30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Flea Market Finds #181: Dime Box Cards

This year has been one of the best in regards to flea market finds, but after two poor outings in a row... I'm starting to think the hot streak is over.

Two weeks ago, I walked around the De Anza Flea Market and didn't purchase a single item.  A friend of mine made a big purchase involving hundreds of packs and as a consolation prize tossed me one.  I'll share its contents in a future post, because I'm too lazy to run out to my car.

Two weeks before that, I walked around the Branham Flea Market and had it not been for a guy with a dime box, I would have walked away with nothing again.

Although all of these items were purchased at the same time, it's easier to split them up into two categories...

Purchase #1aThe Oversized Stuff  $3


They're a pain in the butt to store, but I will happily purchase any box topper I come across if the price is right.  Ten cents works for me.

Here are a few of my favorites:

2020 Topps Holiday Ornament #WHO-MB

Some of you might remember my metal Christmas tree.  Well I've slowly been accumulating some of the Topps Ornament box toppers from the past five years.  Just need a few more to decorate an updated version of it. 

2021 Heritage Box Topper #OB-VG

In the midst of preparing this post, Vladito was having a monster series against the New York Yankees.  Unfortunately he hasn't found the same success against Seattle's pitchers.

2011 Topps Lineage 1964 Topps Giants Box Topper #TG9

The 1964 Topps Giants is one of my favorite vintage oddball sets.  I'm a huge fan of the simple design and was very lucky to add the full sixty card set to my collection a few years ago.  I'm not building this box topper set, but I'll happily add affordable singles when I stumble across them. 

2013 Panini Golden Age Exhibit Box Topper #25

This is probably the least interesting card for the majority of you, but it's my favorite from the bunch.  I can't tell you much about Mr. Johnson that you can't look up on Wikipedia... but this card makes me think of my father who was a huge boxing fan in his youth.

Okay, let's check out the rest of the dime box purchases...


Purchase #1bThe Standard Stuff  $7

Here's a heads up... there wasn't a lot of baseball in this guy's dime box and the stuff he did have I wasn't interested in.  That being said, there were a bunch of other sports represented and some non-sports too.


I was a pretty diehard San Jose Sharks fan for their first thirty seasons, but I haven't really followed them, the sport, or hockey card industry in several years.  I'll still buy some Sharks, hockey autographs, and 90's inserts from time to time.  But if they started skating in the past ten years, I have no idea who they are.  That being said, I know that the Upper Deck Young Guns are popular among hockey card collectors.  At 10¢ each, I figured I'd grab every copy this guy had.


The same 10¢ rule applies to any shiny Pokemon cards I come across.  The hidden treasure in the box is political trading card of Mark Takano.  Never seen these before, but it's an interesting addition to my Japanese Pc.


There were a bunch of these Disney cards in the guy's dime box.  I picked up a bunch for one of my co-workers who is a huge Disney fan.  However I held onto a few including the Beagle Boys and Goofy cards above.

I was also happy to find a bunch of new Jon Jones cards for my collection:


I don't consider myself a huge MMA fan, but I did enjoy following Jones in the UFC Octagon.


Here are a few more singles I found in the dime box.  Honestly there wasn't anything too mind blowing in this guy's box... but I had fun flipping through it.  Hopefully he'll be out there again this Saturday.  If not... I'm hoping to find at least something card related to purchase out there.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

13 comments:

  1. Any Heritage box toppers at a reasonable price is a winner! Those are awesome!

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  2. That Jack Johnson card is sweet!

    Good Job. ✌️

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  3. Yeah, oversized cards don't bother me. I'll figure out some way to store them.

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  4. That oversized stuff is very cool--you made out extremely well!

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  5. Be sure to take my lists with you lol

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  6. If you haven't seen the film Ken Burns made about Jack Johnson, Unforgivable Blackness, it's absolutely wonderful. Caught it on PBS during a snowy day years ago and I was so glad I did.

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  7. .10 Box Toppers is Crazy! Most of the time there is an extreme premium for boxtoppers, I have the Johnson Boxtopper in my Boxing collection but I probably had to give $5 for it. I haven't even seen the Tunny one before. As a matter of fact the Johnson Topper is the only boxing card I have from that whole set.

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  8. mr haverkamp - sure hope he has more this weekend. unfortunately he's not always out there. we shall see.

    john sharp - yeah, it's definitely my favorite out of the lot

    jeff b - yup. i'm glad he had them. otherwise i would have left the flea market empty handed :D

    night owl - i have soft sleeves in a variety of sizes. i just slid the box toppers into them and then tossed them into a box. the one exception was the oversized kodai senga card. that went into my japanese binder.

    dennis - thanks buddy. the past two trips to the flea market hasn't been very strong. hopefully things turn around this upcoming weekend

    johnnys trading spot - not quite as good as your 5¢ pickups though :D

    poison75 - i'll keep that in mind, but i don't even take my own lists with me to the flea market :D

    brett alan - i just looked on my streaming services and it didn't pop up. looks like it's on apple tv. if i ever start that subscription again, i'll check it out

    adame - it's a really cool looking set. i like the variety on the checklist.

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  9. 10 cents a pop even for common Young Guns is a great deal! And some of those guys are still in the NHL.

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  10. Great pickups on the Mickey Mouse cards! Beagle Boys very memorable from my childhood

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  11. Jack Johnson wins it.
    First black world heavyweight champion.

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