Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Flea Market Finds #175: Cheap Sets, Cards, and Other Stuff


I just can't seem to catch up on these Flea Market Find posts.  Today's covers purchases I made at the De Anza Flea Market back on June 7th.  It had been three weeks since my previous trip to the flea market and the weekend before my final week of school, so I was excited to get out there and find stuff to buy.

Well... it wasn't quite as memorable as the trip to the Branham Flea Market, but I did find a few things for my collection.


Purchase #1Pair of Kobe Rookies  $30

1996-97 Fleer Metal #181

It took about thirty minutes before I came across anything worth buying.  The gentleman with these two cards is a regular who has a variety of items ranging from trinkets to sports cards.  I hadn't gone through his boxes in a few months, so I flipped through them and found these.  He knew exactly what these were and offered me the pair for $40.  I countered with $30 and he accepted.


Purchase #280's Comic Books  $4




I sort have been on a comic book binge.  Anyways... there was a guy with a 2 for $1 box.  I started with pulling out the Double Dragon and Samurai Squirrel books, but ended up grabbing seven more.  I'm starting to think I have a problem.


Purchase #345's from the 1980's  $5

Another item I just can't seem to pass up is cheap vinyl.  This woman had a bunch of 45's from the 70's and 80's with different prices.  I grabbed five of the dollar ones:

Foreigner:  Feels Like the First Time

Gary NumanCars

Timex Social Club:  Rumors

Salt-N-Pepa:  Push It

WHAM!:  Careless Whisper

I like the first four songs, but I'm not the biggest fan of WHAM!.  Pretty much picked this up because it reminded me of this guy:

2013 Topps #316

Reddick used Careless Whisper as his walk-up song back in the day.


Purchase #4Star Wars Blu-ray  $1

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I had just finished watching Andor when I stumbled across this Blu-ray.  Figured for the price, it was a good deal.  Unfortunately, when I got home... I noticed that I already own a copy.  It's not a problem, because I'll just bring it to my classroom.


Purchase #5aMagazine Lot  $5


My final purchase of the day was actually three small purchases wrapped into one from a lady I previously dealt with at the other flea market.

Back in April at the Branham Flea Market, I ran into a lady selling her son's card collection.  I bought two basketball sets along with an unopened box of 1989 Bowman.

This time she set up at De Anza and she brought out some new stuff including these magazines.  I sort of have a mini-obsession with the Topps Magazines from the early 90's, so when I find them cheap, I'll grab them.


I bought the entire box for $5, but should have taken the time to count them out, because I pretty much only wanted these ten issues.  There were some water damaged Sports Illustrated issues that I recycled when I got home.

I also discovered this cool Beatles print from the early 90's tucked away in an envelope:


Unfortunately if you look closely there's a crease above John's head.


According to the note inside of the envelope, this print was a Disney Channel sweepstakes prize.


Purchase #5bCheap Sets  $5


She also had a bunch of sets at 1/2 off her sticker price, so I grabbed the 1984 and 1989 Topps Glossy Mail-In sets.  While looking over the others, she told me she'd give me a good deal if I bought more.  I packaged these six sets for five bucks.

I'm hoping to do a set showcase post on the 1982 Kmart boxed set.  If you'd like me to scan and show off any of these other sets, leave a comment down below.


Purchase #5cCheap Cards  $1


The lady also had a nickel box.  Most of it was early 90's basketball commons, but there was a small stack of 1984 Donruss (maybe 40 cards) and some random cards like a McDonald's Shaq rookie card.


There were also six unopened food issue packs that I snatched up right away.  I only grabbed fifteen cards from the box, so technically these were closer to 7¢ each... but that's a price tag I could live with.

Well that wraps up another trip to the De Anza Flea Market.  I have one more flea market post to write up and then I'll officially be caught up with them.  I'm hoping to finish taking photos and writing up that post over the weekend.

Until then...

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

Monday, July 7, 2025

One to Open, One to Keep


1991 Impel Laffs isn't going to be for everyone, but to a collector who enjoys building sets and opening packs... these two boxes brought a smile to my face.


Back in May, John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me these two unopened boxes that potentially could contain rookie cards of Steve Urkel and Balki Bartokomous.


For those of you who aren't familiar with this product, it focuses on three of ABC's TGIF television shows during the 1990-91 seasonFull House, Family Matters, and Perfect Strangers.

1991 Impel Laffs #25

Full House kicked off Friday evenings at 8pm and was featured on the first 26 cards in this 80 card set.  I watched this show a few times in high school, but by the time this product was released I was in college... so Friday evenings were usually reserved for going out.

1991 Impel Laffs #28

Steve Urkel and Family Matters followed Uncle Jesse and the Olsen Twins in the 8:30 slotImpel gave them the next twenty-six cards (#27 to #52) in the set.  I also watched a few episodes of Family Matters, but this was my least favorite show of the trio.  That being said... this Urkel card is my favorite card in the set.

1991 Impel Laffs #56

And rounding out the evening and set of cards was Perfect Strangers which came on at 9pm back then.  This was my favorite show out of the bunch and the one I remember the most.  However by the time these cards were created, I had stopped watching it.

Each show received twenty-six cards in the setTwo checklists rounded things out to make it an even eighty cards.  Within each show... there are actor cards, character cards, and a variety of scene cards.

1991 Impel Laffs #53

Each box has thirty-six packs with each pack containing five cards.  That's a total of 180 cards.  I figured that I'd easily be able to complete one set, but as Bronson Pinchot demonstrates... Impel's collation was terrible.

There were four or five cards that I pulled five copies of and a bunch of others with two, three, or four duplicates.


When the packs settled, I was left needing twenty-one cards for my set build.

Some of you might be wondering about the second box that John sent.  I debated opening it in an effort to complete this set.  But two things stopped me.

#1:  With the collation issues, there's no guarantee that I was going to pull all twenty-one cards that I need.

#2Johnny gave specific directionsOpen one boxKeep the other.

I know he wouldn't mind if I opened both, but I enjoy collecting unopened boxes.  For the time being... I have added it to the collection with hopes of completing this set through trades or bargain bins.  If anyone else is building this set, I have a lot of duplicates.  Maybe we can help each other out.

Thank you John for sending me these two boxes.  It's always a blast spending a Sunday afternoon opening up packs in an effort to build a set.  I might not have completed this one, but in addition to opening this box of cards, I also opened up a COMC shipment that finished up two sets.

Complete Set #12024 Topps Update

2024 Topps Update #US100

It shouldn't be too surprising that the hottest rookie card in the set was the final one I needed for my set build.  I paid $2.50 for this card back on April 15th.

Complete Set #21992 Leaf Gold

1992 Leaf Gold #317

I purchased a complete set of these black bordered parallels back in 2021.  Unfortunately there were a bunch of cards that were damaged by "binder pinching".  Well four years later, COMC helped me cross off the final card I needed:


I spent over an hour
organizing my COMC shipment into stacks.  Some of them I will write posts for... but most will go directly into my binders this week.

Speaking of this week, I have most of it off (except I needed to go into school today for a couple of hours).  My goal is to clean and organize my office... which includes the remnants of John's care package, the COMC shipment, some flea market and card show hauls, and a few care packages I need to open up.  I'm also hoping to hammer out one more post, before my final week of summer school.  So stay tuned.

Until then...

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Summer Vacation (& Baseball Cards)


This week was my annual Ashland, Oregon tripFour days up there with my friend and her familyFour days of delicious food, gorgeous sunsets, good company, and excessive spending.


If you've never heard of Ashland, it's known for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that runs from March to October each year.  We've never watched any performances, but we did participate in a Shakespeare inspired "escape room" this year.

We also enjoy walking around Lithia Park in downtown area.  That's where I took this wallet card shot


Downtown Ashland also has a bunch of cool stores.  This year I spent more money than usual on Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family.  While my friend and her kids were shopping for clothes and stuff, I spent time in the record and toy shops.

But we would always meet up at the book stores and a comic book shop called More Fun.  This year I promised one of my nieces that I'd buy her a comic book.  She picked out a Godzilla vs. Avengers comic that looked really interesting.  I bought a copy for myself:

Godzilla vs. Avengers #1

I'm a huge Godzilla fan, so I also bought this issue:

Godzilla vs. Spider-Man #1 (2nd Printing)

I couldn't find any card shops in Ashland, but I did manage to purchase some cards in Medford... which is about 15 minutes away.

There's an antique shop I love to visit every summer called Main Antique Mall.  I found two vendors with sports cards, so I supported both.

The first one had this set of 7-11 discs for $8:

1983 7-11 Angels/Dodgers Coins

There are twelve discs in the set with a total of two hall of famers:


1983 was the first year 7-11 created these lenticular sports discs.  Their baseball set was a regional issue released in the Los Angeles area.  Here's a closer look at the front and back of Rod Carew's disc:

1983 7-11 Coins #1

The other vendor I purchased from had a box of 2025 Bowman singles that were priced at two for a dollar.  I grabbed these two:

2025 Bowman Chrome Mojo Refractor #12
2025 Bowman Chrome Mojo Refractor #BCP-114

There were a ton of 1st Bowmans, but I'm not big on prospecting... so I grabbed a Sasaki for my Japan PC and a Kurtz for my A's PC.

The final thing I want to show off is this awesome Thrifty's ice cream scoop:


I have been looking for one of these for quite some time.  A few weeks ago, my friend came across one of these at a store near her house.  She knew I worked there back in high school, so she bought it for me.

I'll go ahead and wrap up this post with one more baseball card:

1990 Donruss #229

Why am I showing off a Junk Wax Era card of a back-up catcher?  Well... he was born in Ashland, Oregon back in 1961:


Now that I'm back home... I'm hoping to continue to organize my collection and hammer out some blog posts featuring some recent card show pickups, flea market finds, and a few care package summaries.

Until then...

Happy Saturday and sayonara!