Flea Market Finds #193: Older Periodicals, Cards, and a Stack of 45's

There were a pair of card shows in San Jose on Saturday, October 17th.  One was about 20 to 30 minutes away.  The other was less than 3 miles from my doorstep.  Both charged admission, so I hit up the Branham Flea Market instead.  Free parking.  Free admission.  Fresh air.  I'll choose that over a card show every single time.

The obvious downside to flea markets is the lack of card vendors... especially on the day of a local card show (or in this case... shows).  Thankfully there were a pair of regulars with cards and I purchased stuff from both of them.

Purchase #1:  Vintage TSN's  $5

If you collect sports memorabilia and you walk around Branham on the third Saturday of every month, then you know Rich.  I've purchased tons of stuff from him over the years.  His inventory ranges from bobbleheads to beer bottles to sports periodicals.

He recently purchased a collection of The Sporting News papers from the 60's and was dumping the excess for a dollar each.  Honestly, I'm not really interested in stuff like this... because I don't have the space to store them.  However the price was right and while flipping through his stacks, I immediately stumbled across this:

The Sporting News (4/4/70)

My father's favorite golfer was Arnold Palmer.

The third week in October will always be sentimental for me and my siblings, because it's the anniversary of my father's passing.  When I saw Arnold smiling back at me in the stack, I immediately set it aside in honor of my pops.  I spent another twenty minutes looking through stacks of these periodicals and pulled out four more:

The Sporting News (8/2/61)

The rest of the issues had cool cartoon drawings.  I grabbed this one, because it featured Ted Williams and Babe Ruth.

In 1961, Major League Baseball added four new teams:  Los Angeles Angels, Washington Senators, New York Mets, & Houston Colt .45's.  This cover features the updated MLB map:

The Sporting News (4/12/61)

If you zoom in on New York, you'll notice there's a "?" instead of the Mets.  According to Wikipedia, the team didn't officially announce their name until May 8th.

The Arnold Palmer issue would have been my father's favorite.  Here's mine:

The Sporting News (2/22/64)

I'll never own a 1964 Topps Pete Rose, but this will suffice.  The artist did a great job of capturing Charlie Hustle's likeness.

The final issue I purchased has some pretty big names on the cover:

The Sporting News (3/14/64)

Five pitchers.  Five hall of famers.  But the Rawlings ad on the back was the main reason I added this issue to the stack:

A Mickey Mantle ad from the 60's for a buck?  Yeah, I couldn't pass this up.  The protective sleeves I ordered on Amazon cost more than the issues themselves.

After putting the TSN's into my car, I started walking over the the other card guy who set up at the end of the first row.

Purchase #2:  50¢ Bin Cards  $3

This guy is another regular.  Sometimes he has dime cards.  Other times he has dollar cards.  On Saturday, he converted one of his dollar boxes into a 50¢ bin.  The Baby Jordan was the card that caught my eye first.  It's one of those Jam City inserts that are currently very popular among basketball collectors.  It's hard to tell from my scan, but they're popular... because they're attractive.

2005 UD Arena Football AFL Jerseys #RD-J

Anyone else miss the AFL?  The San Jose SaberCats spent nearly two decades as our local arena football team.  Tickets were cheap.  The game was fast paced and exciting.  And there are a handful of diehard fans who miss them... myself included.  I already have a copy of this card, but I couldn't pass up this piece of history at that price.

2020-21 Skybox Metal Universe Star Rubies Auto #PP-45

I've never heard of Mr. Quinney, but I've been meaning to start a small collection of Las Vegas Golden Knights in honor of my mother.  She enjoyed watching their games during their inaugural and sophomore seasons.

The guy also had dollar comics... so I grabbed a few of those as well.

Purchase #3:  Dollar Comics  $3

1991 Marvel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey #1

I like picking up comic book adaptations of popular movies.  I don't remember seeing this comic book back in the day, but I remember going seeing this movie at the drive-in theater with some friends.

1987 Comico Star Blazers #1

Any one else watch Star Blazers?  Before Transformers, GI Joe, and Robotech came along... it was my favorite cartoon.  I can still remember the opening song.

1995 Dark Horse Star Wars X-Wing Rogue Squadron

I'll buy any 90's Dark Horse Star Wars comic in good condition for a dollar.  However after I got home I was surprised at how thin it was.  After some research, I discovered it was a special mail order issue from Apple Jacks.

Purchase #4:  Hawaii Mug  $1

This was another Papa Fuji inspired purchase.  My parents were born and raised on Oahu.  That's why I will pick up Hawaii related stuff when it's cheap.  Found this on a lady's dollar table.  

Purchase #5:  Stack of 45s  $9

I ran into a familiar face about halfway through the flea market.  Ten to fifteen years ago he was one of the largest toy vendors at the other monthly flea market I walks around.  At the time, I was really into collecting figures and bobbleheads.  A large percentage of them were purchased from him.

He had a bunch of random toys this time too.  But I locked in on his box of 45's which contained a bunch of songs I listened to back in the 80's.  After pulling out a few, I asked how much he wanted.  Two for a buck was his response, so I went to work and pulled out 18.  It's a mixture of stuff ranging from Ghostbusters to Styx to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to Welcome Back Kotter to Cyndi Lauper. 

After packing them into a bag, I started walking away when he asked me if I wanted this as well...

Freebie #1:  STARR Record

1980 Mattel Starr

I don't know much about the toy line, but this record (33⅓) was included inside of a Starr doll back in the early 80's.

It was in the box of 45's that I was going through and set it to the side.  It looked interesting and the flimsiness reminded me of a record you'd find in a magazine or something.  Anyways... I put it back on top of a stack of records.  The vendor must have known that I really wanted it, because he gave it to me for free.

Purchase #6:  A Halloween Magazine  $1

Sports Illustrated for Kids (October 1990)

There's a vendor who is a regular at both flea markets I attend that sells old periodicals.  His booth is always crowded, because people love rummaging through his boxes looking for cool stuff.  I usually walk on by, but every now and then there's a box nobody is looking through so I'll hop on in.  I found this 90's issue of SI for Kids.  The 9-card sheet had been pulled out, but the four card panel was left intact:

If this panel looks familiar, that's because I purchased two copies of this Halloween issue back in 2025 from by buddy Tony at the De Anza Flea Market.

I kept one of the issues intact.  I removed the sheets of cards from the second one.  I will be breaking down this sheet for my Jordan binder.

Branham is much smaller than De Anza, so I always walk around it at least a couple of times.  As I was about to head out, I stopped off at Rich's booth.  By this time he had completely unpacked his truck and had cards on his table.

Purchase #7:  Quarter Bin Cards  $3

Most of you don't care about football, but I was really excited to add that 1996 Topps Favre.  At some point, I will be working on his complete Topps base card run and this will be a part of it.

1990 Pepsi Canseco

He also had a big box filled with 1990 Pepsi Canseco sets.  I think he was asking a buck a piece on these sets, but he had hundreds of them.  So I asked if he'd let me grab three to round out the purchase at $3 and he accepted.

I might have missed out on two card shows, but choosing to walk around the flea market ended up working out for the better.  Until the next one...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

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!