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!
