30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

I'm addicted to Craigslist!

I'm done...

finished...

it's over!
I will not...

cannot...

better not...

spend another dime on sports cards.

That is... until the TriStar show comes around in a couple of weeks to the Bay Area.

This past weekend, I was out of control. I was like a kid in a candy store and I demonstrated no self control.

After dropping $23 at the flea market on Saturday, I received an email from the Craigslist guy from a few weeks ago. If you're not sure what I'm talking about... click here. Anyways, he told me he had some more stuff and asked if I was interested. In short... of course I was interested.

He had several unopened boxes, a few more sets, and some MLB Showdown singles. Like my last Craigslist purchase... I'll add a few things to my personal collection, give a couple of things away in my contest this summer, and the rest will go to my summer school students.

I'll show you what I picked up... and let you guess what I'm planning on keeping:

1987 Topps Baseball Set & a 1988 Topps Baseball Partial Set

Nope... it's not dejavu... it's another overproduced set of 1987 Topps baseball and another box of 1988 Topps baseball commons. I thought I got rid of this stuff years ago... I guess I was wrong. These two sets will haunt me for the rest of my life... as they're in every Craigslist Collection I purchase.

Four Wax Boxes
1984 Donruss Action All-Stars
1983 Topps Foldouts
1992 OPC Premier Baseball
1991 OPC Premier Baseball

I'm a huge fan of oddball issues... especially 80's oddball products. He had a box of 1983 Topps Baseball Foldouts and a box of 1984 Donruss Action All-Stars. I've heard of, but have never owned any Topps Foldouts. After doing some research, I've learned that each pack contains one of five possible sets. Each set is made up of a 9 panel foldout... which features one header card and 17 players. The five five different sets were: home run leaders, wins leaders, stolen base leaders, saves leaders, and batting average leaders.

When I was a kid, I was able to pick up a few packs of the 1985 Donruss All-Stars. I distinctly remember the oversized cards with the black graph paper-like borders. The 1984 set is oversized too, but it features a solid red border. There's a total of 60 cards in the set and there's also a Ted Williams puzzle that goes along with it. The box contains 36 packs and each pack has five cards, so with perfect collation, the box should yield three sets.

The last two boxes are a pair of OPC Premier boxes from the early 90's... definitely premier stuff... NOT. Both of these boxes are stereotypical "junk wax". The 1991 set contains 132 cards and has a book value of $10, while the 1992 set features a checklist of 198 cards with a whopping book value of $8.

Five More Sets
1986 Fleer Sluggers vs. Pitchers Set
1987 Fleer Baseball Superstars Set
1987 Fleer Sluggers vs. Pitchers Set
1990 Baseball Wit Game
1984 Donruss Champions Set

The guy must have a bunch of these Fleer "mini" sets and Baseball Wit games laying around his house, because like the previously mentioned Topps sets, all four of these were found in my first Craigslist Collection purchase. Can't complain though... because I've always had a soft spot for these 44 card sets that Fleer produced in the mid to late 80's and at least now I can pop one of the games open to see what the cards look like.

I've had my eyes on one of these 1984 Donruss Champions sets for a few years now and I finally have one in my possession. The set is made up of 60 cards and consists of all-time greats and current players (at least they were playing back in 1984). The all-time greats were illustrated by none other than Dick Perez, while the cards of the current players are photos. Beckett lists the set at $12 and the highest valued card is the $3 Mickey Mantle. They're oversized (postcard size) like the Donruss All-Stars and overall, the set is pretty cool.

MLB Showdown Singles

Last time, he gave me a couple of starter decks. This time, it looks like he gave me the remains of some booster pack busts. I'm too lazy to count, but there were two partially filled 100 ct. plastic boxes.


After sifting through them... I pulled out 9 of the 11 foil cards that were in there.
The two Maddux foils will make nice additions to my PC and the rest will be added to my baseball tradebait.

1987 Topps Baseball Rack Pack


Finally... he threw in this rack pack. This was sort of a last minute... added bonus. As I was walking to my car, he came out and handed me this pack. Of course, I had no self control and busted it. I was searching for the Bonds... or a Bo rookie. Instead... the best card I pulled was a third year card of one of my favorite pitchers from the 80's... Dwight Gooden:


So there you have it... $20 for a bunch of overproduced 80's stuff. No complaints here though... I gladly gave him the crisp twenty to get my hands on his haul.

The question is...

What do you think I'm keeping?

Better yet... what would you keep if you were me?

Happy Tuesday everyone... Sayonara!

5 comments:

Offy said...

I definitely wouldn't keep that Piazza foil MLB Showdown card. ;)

John Bateman said...

Donruss Champions - that set looks awesome - I vaguely remember it.

Baseball Wit - never heard before and I was into cards 24/7 back then.

Laurens said...

The Gary DiSarcina card is an uncorrected error since it pictures Tim Salmon.

Fuji said...

Offy - It's yours!

John Bateman - I agree... the Donruss Champions set is awesome... and it's definitely one of the items I'm holding onto.

Laurens - Wow... great eye... I never would have caught that!

Anonymous said...

Ooh, nice Vladdy.