The Street Sale

This story begins back in early April when I purchased a set of golf cards at the De Anza Flea Market.  The lady who sold it to me explained that it belonged to her friend who had recently passed away.  The gentleman collected a variety of items and she was helping his family with the estate sale.  She asked if I was interested in seeing more of his stuff and invited me to attend a street sale she was setting up.

Unfortunately it was the same day as the Branham Flea Market, so I arrived a little later than I would have liked.  Most of the sports related items she brought out had already been picked through, but I did managed to find a few items for my collection.

Let's check them out...

Purchase #1:  Baseball 33 1/3RPM Records  $20

1977 Scarab Sports Challenge Record #NNO

Although these 6" records seemed familiar, I have never actually seen these before.  Based on the price tags on some of these, they were sold individually back in the day for 69¢.

After I got home, the Mays made me realize these records are similar to another sound and sports related collectible from the 70's: 1971 Mattel Instant Replay vinyl discs.

Here's a side by side comparison, so you can see for yourself:

The shape and artwork resemble each other, but the 1971 disc is smaller and mounted to a thicker vinyl.  On the other hand the 1977 records are printed on flimsy plastic.

They remind me of those records you'd find inside of kid's magazines back in the 70's.  If you know, you know.

This lot contained 9 out of the 12 records produced.  Unfortunately, the three I need to complete the set are all hall of famers:  Johnny Bench, Frank Robinson, and Nolan Ryan.  I have added them to my saved eBay searches, but I doubt I will ever actually complete this set.

Purchase #2:  Ron Ferdinand Lot $20

The gentleman who passed away was a big fan of Ron Ferdinand's work.  I have read a few Dennis the Menace Sunday comics over the years and I'm a huge fan of of original art.  So purchasing this lot was a no-brainer:

There were actually ten items in this lot.  The other three were personalized, so I didn't bother scanning them.  Anyways... can't imagine there's a lot of interest in Dennis the Menace sketches anyways.

Purchase #3:  The Beatles Postcard Lot  $12

There were a ton of Beatles related items like magazines, plates, and pins.  I personally locked in on the cardboard related items, like these postcards:

1964 The Beatles Exhibit Series Postcards #1, 2, 3, & 4

This lot was advertised as a complete set.  However when I got home, I discovered #5 was missing.

1964 The Beatles Exhibit Series Postcards #6, 7, & 8

There are a couple of copies on eBay, but the cheapest one listed is more expensive than what I paid for this lot.  For now... the set remains incomplete.

Purchase #4:  Another Beatles Lot  $12

Next to the postcards, there were two 9-pocket pages with Beatles trading cards.

Nine of them were from the 1964 Topps 3rd Series set.  Here's a closer look at one of them: 

1964 Topps Beatles 3rd Series #121

The other six were from another Topps set from the same year:

Here's a closer look at my favorite card in the lot:

1964 Topps Beatles Color Cards #31

I've already added a few of my favorites into my vintage binder.  The rest went into my vintage box.  Unfortunately half of these had writing on the back.  As soon as I go back into my classroom, I'll grab an eraser.

Purchase #5:  Atari Artist Autograph  $5

One of the other vendors that set up at the street sale was a gentleman who had done some art for Atari back in the 80's.  He was selling these greeting cards that featured different games he had created cover art for.

Pole Position was one of my favorite arcade games back in the day, so I picked that one.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Atari actually used this artwork on the 2600 box or manual covers.

No complaints though.  Five bucks was well worth the ten minute conversation I had with him.

Purchase #6:  Water Damaged Wax Box  $10

1981 Topps Raiders of the Lost Ark Wax Box

I saw this box on another vendor's table as I was leaving.  The box obviously suffered from water damage, but a part of me hoped that some of the packs were okay.  They weren't.  Not sure what I'll end up doing with it, but at the very least, the wax wrappers are worth holding onto.

Before I left, the woman explained that this was only a fraction of her friend's collection and invited me over to her house the following weekend for a private and personalized garage sale.  I happily accepted her offer.

But that's a post for another day.  Until then...

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

School's Out for Summer

Have you ever been tossed by a wave and struggled to catch your breath?  That's sort of how I've felt the past month or so at work.  Teaching, testing, grading, and classroom cleanup is part of the normal hectic routine that educators go through at the end of each school year.

It's all the other stuff like the final spirit rally, grad dance, graduation, end-of-the-year picnic, and creating next year's leadership roster that had me stressed out and overwhelmed on what seemed like a daily basis.  Each time I had a chance to come up for air, I'd get pounded with the next thing on the list.

But school's out for summer.  Yesterday was the last day of the school year.  Grades have been submitted.  Keys turned in.  And this morning I submitted all of the lingering paperwork (like overtime and rosters) online.  Summer break is officially here.

That means it's blogging season in my area and I have a ton of stuff to write about including a bunch of flea market finds, a few card show hauls, eBay pickups, and even an estate sale purchase.  But before I get to those, I need to wrap up a few more thank you posts.

Today's post highlights some of my favorite Japanese athletes included in Reader X's and John's (@ Johnny's Trading Spot) care packages.  Together they sent me over one hundred fifty new singles for my Japanese athlete PC.

Let's start things off with this video game legend:

2025 Cardsmiths Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams #27

I wasn't a huge Street Fighter fan, but I do remember fighting against this sumo wrestler when I did play:

I'm hoping to track down another copy of this card for Ryan (@ SumoMenkoMan).

Here are some other big names and cool cards that Xavier sent my way earlier in the year:

This is my third copy of Masanori Murakami's First Pitch card, but I'm hoping it's not the last.  That's one of those cards I'm hoping to eventually fill a 9-pocket page with.

Shota and Masataka are experiencing slow starts in 2026, but this next player isnt:

Ohtani is having another amazing season and collectors can't get enough of his cardboard.  Neither can I.

Thank you Xavier for this latest batch of Japanese athletes!

Let's move on to the stuff that John sent my way.  

He sent me so many base cards, inserts, and parallels... that I expanded my Japanese PC binder collection from 6 to 7 binders.

Seiya Suzuki and Kodai Senga were two of the bigger stacks.  Some of them I already had... but most were new.

I was also very happy to cross off nine Matsui Rookie Chronicles cards from my set build.

Thank you John for expanding my collection.  Now that school is out, I'll get those Star Wars cards shipped out to you.

As for the rest of you, I hope you have a great summer.

Do you have any fun summer plans?

I have a few short trips planned here and there, however my main source of entertainment will be organizing parts of my collection and placing some Sportlots orders to complete some set builds.  Plus I'm hoping to attend at least one or two card shows.  Depending on the weather, I may or may not attend any flea markets over the next couple of months.  But like I said at the start of the post, I have a few flea market posts sitting in the draft folder.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

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!