30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Flea Market Finds #104: Cards and Comics

There was a time when I'd look forward to walking around the flea market on the weekend and search for hidden treasures.  On a good month, I'd go six or seven times... and on a bad month, I'd attend four or five.

Last Saturday was the first flea market I've gone to in over a month... and made my first purchase in close to two months.  Part of it has to do with stiffer competition.  There are several guys looking for the exact same stuff as me... and since I'm rarely the early bird... they seem to be the ones finding the most tasty worms.

Plus my schedule has been pretty crazy the past month, so I've been electing to sleep instead of heading out there and making my rounds.  But this weekend my buddy Mike came into town and set up at the De Anza Flea Market, so I decided to hang out and help him sell his sports memorabilia.

He gave me a few things which I'll share in a future post... plus I walked around and actually found some cards for my collection.

Purchase #1:  Two Sports Cards $1

There were actually a few people with trading cards set up, but only one one of them had anything I was semi-interested in.  He was actually more of a toy collector, but he had a pair of shoeboxes on the ground with sports cards, Pokemon cards, and Yu-gi-oh cards.  He was charging a dollar for each card and since there were autographs and memorabilia cards in the boxes, I figured it was worth a look.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this:

1975 Topps #312

Two years ago, I set out to collect vintage league leaders cards that featured only hall of famers on them.  I'm always on the lookout for the seven remaining on my wantlist.  This card features the two guys who led the league in strikeouts back in 1974... one of which I PC.

2004 Ultra WNBA All-Star Review Patches #20
(#'d 003/100)

I also grabbed me a nice memorabilia card.  I'm pretty sure I've never watched a single WNBA game in its entirety... but I'm a sucker for patches.  

The guy ended up selling me the patch card for a buck and threw in the league leaders card for free.


Purchase #2:  Vintage Mad Magazines $3


I've written about my childhood obsession with these magazines in the past, so whenever I find affordable copies with cool covers... I tend to grab them.  One vendor had a few stacks of them ranging from the late 60's to the early 80's.  These three were the ones that called out to me.

Well... that's it.  Four dollars in two months.  I plan on walking around the Branham Flea Market two weekends from now, so hopefully I'll find something I'm interested in.  If not... I'll probably just continue to save my hard earned money for the upcoming Serramonte Mall Collectibles Show at the end of the month.

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

8 comments:

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

rest up, before you know it summer will be over, lol.

BobWalkthePlank said...

I don't think I've ever seen a WNBA card in person.

gcrl said...

nice mads. i was a collector for a while - still have a complete run from somewhere in the mid-70's through 1985 or so.

GCA said...

Yeah, I have most of a whole office paper box full of Mads that I can send you the dates on or make a deal for the whole lot - cheap!

Jupiterhill said...

Nice Weatherspoon card, I haven't seen a WNBA jersey card, but have quite a few WNBA cards. I haven't watched a game in years, but I blame that on being busy and never knowing when they are on. It also doesn't help when the teams moves ever few years and I don't have any teams in my market.

I wish you luck on your next trip.Hope you find something amazing.

Hackenbush said...

Mad magazine must be like National Geographic. Nobody ever throws them away. I have a box from the 1970's as well.

gcrl said...

Suitable for wrapping fish!

Fuji said...

john - so true. i'm teaching summer school for seven weeks, so technically i only get two weeks off... plus a handful of days here and there. it's okay though... b/c it adds a little money to my account and it keeps me busy.

matthew - i'm embarrassed to admit that i collected them heavily in 1999 even though i didn't watch the sport. kinda like how i collected golf cards too.

gcrl - collecting a complete run sounds interesting. might need to chase down my birth year.

gca - i'd consider your offer... but i'm thinking shipping would be way too expensive..

jupiterhill - i think the main deterrent for me is that i've lost interest in basketball in general... which is pretty sad b/c it was my favorite sport to play for many, many years

hackenbush - probably why i'm able to find near mint conditioned issues for a buck a piece ;)