I'll start off this post by pointing out that I skipped #190 in my Flea Market Finds series., because I'm reserving the spot for purchases made back on May 2nd at the De Anza Flea Market. One of the purchases was a large collection that I have not touched in months. It's one of those things that I'm excited to document, but it's a project that will likely take one to two weeks of dedication.
In the meantime, I have decided to skip ahead to the purchases I made on August 1st at the De Anza Flea Market. I remember it was a pretty hot day, so I only made one pass through. It was also my first time walking around that flea market in three months, so I was in the mood to shop. Luckily, I found some interesting items to add to my collection...
Purchase #1: Hello Kitty Bobblehead $3
2015 San Francisco Giants SGA (6/28/15)
Okay. Maybe a Hello Kitty bobblehead isn't considered interesting, but even with damaged packaging... $3 was too cheap to pass up.
A few minutes later, I saw this baseball sitting on a lady's table:
2026 has been the year of purchasing playing cards for me. These were more affordable compared to the 2004 The Real Deal John Kerry Presidential Deck I purchased back in March.
The lady wanted $25 for each, so I put the baseball set down and asked her if she'd take $20 for this box. She countered with $23. Then I offered her a coin flip challenge. If they win, I pay $25. If I win, I pay $20. Yup. I lost.
There's also a rookie year card of Emmitt in these sets too, but they haven't quite boomed in value.
Rawlings MLB-L Baseball
Anyone recognize this type of baseball? Although it says official, I'm guessing these were not used in official MLB games. Anyways... I decided to buy it because it was signed on the side panel:
I realize the odds of this being a legit Mickey Mantle signature is low, but I beat the odds back in 2015 when I purchased a Willie Mays signed baseball for $8. I eventually had it authenticated by PSA/DNA and it passed.
I no longer have any connection to any autograph certification companies, so most likely this ball will just sit in my baseball collection as a mystery.
Purchase #3: Decks of Cards $10
About halfway through the flea market, I had only seen a handful of vendors with trading cards. Most had the late 80's overproduced stuff at outrageous prices. My friends set up too, but I didn't find anything in their cases either.
However a few spots down from them, I found a guy with a collection of card decks. I ended up grabbing these five:
1988 US Games American Authors Card Game
1994 Bicycle San Francisco Giants
2003 Hoyle Iraqi Most Wanted
2000 Action Publishing Politicards
2004 Action Publishing Politicards
Purchase #4: Star Wars Comic Run $23
Seems like every vendor with trading cards believes their sitting on a gold mine. That's not a good thing for bargain bin collectors like myself. Although I did find a few cool cards like another 1990 Score B&W Bo... I just can't justify spending $20 for a card that will sometimes pop up in dollar bins.
That's why I've started targeting a few other items in recent months like cassette tapes, playing card decks, and comic books.
One vendor had a long box filled with 90's Dark Horse Star Wars comic books. Not sure if I have ever mentioned this, but I'm a huge fan of these books. Unfortunately this guy wasn't blowing out his collection, but his prices were slightly lower than eBay comps.
I was interested in a few different runs, but ultimately I went with the Shadows of the Empire story line:
1996 Dark Horse SW: Shadows of the Empire #1, 2, & 3
1996 Dark Horse SW: Shadows of the Empire #4, 5, & 6
This comic book series fills the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I never actually read the comics, but my friends and I played the N64 game back in the mid 90's.
Purchase #5: Football Sets $25
With temperatures rising, I came close to leaving early and skipping the final two rows.
I'm glad I didn't, because I finally found some reasonably priced sports cards. This couple had several three row monster boxes filled with 90's cards, but they were asking $100 per box. Two guys were sifting through them and wanted to buy all three until they heard the price.
I'm not a fan of digging through boxes that someone else is already going through, so I looked into their 660 and 800ct. boxes that were off to the side. Two stood out to me. One had a complete 1987 Donruss baseball set. The other looked like this:
That being said, I was pretty shocked at the going rates for the 1990 Score Supplemental set:
1990 Score Supplemental Factory Set
Can you believe that these sets are selling in the $100 to $140 range on eBay? Emmitt Smith's most popular rookie card is main draw, but it also contains rookie cards of Lincoln Kennedy and Junior Seau.
There were also a bunch of these 1990 Pro Set Update sets inside the box:
1990 Pro Set Update Set
Purchase #6: A New Album $5
The final purchase of the day was a new copy of this 70's record album:
1972 Fleetwood Finley's Heroes LP
I already have a framed copy hanging up in my office. However for five bucks, I couldn't pass up it up. If you'd like to listen to the album, click here.
Sorry there weren't more cards in this particular flea market haul, but I did find two vendors with bargain boxes at last weekend's flea market. Depending on how hectic things are around here, I should have a recap of that trip up sometime next week. As for recap of the De Anza Flea Market back in May, that could be posted in a few weeks... or a few months.
Until then...
Happy Wednesday and sayonara!
