Flea Market Finds #191 : A Kitty, a Signed Ball, & some Comics and Cards

I'll start off this post by pointing out that I skipped #190 in my Flea Market Finds series., because I'm reserving the spot for purchases made back on May 2nd at the De Anza Flea Market.  One of the purchases was a large collection that I have not touched in months.  It's one of those things that I'm excited to document, but it's a project that will likely take one to two weeks of dedication.  

In the meantime, I have decided to skip ahead to the purchases I made on August 1st at the De Anza Flea Market.  I remember it was a pretty hot day, so I only made one pass through.  It was also my first time walking around that flea market in three months, so I was in the mood to shop.  Luckily, I found some interesting items to add to my collection...

Purchase #1:  Hello Kitty Bobblehead  $3

2015 San Francisco Giants SGA (6/28/15)

Okay.  Maybe a Hello Kitty bobblehead isn't considered interesting, but even with damaged packaging... $3 was too cheap to pass up.

Purchase #2:  Signed Baseball  $3

A few minutes later, I saw this baseball sitting on a lady's table:

Rawlings MLB-L Baseball

Anyone recognize this type of baseball?  Although it says official, I'm guessing these were not used in official MLB games.  Anyways... I decided to buy it because it was signed on the side panel:

I realize the odds of this being a legit Mickey Mantle signature is low, but I beat the odds back in 2015 when I purchased a Willie Mays signed baseball for $8.  I eventually had it authenticated by PSA/DNA and it passed.

I no longer have any connection to any autograph certification companies, so most likely this ball will just sit in my baseball collection as a mystery.

Purchase #3:  Decks of Cards  $10

About halfway through the flea market, I had only seen a handful of vendors with trading cards.  Most had the late 80's overproduced stuff at outrageous prices.  My friends set up too, but I didn't find anything in their cases either.

However a few spots down from them, I found a guy with a collection of card decks.  I ended up grabbing these five:

1988 US Games American Authors Card Game

1994 Bicycle San Francisco Giants

2003 Hoyle Iraqi Most Wanted

2000 Action Publishing Politicards

2004 Action Publishing Politicards

2026 has been the year of purchasing playing cards for me.  These were more affordable compared to the 2004 The Real Deal John Kerry Presidential Deck I purchased back in March.

Purchase #4: Star Wars Comic Run  $23

Seems like every vendor with trading cards believes their sitting on a gold mine.  That's not a good thing for bargain bin collectors like myself.  Although I did find a few cool cards like another 1990 Score B&W Bo... I just can't justify spending $20 for a card that will sometimes pop up in dollar bins.

That's why I've started targeting a few other items in recent months like cassette tapes, playing card decks, and comic books.

One vendor had a long box filled with 90's Dark Horse Star Wars comic books.  Not sure if I have ever mentioned this, but I'm a huge fan of these books.  Unfortunately this guy wasn't blowing out his collection, but his prices were slightly lower than eBay comps.

I was interested in a few different runs, but ultimately I went with the Shadows of the Empire story line:

1996 Dark Horse SW: Shadows of the Empire #1, 2, & 3

1996 Dark Horse SW: Shadows of the Empire #4, 5, & 6

This comic book series fills the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  I never actually read the comics, but my friends and I played the N64 game back in the mid 90's.

Purchase #5:  Football Sets  $25

With temperatures rising, I came close to leaving early and skipping the final two rows.

I'm glad I didn't, because I finally found some reasonably priced sports cards.  This couple had several three row monster boxes filled with 90's cards, but they were asking $100 per box.  Two guys were sifting through them and wanted to buy all three until they heard the price.

I'm not a fan of digging through boxes that someone else is already going through, so I looked into their 660 and 800ct. boxes that were off to the side.  Two stood out to me.  One had a complete 1987 Donruss baseball set.  The other looked like this:

The lady wanted $25 for each, so I put the baseball set down and asked her if she'd take $20 for this box.  She countered with $23.  Then I offered her a coin flip challenge.  If they win, I pay $25.  If I win, I pay $20.  Yup.  I lost.

That being said, I was pretty shocked at the going rates for the 1990 Score Supplemental set:

1990 Score Supplemental Factory Set

Can you believe that these sets are selling in the $100 to $140 range on eBay?  Emmitt Smith's most popular rookie card is main draw, but it also contains rookie cards of Lincoln Kennedy and Junior Seau.

There were also a bunch of these 1990 Pro Set Update sets inside the box:

1990 Pro Set Update Set

There's also a rookie year card of Emmitt in these sets too, but they haven't quite boomed in value.

Purchase #6:  A New Album  $5

The final purchase of the day was a new copy of this 70's record album:

1972 Fleetwood Finley's Heroes LP

I already have a framed copy hanging up in my office.  However for five bucks, I couldn't pass up it up.  If you'd like to listen to the album, click here.

Sorry there weren't more cards in this particular flea market haul, but I did find two vendors with bargain boxes at last weekend's flea market.  Depending on how hectic things are around here, I should have a recap of that trip up sometime next week.  As for recap of the De Anza Flea Market back in May, that could be posted in a few weeks... or a few months.

Until then...

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #170: Typical 90's Nostalgia

It was cloudy and cold... but the ground was dry enough to encourage about 70% of the regular vendors to set up this past Saturday at the Branham High School Flea Market.

The cup guy from January was back.  He was my first stop... 

Purchase #1:  Fast Food Cups $5

1991 Kentucky Fried Chicken #NNO

1992 McDonalds Team USA #5

1995 McDonalds Looney Tunes #4

Honestly.... I have no interest in collecting cups, but I had never seen that MJ Looney Tunes cup before... and I figured that was worth the asking price alone.

Purchase #2:  Senior League Signatures $15

After I had paid for the cups, I started talking baseball with the vendor.  He's a big Yankees fan, so we talked about Gerrit Cole and the upcoming season.

Another guy was looking through his dollar boxes, so I told him I would come back and dig through them after walking around.  That's when he mentioned a collection of autographs he recently acquired.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's... his friend attempted to get every card in the 1989-90 T&M Sports Senior League set signed.  He lived in Florida at the time and attended a bunch of the Senior League games.

 

He fell five cards short, but also managed to get a bunch of duplicates signed.  I purchased all of them.  The lot was filled familiar names, but the one that inspired the purchase was Lowell Palmer:

1989-90 T&M Sports Senior League #86

It's good to know that fifteen years after pitching in his final MLB game, he still rocks the shades.

Purchase #3:  Sports Illustrated Mini Posters $40

There was a first time vendor with some cool 80's sets and unopened boxes.  I was interested in his box of 1981 Donruss golf and a stack of Laughlin Old Time Black Stars singles from the 70's.  Honestly... it's not the stuff you normally see sitting on a table at the flea market.  He obviously knew his stuff, because his prices weren't of the bargain variety.

He did have this stack of miniature (approximately 6" x 9") posters that resemble the ones advertised in Sports Illustrated back in the early 80's.

There were four guys from the 1981 Marketcom Mini-Poster set and six from the 1982 Sears Roebuck set.  They are almost identical in design on the front, but on the back it's a little easier to tell them apart:

1981 Marketcom Mini-Poster #35

1982 Sears Roebuck #NNO

There were more than sixty in this lot.  Joe Montana is a legend in these parts and was the key to this purchase.  There were eight of them sitting in this stack and I'm already working on a trade deal with my buddy who sets up at shows.

The 1982 Sears Roebuck set only has twelve to fourteen cards, so I might try and build this set.  If I do, I'll use the duplicates from this lot to help me with that project.

Purchase #4:  Captain Canuck Comic Book & Card $1

1993 Semple Captain Canuck Reborn #0

Found a guy with a bin of comic books.  Normally I don't even bother flipping through them, but I saw some Wizard price guides and was hoping they had promo cards inside of them.  They didn't.

But seeing this comic book reminded me of Waxaholic.

1993 Semple Promo #NNO

Inside of the comic book bag was this promo card which I thought was a nice bonus.  The vendor also pointed out that this particular comic was signed, but I'm not really familiar with comic book authors or artists outside of guys like Stan Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Stan Sakai.

Purchase #5:  San Jose Sharks Bobble $1

2014-15 Patrick Marleau Bobblehead

About a decade ago... I went through a phase where I was really into collecting bobbles.  These days, I will buy them if they're athletes I collect and they're cheap.  Hard to pass up a San Jose legend for a buck.

Purchase #6:  Dollar Bin $1

I eventually made my way back to the "cup" guy.  The guy who was digging through his dollar boxes was finished, so I flipped through them.  I ended up grabbing this Nolan Ryan that was part of an online exclusive product I was into a few years ago: 

2020 Topps 52-Card Baseball Game #8 (Cleat)

I still need the Rickey Henderson and Frank Robinson for my set build.

The vendor also had a box of random stuff he was selling for a quarter each...

Purchase #7:  Random Stuff $1

1987 National Sports Collectors Convention Media Badge

This badge is what caught my eye.  I didn't attend this show, but it is a piece of Bay Area history.  1987 was the first and only time the National Sports Collectors Convention was held in San Francisco.

Next up was this cool 70's Army pocket guide:

US Army Why We Salute Pocket Guide (April 1973)

Figured it was worth a quarter.

The last two items were two Pinnacle Mint coins from the 90's:

1996 Pinnacle Mint Bronze Coin #NNO

In addition to this Elway... I also bought a Brett Favre.  Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced it... which is a bummer.

I'm pretty stoked about the mini-posters purchase.  These are the kind of deals I'm hoping to find every time I go out to the flea market.  But realistically... the cups, coins, and bobblehead are more typical in this day and age.

Well that wraps up my most recent trip to the flea market.  I look forward to reading your thoughts down below in the comments.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!