Flea Market Finds #188: A Classic Set & A Fidrych Food Issue

Spring Break has come and gone.  I already wrote about my road trip.  Now it's time to recap my trip to the De Anza Flea Market that took place two days earlier.

The flea market itself was a little less crowded than usual.  I'm guessing some people were traveling or spending time with their families over Easter weekend.  Luckily there were still plenty of vendors with collectibles.

Here's my haul...

Purchase #1:  Bin of Star Wars  $30

1977 Topps Star Wars

I've documented the significance of this set to my hobby history on numerous occasions.  I've also mentioned that I own a complete set with stickers.  Normally I wouldn't waste my time grabbing a box of duplicates, but sentimentality trumped frugality.

Haven't had time to decide if I'll start a second set build, but even if I do... there are plenty of duplicates to help others who are trying to complete this set.

Purchase #2:  Piece of Art  $5

2008 Rittenhouse Batman Archives Sketch Card #NNO

Not sure if this is Catwoman or Batgirl, but for five bucks I don't care.

I found this card a few vendors down from the couple with the Star Wars cards.  A gentleman was selling two 3,500ct. boxes worth of cards.  He had some pretty cool stuff like Barry Bonds and Buster Posey rookie cards, but his prices seemed a little high.  On the other hand, his asking price for this piece of original art was more than fair.

Purchase #3:  Odball Birdie  $1

1977 Hostess #46

The vendor had a binder of 80's and Junk Wax Era singles that I flipped through quickly.

Towards the middle was this random Hostess card of Mark Fidrych.  I was very surprised to find this card staring back at me.  He said I could have the whole binder for $20, but I was really only interested in this card.  I think we both walked away happy with the dollar sale.

Purchase #4:  Dollar Box Magazine  $1

Mad Magazine March 1959

Found another new vendor.  This guy had a magazine box filled with dollar vintage magazines from the 50's, 60's, and 70's.  There were probably fifteen to twenty different Mad Magazine issues sitting in the box, but this was the only one that really caught my eye.  It's pretty beat up, but it's also sixty-seven years old.

Purchase #5a:  A Classic Board Game  $30

Before I show off my favorite purchase of the day, I want to explain some details behind the purchase.  Some of you might remember a lady who was selling off her deceased husband's collection.  Last summer she sold me a 1990 Leaf Series 1 set and some San Francisco 49er oddball issues.  I have also purchased some cheap sets and an unopened box of 1989 Bowman from her on separate occasions.

Anyways, she was back and she brought her sons.  There were a few items I was interested on their table, so I gathered them up and worked out a package deal (so ignore the price tags).

Here's the main thing I wanted:

1987 Classic Baseball Board Game

When these board games were originally released, I was too busy opening boxes of 1987 Topps Baseball purchased from Costco.  I could buy three of them for the price of one of these board games:

Unfortunately, I completely missed the boat on ever owning the iconic Bo Jackson card featuring him wearing his Auburn football gear while holding a baseball bat.  By the time I realized how cool and popular this card was, card shops were jacking up the prices for the single and toy stores had sold out of the actual board games.

Well after almost four decades, I'm happy to finally add this board game to my collection.  It's still sealed with the original Toys R Us price tag, so I'm not going to open it up.  That means I'll still be hunting down a set of these cards.

Purchase #5b:  An 80's Box Set  $8

1988 Score Rookie & Traded Set

Plenty of us collected during the Junk Wax Era, so we remember when this set was a pretty hot commodity.

It's cooled off over the years, but it still contains some cool rookie cards.

I already have graded copies of three of the key rookie cards, so I'll just keep this set housed in the factory box.

Purchase #5c:  A Stained Set  $2

1986 McDonald's All Star Team Set

I added this set to the stack for pure nostalgic reasons.  Back in 1986, I remember going to McDonalds with my friends and receiving an Oakland Raiders or San Francisco 49ers card with each purchase.  The idea that I could get a complete set of 30 cards for less than the price of a Happy Meal was too hard to pass up.

Unfortunately this set seems to have been sitting in a box with some french fries, because they feature some staining.  Phil Simms took the brunt of the oil, but if you look closely to at the backs of the Montana and Payton, you can see some discoloration along the bottom edge:

I had offered the sons $35 for the three sets, but they countered with $40.  That seemed fair.

As I was about to leave, I was looking at some knick-knacks on one of the brother's tables.  It started a conversation that eventually led to one more purchase.

Purchase #6:  Atari Stickers  $5

1982 Atari Lenticular Discs

The gentleman who sold these to me had no idea what these are or where they came from, but that didn't matter to me.

I grew up playing Pac-Man and Defender on my Atari 2600 and was immediately interested in them.


Purchase #7:  Another Damaged Set?  $20

1998 Champions of Golf The Masters Collection Factory Set

Much like the 1988 Score Rookies & Traded set, there was a time when this set was pretty popular.  I have always wanted one of the Tiger Woods cards found in this factory set.  Unfortunately this set has a history of bricking and sliding around in the box, so I'm not sure if I'll be opening it up anytime soon.

Well that wraps up another trip to the flea market.  There's another one coming up this Saturday.  Hopefully Mother Nature cooperates and I'll have the opportunity to walk around, get some fresh air, and walk away with a few new finds for the collection.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #167: Periodicals, Magazine Cards, and an Uncut Sheet

Before I get into the first flea market trip of 2025... I wanted to thank everyone who voted in the 4th Annual Nachos Grande End-of-Year Awards.  I was excited and honored to win two categories this year: Funniest/Most Entertaining Blog and Favorite Blog Series.

Writing doesn't come naturally to me, so to be nominated for Funniest/Most Entertaining Blog was a pleasant surprise.

What blog series was nominated?  Well based on view counts, it's not too surprising the honor was given to my Flea Market Finds.  Over the years, they've always received more clicks than my average post.

That's fine with me, because I love walking around the flea market in search of bargains and new additions for a variety of collections.

Unfortunately... due to poor weather I went 0 for 2 in December attempts.  Luckily the new year brought dryer weather.  So on Saturday, January 4th, I woke up early and hit up the De Anza Flea Market.  It was overcast and cold, so more than half of the normal vendors chose to stay home, but by 9am there was a pretty decent amount of people walking around. 

I'm an early bird, so my shopping spree started at around 7am...

Purchase #1:  Baseball Cards  $4

2003 Donruss Classics Legends of the Fall #LF-10 (#'d 0272/2000)

The first purchase of the day was from a familiar face.  I've been buying cards off of Tony for over a decade.  He's a really nice guy who sets up with his buddy Tom at the De Anza Flea Market and some of the local card shows.

He didn't have a lot of new inventory, but I did manage to find a few cheap singles to help get his sales rolling...

The Munson was marked two bucks.  The Soto and Judge were in his dollar box and the rest were in his 50¢ bin.

He packaged everything together for four dollars.

Purchase #2:  Junk Wax Era Singles $4

One row over was a new guy with cards.  He had two boxes filled with cards in top loaders that ranged in price from $1 to $5.

The Ken Griffey Jr. insert and the Fleer base card of MJ were a buck each.  The rest of the cards were in his 3 for $1 bin.  However when he accepted another guy's four for a dollar offer... he passed the deal on to me as well.

Unfortunately... he didn't have a lot of baseball.  The majority of the box contained basketball cards and stickers like this shiny Shaq:

1993-94 Panini Stickers #C

I would have stayed a little longer and browsed through all of his 3 for $1 bin, but cards tend to draw crowds these days.  As soon as I had people on both sides of me, I gathered up my stack and checked out.

Purchase #3:  1990 McDonald's Cup  $1

There was another new vendor who brought out a bunch of McDonald's and Burger King cups from the 80's and 90's.  All of them were a dollar each.  I was tempted to pick up the 1992 Olympic Dream Team cups of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, but ultimately I set them down and grabbed the one above.

Seeing this cup was a blast from the past.  I owned one just like it back in high school, so I brought it home with me. 

Purchase #4:  Sports Periodicals $3

One of the busiest vendors I came across was this guy with a ton of toys from the 80's and 90's.  He also had tons of random stuff like Rat Fink art and boxes of sports periodicals.  Luckily the sports programs and magazines were on an end cap, so I could flip through them without feeling claustrophobic.

The first thing I pulled out was this Seattle Mariners program from Ichiro's first MLB season:

I also found a promotional issue of Inside Stuff:

It contained an uncut sheet of 1994-95 Fleer Ultra basketball cards:

I'm a sucker for uncut sheets... so I had to add it to the stack.

The last periodical I picked up was this special baseball section of The San Jose Mercury News from 1989:

This came out six months before these two teams met in the 1989 World Series.  Storing old newspapers is a pain in the butt, but I couldn't pass up this piece of history for a buck.

Purchase #5:  Stack of SI for Kids Cards  $10

After going through the guy's periodicals, I strolled down one of his aisles containing mostly Star Wars ships and Happy Meal toys.  In between them was a small box with ticket stubs and a few stacks of trading cards.  One of those stacks contained about 100 early 90's Sports Illustrated for Kids cards:

It's arguably the best bargain of the day with tons of famous athletes.  Here's are a sample of stars:

Unfortunately the vast majority of the cards had been cut like this Tony Hawk card:

1990 Sports Illustrated for Kids #152

Due to these circumstances, they won't be added to my official collection of SI for Kids cards that are stored in binders.  But I will sleeve each one up and put them into my random SI for Kids box.  Cut or not, I'll buy these for a dime any day of the week.

Purchase #6:  A Classic Kid  $1

The final purchase of the day was off of my buddy Pete.  He's my supply guy.  We usually meet up at the other flea market and walk around together.  But on the first Saturday of every month, he sets up at De Anza with his comic book, magazine, and record sleeves.  He also carries penny sleeves, top loaders, and other supplies like pennant holders.

This month he had a random box of cards.  I saw a stack of these purplish Classic cards, so I picked it up and pulled this card out:

1989 Classic #193

It's not one of Griffey's iconic rookie cards... but it's a licensed card of his from his rookie year.  And it's a card that I didn't own.

It's not exactly minty fresh... so he told me I could have it for a buck.  That's a price I could live with.

Well that wraps up my first flea market trip of the year.  There's another one in a few days.  Hopefully I'll be able to find some interesting stuff to share on this blog next week.  Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!