part of a Maddux Monday giveaway that I won.  The other half was a stack that John Sharp had won and passed along to me.  I picked four favorites from each stack:

Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life! also sent me a pair of Greg Maddux cards:

He also included a pair of Jackie Robinson cards and this Hank Greenberg for my Topps Glossy All-Stars project:

1985 Topps Glossy All-Stars #22

One card closer to completing this project.

And rounding out the Sunday Sort is a four-pack of NPB cards from Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards:

The top two cards are from this year's Calbee set.  Unfortunately, when I used Google Translate I didn't recognize either of these guys.  However the two shiny Dream Order cards featured familiar names.

The guy on the bottom-left is Kazuma Okamoto.  He's the starting third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Next to him is Teruaki Sato.  He is the starting third baseman for the Hanshin Tigers.  If you haven't heard of him, get ready.  There's a good chance he comes over to play in the states in the near future.

Thank you John, Bo, and Kenny for these generous care packages!  And thank you Mr. Sharp for donating your Maddux winnings to me.

I hope all of you had a great weekend.  Happy Sunday and sayonara! 

Flea Market Finds #189: Fill A Bag

In regards to views and comments, Flea Market Finds are the bread and butter posts on this blog.  Unfortunately it's been nearly three months since I've written one of these posts.  A busy end of the school year schedule along with prioritizing care packages from fellow bloggers essentially pushed these posts the back burner.

Now these posts are starting to pile up in my draft folder, so it's time to start recapping some spring trips to the local flea market.

Today's post covers a trip to the Branham High School Flea Market back on Saturday, April 18th.

Although I took notes on purchases, I completely forgot to write anything down about the weather, the crowds, or the vendors.  Not sure if that's important to anyone, but I usually like to include that info to help keep my memory fresh.  Oh well.  Let's get to what I found...

Purchase #1:  Cheap Cards  $4

The first vendor on the first row is a regular I have purchased stuff from on multiple trips.  While I was flipping through his card boxes, he was telling me about his mom who is battling cancer.  Normally, I would have walked away without making a purchase.  However I wanted to leave the interaction on a positive note by purchasing something.  

2024 Heritage Baseball Flashbacks #BF-5

1992 Leaf Gold #57

The first two cards were 50¢ each, while the final three were dollar cards:

2020 Bowman Prospects #BP-108 (x2)

1994 Topps Black Gold Redemption Winner A #NNO

Expired redemption cards are one of those collections I don't really talk about... but I truly enjoy finding in the wild.

Purchase #2:  Start of a New Collection  $2

Maybe it's because there weren't a ton of vendors with cards.  Maybe it's because I have a sickness when it comes to stuff I treasured as a kid.  Whatever it was, I was drawn to this table of cassette tapes.  There were a few I owned when I was a kid, but something in my brain told me rebuilding this collection could be a slippery slope.

So I grabbed the one that stood out the most:

Go-Go's Beauty and the Beat (1981)

This was the Go-Go's debut album which was #1 for six straight weeks on the Billboard 200 in March and April of 1982.

Purchase #3:  Cards & Cassettes  $22

That slippery slope I just mentioned... just go real.  I owned a copy of this cassette tape as a kid:

The Police Synchronicity (1983)

Honestly there's a good chance my childhood copy is sitting in a box somewhere in my garage.  But after purchasing the Go-Go's tape, I figured I'd add this to my cassette tape collection rebuild.

The vendor also had a bunch of cards and other knickknacks scattered on a table.  That's where I found these two Junk Wax Era hall of famers:

1987 Fleer Update #U-68

1996-97 Collector's Choice A Cut Above: The Jordan Years #CA5

And this 22 card lot of vintage cowboy cards:

1951 Post Hopalong Cassidy

Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero that was popular in films in the 1930's and 40's.  There was also a television show based on him that ran on NBC from 1949 to 1952.

The Google app on my phone helped me identify this set on the spot.  These cards were inserted into boxes of Post cereal back in 1951.

He packaged them up with the two cards and cassette tape for $22, which seemed like a solid deal.

Purchase #4:  Bag of Stuff  $10

The couple with this set up had a two tables filled with a variety of items you'd find at someone's garage sale.  Their deal was fill a Target bag with as many items as you wanted for $10.

The two Topps factory sets immediately stood out:

1991 Topps Baseball Set

1992 Topps Baseball Set

Both of these sets had already been opened, but at this price I couldn't pass them up.  I also grabbed these five items and tossed them into the bag:

At the left are two souvenir photo books which I thought were interesting.  They remind me of going to San Francisco with my parents when I was little.  These are the kind of items I'd bug them to buy me when we'd stop into souvenir stores.

The black thing is a Nintendo Switch case that I ended up giving away to one of my 8th graders.  Under that is a Mickey's Steamboats souvenir baseball.  And the final item I tossed into the bag was a package of Christmas cards that I'll use for future care packages.

As for the two factory sets, they weren't complete.  Both sets were missing a handful of Giants.  But I did end up pulling out the A's and Padres team sets.  Also pulled out some key stars (in case I end up building more Topps base card runs) and a few rookies like these:

1991 Topps #333

1992 Topps #156

I'm going to use the base cards for an annual art project I do with my students where they create trading cards of their favorite civil rights leaders.

Well that wraps up my first Flea Market Finds post in nearly three months.  I still have a few more trips I need to recap as well as a yard sale yield and a card show haul.  With only four weeks left in my summer break, I need to start hammering these out hopefully at a rate of one per week.  We'll see how things play out.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!