Flea Market Finds #51: Baseball Binder & Shoe Box

When:  Sunday, December 29th
Where:  Capitol Flea Market
What:  Budget Baseball Cards
How Much?:  $10

It's been really cold in the morning these past few weeks, so I haven't really been motivated to jump out of bed during the weekends to head out to the flea market.  But I'm sure glad I did yesterday.

My favorite thing to find at flea markets are cheap sports cards and that's exactly what I found on Sunday.  Both of my purchases came from the same vendor... a guy who collected during the 90's and early 2000's.  Sound familiar?

He was looking to liquidate his collection in an attempt to recover some of the money he initially invested... although he understood that the hobby had evolved and his cards were worth only a fraction of what they once were.  Sound familiar?

Most of his collection was laid out on a table.  He had several binders and boxes, but his stuff was a little out of my price range.  I asked if he had any "cheap" stuff and he pulled out this binder...

Purchase 1A:  The Binder $5

Before I even opened it, he told me he was looking to get $5 for the whole thing.  Within two or three pages, I knew I was interested.

Most of the pages were filled with 2002 Topps Gallery baseball cards.  If you're not familiar with the set, it features paintings instead of photos and is one of my favorite products from back in the day.  Here are a few of my favorites: 

The guy was upfront and told me that it was an incomplete set.  However I was pleasantly surprised to see the Joe Mauer rookie card sitting safely among the pages.

In fact, the only card I'm missing is card #157 Morgan Ensberg.  Anyone have one of these laying around?

In addition to the set, there were also a few inserts from 2002 Topps Gallery and 2001 Fleer Game Time:

My personal favorite is this Tony Gwynn insert from the 2002 Topps Gallery Heritage set, which features painted renditions of famous rookie cards:

Last... but not least there was this awesome Greg Maddux relic card:

While I was flipping through the binder, he pulled out a shoe box filled with more baseball cards.  He told me that if I bought the binder, I could have the entire box for five more dollars.

Purchase #1B:  The Shoe Box $5

The guy admitted that he had no idea what was in this box.  But for less than the price of a blaster, who doesn't like surprises?  I figured the shoe box itself was worth a couple of bucks.

When I got home and sifted through the cards, I discovered that it was mostly random base cards with a few rookie cards sprinkled in there.  The best rookie card in the box was a 1989 Upper Deck Randy Johnson.  It's not in very good condition, but at least my Damaged Card Binder has a new inhabitant.

There were a few cards in screwdowns as well...

I'm not quite sure why he had an autograph of White Chocolate... but I'll take it.  And the SP Chirography autograph of Konerko is beautiful.  Both will make nice additions to the collection.

Well... that's all that I have for today.  No vintage Mantles or autographs of Jeter, but I'm not complaining too much.  Discount sports cards are more of my style anyways.

Happy Monday and sayonara!