When it comes to shopping for collectibles locally... I prefer flea markets over antique stores, card shops, card shows, social media, or garage sales. That being said... there's no way I'm passing up the opportunity for a private garage sale with items specifically catered to me.
That's what happened back in April when this woman was helping out with her friend's estate sale. She had invited me to a street sale, but by the time I arrived, some of the sports related items had already been sold. She told me there were still plenty of boxes that hadn't been sorted or organized at her house and invited me to come over the following weekend to see for myself.
When I arrived, she had four tables spread out in her driveway and garage with a ton of sports and card related items. The gentleman's collection was truly impressive. Unfortunately most of the interesting stuff was more than I was willing to pay. I did find a few items within my budget...
Purchase #1: 1967 Topps Posters Lot $50
1967 Topps Posters #6
1967 Topps Posters #11
The posters were stored in two pocket PVC pages (the thicker gauge plastic pages that people used in the 80's), which made removing the posters a challenge. They're printed on very thin paper (like newspaper), so they're very fragile (especially along the folds).
1967 Topps Posters #12
1967 Topps Posters #15
As a result, more than half of these posters are torn or have missing pieces. I should have examined them at the garage sale. If I had, I would have asked her to reduce the price or put it back.
Giants vs. Dodgers 9/30/99 Ticket Stub
This ticket stub is from the last San Francisco Giants' game at Candlestick Park, which is one of the ballparks from my childhood. As much as I wanted to add this to my collection, her asking price was a little steep.
I asked her if she'd toss in this ticket stub:
Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran 6/20/80 Ticket Stub
She had a stack of these at the flea market. This was another situation where I should have paid closer attention to what I was buying. I thought this was an actual ticket stub to attend the fight. However the fight took place in Montreal, Canada... not Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Purchase #3: Vintage Lot $70
The third and final purchase ended up being the best deal... with a pretty cool surprise. It consisted of ten vintage sports cards:
The key card was the Willie McCovey rookie card:
1960 Topps #316
This is a card I have wanted to own for a long time. I always assumed it was a high valued card (even in poor conditions), but lower grade copies like this one can be found for under $50... sometimes under $25.
I also added this reasonably priced HOF rookie card to the stack:
1952 Bowman #5
Hidden among the eight remaining cards was this interesting surprise as this card ended up being worth more than the McCovey and Minoso combined:
1963 Post Cereal #119
At first glance, it looks like your standard 60's Post Cereal card. However after doing a little digging, I discovered that Willie Davis is one of the short prints in the set.
Well that wraps up my first trip to a garage sale in years. Not sure if I'm gonna start seeking them out on a regular basis, but if I do... I'll start a Garage Sale Grabs series.
It's not high on the priority list, but you never know.
Until then...
What's the coolest item you have ever found at a garage sale?
I look forward to reading and responding to your comments down below.
Happy Tuesday and sayonara!
22 comments:
Great stuff, especially the posters.
Awesome finds! That Minoso rookie is sweet!
great stuff, especially the McCovey. Saw him play once at Qualcomm for the Padres in 1975.
great grabs! I used to go to garage sales all of the time, but haven't done it very much at all in the last twenty years. Definitely have found a ton of great stuff. I even once got an authentic signed lithograph (hidden by a frame) painting from Renoir for $2.00, lol.
That is well beyond the typical garage sale find. The mix of sets/players is interesting, particularly with cards like a SP cereal card showing up. I wonder what the original owner was thinking when putting together the collection. The Minoso gets my vote for MVP of the group.
Haven't been to a garage sale in 15 years. Love that Minoso card. Good Job! 👍
Wow, not your average garage sale for sure! I don't ever see those '67 posters, not even at big card shows.
I couldn't tell you the last time I found anything of note at a garage sale. It's always the same -- clothes and kids' toys.
I drive by yard/garage sales and try to spot cards for sale, but don't usually find many.
Count another vote for the Minoso. He's fascinating. I should start a PC beyond his Topps cards.
McCovey rookie at a garage sale - wow! That's some seriously great stuff.
$50 for the poster lot with the four key stars is actually a good deal too.
I'm down to four needs from that poster set - two stars, Clemente and McCovey, and two commons, Knoop and Alou.
Indeed very nice things
Congratulations on some great finds!
Not a card, but I once found an electric frying pan at a garage sale. My mother used to use one, but I hadn't owned one, so I was happy to pick it up. It came with what the seller said was an extra heating filament, which seemed weird to me. After getting it home, I discovered that that was actually an attachment which allowed the frying pan to be used as a broiler! So it was great for stir-fries and such but also as a broiler. It eventually died but I got years of use out of it.
I bought a box of baseball cards at a local garage sale in which most of the cards were vintage. Two cards ended up being two of the top 1970s rookie cards...Gary Carter and a Dennis Eckersely.
Looks like it was probably a lot of fun to go through, even if most of it wasn't something you were going to bring home.
I don't have any interesting garage sales stories, really, in terms of shopping. We did participate in our town-wide garage sale once and Gary V showed up at my house.
a. You did very well! The Minoso rookie is my favorite so far.
b. I haven't been to enough garage sales to say that I've found anything super-cool. Maybe an old license plate from the Czech Republic. Looking forward to the next installment in this series!
Wow, VERY cool vintage stuff! You got a great lot of those posters. I think my favorite thing I got at a garage sale was part of a lot of card stuff I bought that included a full set of Topps Screenplays. Nothing that tops what you got here, though! The ticket stubs are cool too, but I agree with others that consider the Minoso RC the winner
Denver Broncos helmet. Not long after that, Elway became a thing and the Broncos were my AFC team until 1999.
Anyway, nice cards and posters obviously.
Nice pickups! The garage sale purchase I thought of first was a 1978 edition of Cadaco All-Star Baseball (the game with the player discs and spinners). Not in the greatest of shape, but it's complete and playable
Ah those are great!
I also stumbled across those 1967 Topps posters in an unlikely place. I bought a complete set of them for almost nothing 6 years ago from a kimono dealer in Hiroshima who they somehow came into the possession of. Its been a remaining mystery to me how they ended up in so unlikely a place, but now they are in my collection :)
Love the content for sure. Coolest think I found was a sealed box set of Japanese BBM baseball cards for $5 at a garage sale once. Had to snag it.
Great finds! Wonder what else there was that you had to pass on.
batting out of order - thanks. it's a shame that the posters are so fragile. some of them would be hard to pull from the sleeve without doing major damage to them
matt - the minoso is a little beat up, but i'm happy to have it in my collection
rod - that's really cool. i probably got a chance to see him play at the end of his career with the giants, but i don't have any specific memories of him
johnnys trading spot - holy cow! a renoir sign litho for $2? you should do a post on that. congratulations on that garage sale find
cardboredom - it sounds like the original owner was kinda like me in the sense that he collected a wide variety of things. he collected a ton of different stuff from elvis/beatles memorabilia to celebrity autographs. sports memorabilia seemed like it was his backup hobby
john sharp - before this one, it had probably been close to 15 years for me too
night owl - honestly a large percentage of flea market vendors sell clothes and kids' toys as well. but at least at the flea market vendors are set up at the same place, so even if 1 out of 20 vendors has cards, you don't have to walk too far. 1 out of 20 garage sales would equate to a lot of gas :D
gca - looks like minoso is the popular pick. i wish there were more garage sales in my neighborhood, but i never see them.
bo - it wasn't your traditional garage sale. nobody else came over. in fact it was set up in her driveway/garage, but the general public couldn't get to it. she has a gated driveway and only let me in. and it wasn't your traditional garage sale items. it was more of a personalized estate sale with just sports memorabilia.
poison75 - thanks. i wish i could have seen the other stuff she sold at the street sale that one day.
bbcardz - thank you. it was a lot of money to spend at one time, but at least i added some cool cards to the collection
brett alan - sounds like a very cool find. i have never used an electric frying pan, but honestly i don't use my regular frying pans very often
ohiotim - congratulations! i'd love to stumble across a box of vintage baseball with hof rookie cards at a garage sale (or flea market).
the lost collector - yeah, it was pretty fun. i had the opportunity to help her out a little with feedback on certain items i knew about. town-wide garage sale? that sounds awesome. did you ask gary v for his autograph? ;D
gregory - that czech republic license plate sounds really cool. not sure when i'll hit up another garage sale, but when i do... i'll share my findings on the blog
dennis - complete set of topps screenplays sounds awesome. i like those kind of one-off 90's oddball products.
elliptical man - hope you kept that broncos helmet. i like vintage memorabilia like that.
shlabotnik report - those cadaco all-star baseball games are really cool. i used to own the 1968 game. but i think i ended up selling it at a card show back when i'd set up with my buddy. never actually played it though.
sean - wow. that's a nice find in a very unlikely place. i bought my complete set off of ebay, but i'm betting you got a better deal than me
sumomenkoman - a sealed box of bbm baseball? that's a super awesome find
derek - she had some mays, aaron, clementes, ryans, and other hall of famers from the 60's and 70's. but obviously they were too expensive for my budget. i ran into her at the flea market yesterday, but she didn't have them. i'm guessing she's already sold them to someone else
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