Flea Market Finds #94: Helmet, Programs, and Wax

Back in the 90's, Branham High School in San Jose hosted card shows every other weekend.  They were small... maybe twenty to thirty vendors... but it was a place where collectors had the opportunity to hang out, talk shop, and exchange cardboard.

Those shows are long gone, however in its place is a small flea market that takes place on the third Saturday of each month.  And believe it or not... one of the regular vendors actually used to set up at the card show back in the day.

This weekend ended up being sort of a sports card reunion, because I also ran into a guy I worked with at Fun Stuff Collectibles back in the late 90's.  I didn't end up buying any sports cards off of either of them, but it was fun reminiscing and talking sports cards.

Although there weren't any great deals on baseball cards, I was able to find some other pieces of sports memorabilia... and some non-sports packs.

Purchase #1:  Rawlings Pro 55 Seahawks Helmet $10

This ranks up there in one of my finest Flea Market Finds in terms of bang for my buck.  It's a full sized helmet from the late 80's... complete with pads.  

Although it's over two decades old, it's still in very good condition and is an amazing addition to my Seattle Seahawks PC.

The vendor had a few other teams like the New England Patriots (old logo), Houston Oilers, and Atlanta Falcons, but I dropped the ball and didn't buy them.  At the time I didn't realize that these sell for a decent dime on eBay.


Purchase #2:  Video Game Wax Packs $1

Video games have been a part of my life since the late 70's.  It started with Pong and my Atari 2600.  Since then, I've owned and played everything from an NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, N64, Sony Playstation, Sega Dreamcast, and PS2... to an Xbox and PS3.  These days... I'm lucky if I pick up the PS3 controller once a month.  But flea markets are loaded with old video games, so I constantly have the opportunity to think about my video game years.

I rarely buy video games anymore, but my eyes lit up when I saw a pack of 1983 Topps Video City sitting in a guy's 3 for $1 bin.  The vendor only had one more pack, so I grabbed a pack of 1980 Fleer Pac-Man instead.

I'll be adding one of each of these packs to my Non-Sport Wax PC, but will probably open the extra Video City in a future Flash(p)ack Friday post.


Purchase #3:  Rose Bowl Programs and Ticket Stub $13

I'm a sucker for old sports programs.  There's just something about the beautiful artwork on the covers and the awesome advertisements.  I found a stack of them sitting on this lady's table and was immediately drawn to this 1952 program that features the Stanford Cardinals:

The woman wanted $5 which sounded fair to me, so I started digging deeper into the stack.  She had a few others including an old Notre Dame program that my friend picked up.  I ended up adding this 1949 Rose Bowl program to my stack:

She wanted $10, but told me I could have the pair for $13.  Normally I probably would have passed on the $8 program.  However... as I was flipping through it looking at the advertisements... I found this inside:

I figured the ticket stub plus the program was well worth the eight dollars she wanted.

That wraps up another trip to the flea market.  Not a lot of volume... but old friends, great memories, and a few cool purchases totally made it worth it.

Happy Monday and sayonara!