30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Flea Market Finds #36: An Insane Abundance of Randomness


When:  Sunday, August 21st
Where:  Capitol Flea Market
What:  Way Too Much To List
How Much?:  $43

I apologize in advance for this long post, but that's what happens when you spend three hours walking around a flea market loaded with interesting items.  It's pretty rare that I take a trip to my car to drop things off.  Last Sunday, I made two trips.

So without further adieu, here's a look at my finds...

Purchase #1:  Sports Cards  $20

I stumbled across a guy who has been slowly dumping his collection over the past few years and now he's finally down to the leftovers.  I spent an hour sifting through his binders and the singles he scattered across his six foot tables.

To make things a little easier to understand, I'll break the purchase down into three parts...

Part A:  Singles  $5


He had hundreds of singles in Card Savers and top loaders.  He was looking to get $1/card, but after hanging out and socializing, he hooked me up with these seven cards for $5.  These cards are in really good condition for being thrown out on a table with the exception of the Brodie (slight crease) and the Brown (rounded corners).

Part B:  Pages  $5




The guy also had six or seven binders full of cards.  He wanted $30/binder or $2/page.  I pretty much focused on the pages with vintage cards and in the end, he told me I could have five pages for five dollars.

Part C:  More Singles  $10



Within the scattered singles, certain cards were singled out with recent eBay prices.  I ended up grabbing these three vintage football hall of famers, plus a 1988 Oakland Raiders oddball set with this cool first year Bo Jackson.  According to his searches, the three cards and the set were in the $30 range (it's actually much lower).  He asked me if $10 was fair and I accepted.

In the end, I spent $20... but was able to add a ton of stars to my vintage binder.  Plus it was cool to hang out with another collector and reminisce on our cardboard memories.


Purchase #2:  Kenner Starting Lineups  $8

1993 Mark Messier (Canadian)

1996 Rod Carew (Anaheim Convention)

1997 Terrell Davis

Have I told you about my addiction to Kenner Starting Lineups?  It truly is a sickness.


Purchase #3:  Holograms & Commemorative Tickets  $5



Do you remember these?  Each hologram came with a ticket and if I remember correctly, the card shop I worked at during the early 90's sold them for $10 to $20 each.

I've actually see these pop up every now and then at card shows and during my flea market runs, but people usually want way too much.


Purchase #4:  Mr. T Bobble Head and a Shaun Alexander McFarlane  $3


I have absolutely no use for a Mr. T bobble head, but the Alexander figure will look awesome next to my autographed mini helmet.  The guy was asking for $4 for the pair, so I asked if he'd take $3.  I pity the fool who'd pay more.


Purchase #5:  Garfield Print w/Jim Davis Autograph  $2


This is easily my favorite purchase of the day and that's saying a lot, because I love SLU's and vintage cards.

Garfield and Jim Davis take me back to my elementary years, when I'd beg my mom to buy me their books at the book fair.  One of these days, I'll have it reframed (this one is trashed) when I find some wall space in my office or classroom for this awesome print.


Purchase #6:  2001 Bandai Ichiro Figure  $3


I'm not exactly sure what this is.  It's either a figure or a model kit.  Whatever it is, it's from Ichiro's first year in the MLB and it was made in Japan.

In other words, it'll make an awesome addition to my Ichiro PC.


Purchase #7:  Comic Books  $2


Yup.  More comic books.  I'm pretty sure this makes three weeks in a row.  Once again, I can't stay away from first issues and cool covers.  Oh well, at least I didn't buy thirty-five of them like last week.

Okay... that's all folks.  Time to take a break after spending the last two hours organizing and scanning these flea market purchases.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

24 comments:

Nick said...

Very neat finds! Love the '60 Topps Skowron, and those pages are great! I definitely would've pulled the trigger on a few of those.

Wes Moore the former JBF said...

Love the Mr. T!

Greg Zakwin said...

Sweet find on the Garfield piece!

Zayden said...

So, I don't think I've ever seen a flea market around where I live. It seems to be a darn shame though, and although I don't stray from cardboard often, I think I would end up with a pile like that as well!

cynicalbuddha said...

Man that Mr. T and Jim Davis auto print are great finds. Some times I wish I lived where there are cool flea markets.

Yankeejetsfan said...

Awesome pick ups. Drooling over those Topps Skowron cards. Great finds on them as well as the Davis auto.

jamicfin said...

My grandparents always had some Garfield books for me to read whenever I'd visit.
I also think that Ichiro is pretty sweet!

Dawgbones said...

Don't know what's funnier, the guy named Moose or the guy named Friend!!

BASEBALL DAD said...

Your flea markets are much better than ours !

Fuji said...

It's sometimes a curse in disguise... because I'm constantly giving away things to make room for new additions.

Fuji said...

It's not always this good. A lot of it has to do with the nice weather and people cleaning out their houses. The past two weekends have been the best in awhile. I usually go and I'm lucky to walk away with one really cool purchase.

Anonymous said...

I love me some Starting Lineups so hard.
I only have a few, but I've been on a spree.
Do you unbox yours or keep 'em plasticized?
Fuji! Show off more of your displayed collection!

What a haul!

Jafronius said...

Nice finds for that Mr T, SLU, and Garfield. You would have been the fool he pitied if you didn't pick those up!

Anonymous said...

awesome vintage football finds, Sonny's jersey looks a little too big for him :)

The Big Kahuna said...

That is one sweet Garfield pic! A Canadian version of Mark Messier in a rangers uni = sweetness! I have that same figure but in the American version. I also have Bishop #1 and I always wished they would've done more with his character.

Spankee said...

I'm terrified of the flea market in my city. I'll either spend too much money, get shot, or catch a disease. Yours sounds considerably nicer.

Swing And A Pop-up said...

I wish I had known about your addiction to Starting Lineups. I just got rid of a bunch of them for $1 a piece at a yard sale.
Great pickups, by the way.

Fuji said...

It depends on the situation. If it's a rookie piece or an older piece that's in really good shape, I'll keep it sealed. But everything else, I pop open... since I collect the SLU cards too.

Here's a link to my wall of fame:

http://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-wall-of-fame.html

It has changed a little. I'll try to do an update post in the near future.

Fuji said...

LOL... it depends. The De Anza Flea Market is definitely a middle class flea market. Unfortunately that's only one the first Saturday of every month. Usually I go to the Capitol Flea Market, which tends to be a little more scary. I don't think people get shot... but I'm sure there are plenty of diseases to be had. One of the first things I do when I get home is take a shower ;-)

Fuji said...

$1 SLU's? I would have been in heaven. Somebody scored big time.

Fuji said...

Me too. I'm glad the X-Men cartoons focused on him a lot.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Fuji! Thanks for posting the link. I just checked it all out (I consistently forget to check the box "email me updates to this post" so I just got to checking back in to this thread) and that wall is truly enviable beauty, throughout! (I'd have liked to expanded the images but they weren't opening up bigger for me...?)

I don't have one thing hung on what is going to become my sports wall in my office, though I have a vintage Chargers pennant ready to go up! Can you remember what kind of shelves you picked up? I really like how they look and seem just big enough to get both boxed Starting Lineup figures as well as un-boxed McFarlane's on them, both of which I'm showing signs of increased addition...happily!

Thanks, Fuji!

Your collection is phenomenal!

Fuji said...

The shelves were purchased at Target. I bought two more a few months ago, so I assume they still make them.

I'll try to have my updated wall of fame post up by next week at the latest.

Anonymous said...

I'd checked Target this past weekend when we were there, but didn't see anything that resembles your quality set-up. Just checking online, I think I found some. Thanks for the recommendation, Fuji!

I'm looking forward to more photos of your collection!