Stickers, Stains, & Stones

Every Sunday I try to set aside some time to sit down and sort.  Today's schedule was a little hectic.  Started the day off with the farmer's market, grocery shopping, and two loads of laundry.  Then I headed over to my friend's house to watch the World Cup Final... which was pretty entertaining.

As soon as the game was over, I rushed home and started sorting and scanning stuff.  Today's post focuses on some PWE's from a pair of bloggers.

Let's start with this gorgeous gum stained card from Jeremy over at Topps Cards That Never Were:

1986 Topps #531

It's funny.  I've opened, sorted, and handled a fair share of 1986 Topps baseball, but today was the first time in 40 years that I noticed that Topps labeled the team leaders card as DEAN OF THE WHITE SOX on the back.  Maybe I noticed it as a kid and forgot.  Or maybe I just don't pay close enough attention to card backs.

Jeremy also tossed in these two cards for my A's collection:

2025 Donruss #7

2021 Topps Green #571 (#'d 366/499)

Two of my all-time favorite Athletics.  Although right now Zuk is managing the Los Angeles Angels who currently have the worst record in baseball.  Still it's a nice addition to my Kurt Suzuki collection.

The next pair of Oakland A's items are from Jim over at cards as i see them:

1968-75 Fleer Cloth Team Logo Patches

1968-75 Fleer Cloth Team Logo Patches

Once upon a time, I was seeking cheap lots of these cloth patches on eBay.  But there are so many variations, I eventually gave up.  I already own both of these stickers, but those are part of my set build.  These two are headed into my A's collection.

Last week, Jim sent me another PWE.  This time it featured one of my all-time favorite cards:

1983 Topps #482

He found this Tony Gwynn rookie card sitting in a quarter bin at last month's Twin Cities Collector Club Card Show.  Twenty-five cents!  It's obviously not in gem mint condition, but it's too iconic of a card to be sitting in a quarter bin.  I'm grateful that he rescued it.

Jim suggested in his blog post that it could potentially be a future wallet card.  Unfortunately, my current wallet card will likely be my final wallet card.  But don't worry, I will happily provide this Gwynn with a loving home in my Damaged Card PC.

While our attention is on Mr. Padre, I wanted to quickly share this rock that I painted at my friend's house on America's birthday:

It's far from a masterpiece, but it is a one-of-a-kind paperweight.  😂

Thank you Jeremy and Jim for these thoughtful care packages.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Extra Time

1994 UD World Cup Toons Finals Qualifiers Holograms #Q21

Congratulations to Spain on their victory over Argentina to win the 2026 World Cup!  I'm not a fútbol expert, but it seemed like they controlled the game from start to finish.  If it weren't for some fantastic saves by Argentina's goalie, this game might have been a blowout.

A special shoutout to Dominic over at Don Cardwell Loves this Blog.  He's dedicated a couple of blog posts to show his support for Spain.  Congratulations!

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!

The Contest

The Contest is one of the funniest and most popular Seinfeld episodes of all-time.  And it's the perfect lead-in for today's Sunday Sort topic:  contests & Seinfeld.

Back in January, Dominic over at Don Cardwell Loves this Blog held a Super Bowl Pick 'Em contest over on his blog.  Going into the big game, it came down to me and Tom over at Batting Out of Order.  Both of us had picked our favorite teams.  He had the New England Patriots and I rolled with the Seattle Seahawks.  Their Super Bowl victory led me to winning this pack of cards:

2025 Donruss Football

Here's what I pulled:

As a Packer fan, the Jacobs was the highlight of the pack... although it'll be interesting to see if the allegations against him are true or not.  The Burden rookie card could be a decent pull too.  I remember he had a big game against the 49ers late in the season last year.  Although since he's a Chicago Bear, I won't be rooting for him very often.

Let's fast forward to last month.  That's when Gregory over at Nine Pockets held a giveaway for one of his custom cards using a duck race.  Tom's duck finished first.  My duck finished in fifth.  Luckily... Gregory opened up his giveaway to the five fastest ducks, which meant that I got to choose a free custom.

He had a lot of cool cards to choose from including a few Seinfeld related cards and an awesome Beastie Boys In Action custom.  I purchased a few of the Beastie Boys cards when he first released them, so it came down to choosing one of the Seinfeld cards.

Ultimately I decided on the one you saw at the top of my post:

2024 Nine Pockets Custom #3

As I've mentioned a few times on this blog, George Costanza is my favorite character.  So this card will be joining two other customs that Gregory created:

2019 Nine Pockets Custom #1

2023 Nine Pockets Custom #7

Thank you Dominic for hosting this year's Super Bowl Pick 'Em and for the pack of cards.  And thank you Gregory for the custom card giveaway!  Your customs are amazing!  Keep up the great work.

As for the Sunday sort, it's slowly coming along.  I'm over half way through the blogger care packages and eBay purchases.  And I have even started working on some Flea Market Find posts that have been sitting in my draft folder since April.   Please stay tuned.

Until then...

Happy Sunday and sayonara!