Flea Market Finds #103: Mystery Bag of Cardboard and More

If you read Tuesday's post, then you know I've cut back on my flea market pickups.  So until things pick up and go back to the good old days... I think I'm going to combine my flea market finds into one monthly post.

Purchase #1:  2016 Topps Heritage Real One Autograph $25

This actually wasn't my first purchase, but it's my favorite so I figured I'd use it to get things rolling.  Last year, I started building a collection of Al Kaline autographs after reading a cool article that Baseball Digest featured him.

My buddy recently pulled this card out of his box of 2016 Heritage and was asking $35 for this beautiful hard signed card of Mr. Tiger.  It's a fair price, but I told him I won't spend more than $25 for his signatures.  It's a number I came up with last year and I've pretty much stuck to it with the exception of a few cards.

Long story short... he accepted my $25 offer and as an added bonus he threw in this Batista card I wanted.

Purchase #2:  Mystery Bag of Cardboard $5

Okay... there nothing too mysterious about this bag.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it was filled with a bunch of overproduced 90's non-sports trading cards.

Normally... I wouldn't bother with this heap of trash... but sitting on the bottom of the bag was a box of True Crime cards... along with a few small factory sets and packs.  After sorting through the junk... here's a look at the stuff I didn't toss:

Anyone else excited as me about finding a pack of In Living Color trading cards?


Purchase #3:  1991 BBM Japanese Baseball Cards $15

There's always a first time for everything... and this was the first time I've found BBM cards at the flea market.  This guy who had bought a storage unit was selling a bunch of early 90's factory sets and wax boxes, so checked out his inventory in hopes of finding boxes of 1990 Leaf or 1993 Upper Deck SP.

Instead, I found a complete factory set and some wax packs of 1991 BBM baseball cards.  For those who aren't familiar with this product, it features several early issue Hideo Nomo cards.  There was also a factory set of 1991 BBM All-Star cards... which I had never seen or heard of before that day.


Purchase #4:  Danbury Mint SBC Park $3

The Kaline might be my favorite purchase... but this is easily the best bargain.  For those who aren't familiar with Danbury Mint, they're a company known for their collectible plates, die cast vehicles, and sculptures.

They also create hand painted replicas of different stadiums from different sports.  I've actually looked into acquiring the Oakland Coliseum, Lambeau Field, and the Kingdome replicas in the past, but they tend to sell for more than I'm willing to spend.

I found this replica of SBC Park at the Capitol Flea Market last Sunday.  Capitol is known more for their garbage than their collectibles, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this sitting on some guy's tarp.

The guy was asking $5, but I countered with $3 because I thought this piece was damaged.  If you look closely past Levi's Landing (right field wall) you'll notice four pillars.  Originally I though they were part of a stadium billboard... but actually they're just pillars.

Well that pretty much sums up all of my flea market finds relating to sports and trading cards over the past few weeks.  I've actually picked up a few other things like DVD's and fruit too... but I'm pretty sure nobody is interested in hearing about the sweet mangoes I found a few weeks back.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!