Flea Market Finds #160: One Man's Junk

Mother Nature was looking out for me this weekend.  It's been raining off and on the past week or so.  Most of the time I enjoy this kind of weather, but I was looking forward to walking around the De Anza Flea Market on Saturday.  As luck would have it... no rain was forecasted that morning.

My expectations weren't high.  Both vendor and visitor attendance drops during the winter... and there were scattered showers on Friday.  But when I drove up, I was pleasantly surprised.

Purchase #1:  1993 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball Box  $40

 

Not all Junk Wax is junk.  About ten minutes into my walk, I stumbled across a guy who had a bunch of Junk Wax Era boxes on his table.  Three stood out.  One was an early 90's Action Packed football.  Another was a 1990 Upper Deck baseball.  Then there's the one I bought.

Does it contain a Derek Jeter rookie?  I won't find out anytime soon.  This is going into my unopened wax box collection.  Yup.  I'm one of those guys who collects those.

Purchase #2:  1990 Comic Ball Promo Set  $5

A few vendors down, I found a binder with some comic cards.  The guy wanted $20 for the entire binder, which I'm sure was a fair price.  Unfortunately, I didn't really want anything other than this set of promo cards.

Another Junk Wax Era product I like.  I already own a complete set of the regular set and the holograms.  Now I have the promo card set too.

Purchase #3:  2023 Hot Wheels Premium Fast & Furious $15

I'm a sucker for Toyota Supra MK5 die-cast.  Saw this two-pack back in December, but the vendor wanted $20.  Found this at a different vendor's booth and he told me $15 is what Target sells them for (if you can find them on the pegs).

Purchase #4:  50¢ Cards  $3

There are always a handful of vendors who deal with storage locker purchases.  I'm 90% positive this guy was one of them.  He had a bunch of 5,000ct. boxes filled with sports cards.  The majority were from the last decade or so, but there was some vintage sprinkled in here and there. When I walked up there were a couple of other guys flipping through them.

I spent about thirty minutes going through the boxes.  Here's what I pulled out...

2010 Topps A&G #130

I found this card in the first stack I picked up and it totally lured me in.  I've mentioned it before that back in the 60's, my father worked on the SR-71 in Area 51.  This card goes into my Papa Fuji PC.

There were hundreds of Allen & Ginter cards from a variety of years sitting in these boxes.  I would have bought a lot more had they been a dime each.  50¢ is a different story.   I only picked up two.  Here's the other one:

2015 Topps A&G #56

This was one of those weird purchases where I had just thought about this card the night before.  On Friday, I saw on ESPN that Carl Weathers passed away and immediately wondered if I owned any Rocky cards featuring him.  When I checked COMC, this card popped up.  Not sure if I have one sitting in a box somewhere.

Anyways... I figured I'd grab this copy just in case.

Next up were these three Jordans:

2009 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective #1009, #1126, & #1131

There were hundreds of these Retrospective inserts and I like the A&G singles.... I would have loved to have a bunch of them.  But 50¢ each adds up quickly.

I seem to have accidentally deleted the sixth card I purchased... which was a Shaquille O'neal Hoops rookie card.  But do you really need to see anymore Junk Wax Era cards today?

Well that wraps up my latest trip to the flea market.  Not sure when I'll be heading back.  Guess it all depends on the weather.

In the meantime... I do have a few posts I'm working on in between staying busy at work and organizing stuff at home.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Multiple Meanings

As many of you know... 2023 was filled with a lot of ups and downs.  It will forever be marred by the loss of my father and my friend Mike in a span of a month.  But it wasn't all bad... these two tragic events brought me closer to my siblings and strengthened the bond between close friends.

The hobby also helped me get through that rough patch by serving as a healthy distraction.  One of the most therapeutic things for me outside of building Lego sets is sorting cards and building sets.  Walking around flea markets and card shows also helped.

Back on Saturday, December 16th... I was able to do both.  Today's post covers a pair of purchases... one from each.  Both of these purchases were BIG... but in different ways.

Let's start with my most expensive hobby purchase of 2023 and a BIG addition to my Ichiro PC:

2023 Finest Flashbacks Auto #183

I was hanging out at the Silicon Valley Card & Collectibles Show at my buddy's table.  And within minutes... my eyes were drawn to this gorgeous card that took me back to the 90's when autographs were on-card and rare.  I wanted it.

Right next to the Ichiro was the other 2001 Rookie of the Year Award winner:

2023 Finest Flashbacks Auto #179

I wanted this card too.  The only problem is my hobby budget doesn't allow for BIG purchases like these.

After watching two other collectors show an interest in the Ichiro, I decided to pull them out of the case and have him hold them for me.

When things settled down... he offered me the pair for $450.  Yeah... that's BIG money (to me).  But a month has passed and there has been zero buyer's remorse.

He tossed in this cool refractor to sweeten the deal:

2000 Topps Chrome Combos Refractor #TC5

I know this particular insert set is polarizing among collectors.  You either love it... or hate it.

I obviously love it!  In 2000, Nomar, Alex, and Derek were the BIG 3 among American League shortstops and although we crossed into the aughts, refractors were still reasonably tough pulls.  These inserts were seeded into 1:80 packs.

The other BIG purchase I made that day took place earlier in the morning at the Branham Flea Market.  I stumbled across a guy with a binder containing a bunch of oversized cards.  He wanted $10 for the binder, but was focused on the quality of the binder itself and not the cards.

So I asked him if he'd take $5 for the pages and cards without the binder.  He accepted.  I had taken a photo of all of the stuff, but accidentally deleted it.  However I did scan the highlights of the purchase which were these BIG inserts and parallels from the 90's before putting them all away.

Since most of you are baseball fans, here's the only baseball card of note:

1995 Score Rules Jumbo #SR25 (#'d 2,489/3000)

This is a BIG (7.5" x 10.5") parallel to the pack inserted counterparts.  Back in 1995, Score produced Baseball Collector Kits that contained twenty-six assorted packs of Score Series 1 and Series 2 baseball, a binder, ten collector pages, and one of these oversized parallels.

Based on how many are available on eBay, they aren't very common... even though 3,000 copies of each card was produced.

The next card was the key to the purchase:

1997 Donruss Studio Stained Glass Stars #15 (#'d 0318/1000)

This BIG acetate insert is gorgeous!   Once I saw this card, I knew I wanted the entire lot.

There were two BIG names featured in the lot:

1997 Donruss Studio 8x10 Gold Portrait Proof #29 (#'d 0115/1000)

1997 Donruss Studio Red Zone Masterpiece #20 (#'d 0853/3500)

The Elway is a BIG addition to my Stanford PC... while the Moon is a BIG Seahawks pickup.

Well that wraps up my two BIG purchases from back in December.  Gotta love multiple meanings... and overpriced and oversized card purchases.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

All Good Things

If all good things must come to an end, then that's something I can live with... because it makes me appreciate those things a wee bit more.

The perfect example is the advent calendar Ryan sent me last month.  Advent calendars have a built-in end date.  So today, we'll see what goodies he put together for me for Day 19 through Day 25.

We left off with blaster box of 2022 Topps Series 2 baseball.  We'll kick off this post with another blaster box...

December 19th

2023 Topps Athletes Unlimited Blaster Box

Until I opened up this present, I had never seen or heard of this product, but according to Topps it is the first product of its kind as it features the best athletes from all four Athletes Unlimited sports leagues.

Based on their website, it's a network of professional sports leagues made up of elite women softball, volleyball, basketball, and lacrosse players.  This should be an interesting break, but I might sit on this box until I can figure out who I'm looking for.

December 20th

The unopened box streak continues...

2022/23 Topps NBL Hobby Box

This time it's a hobby box of NBL athletes.  If you're not familiar with the NBL, it stands for the National Basketball League that's located in the land Down Under.  Unlike the two previous boxes that Ryan sent me... I think I'll add this one to my unopened box collection.  I feel like this one will be more fun to open down the line if some of these guys eventually cross the Pacific and play in the NBA.

December 21st

The box streak might have come to an end... but the foreign sports league trend continues with twenty-one packs of 2022 Epoch JLPGA cards:

Looks like there are ninety cards in the base set... so there's a good chance I'll be able to complete it with these packs.  Ryan included these cards to help me get started:

Here's a closer look at one of the singles:

2022 Epoch JLPGA Top Singles #22

This should be a fun set build.  The best part is any duplicates will be added to my Japanese Athlete PC.

December 22nd

Ryan wasn't sure if I collected Garbage Pail Kids cards.

Well... of course I do.  I started buying them back in 1986 when I spent the summer working in Hawaii for my uncle.  One of the things I'd spend my money on was packs of this stuff.  Unfortunately... I didn't keep them after purging my collection in the early 2000's.

But in 2012, I purchased a collection at a card show for under $100 and it included complete sets of Series 2,3,5,6,7,8,9, and 10.  Plus a partial set of Series 4 that was only missing 5 cards.

Although I haven't purchased any of the newer products, I look forward to opening up the 2022 Topps Chrome GPK Series 5 hanger box in hopes of finding some cool refractors.

As for the micro figures, I already popped those open:

Each of them came with tiny variations of the original cards:

2021 Topps GPK Micro Figures Cards #3b

2021 Topps GPK Micro Figures Cards #10a

Super tiny... but super nostalgic and super duper cool.

December 23rd

Next up are the first packs I opened in 2024:

2023 Topps Big League Baseball

Ripped these open on January 2nd and pulled these:

It was nice to pull a Tatis base card, but this was my favorite pull:

2023 Topps Big League Roll Call Wildstyle #RC-13

While these were the first packs of the new year... next up were my final packs of 2023...

December 24th

The 24th present was this box of 2022 Topps Chrome NPB:

The actual box was a little damaged... but the cards were just fine:

Here are the inserts I pulled:

I recognize Masataka Yoshida (in the middle), but it looks like the hit of the box was this card:

2022 Topps Chrome NPB 1958 Gold Refractor #58-20 (#'d 37/50)

As much as I enjoy collecting NPB cards, I don't really know much about their players.  This is one of the exceptions.  The card show dealer with those Godzilla cards told me about him and his ability to hit the long ball.  The only problem is if he does eventually play in the MLB, it won't be for several years.  I guess the waiting game begins now.

December 25th

Japanese Beastie Boys Hello Nasty Advertisement

Many of you know that I'm a huge Beastie Boys fan, so this is quite the Christmas present.  I've never seen this before, but I love that it combines my interest in the group and my heritage.

It's printed on glossy poster paper with the following measurements:  7.125" x 10.125".  Not exactly sure how these were distributed, but Ryan thinks these were passed out at their concert in Osaka back in 1999.  If so... that's pretty flippin' awesome.

Not 100% sure how I'm going to display it... but this is way too cool to be tucked away in a binder somewhere.  I'll figure out something.

Holy smokes.  That was a ton of fun.  But like I stated at the start of the post... all good things must come to an end.  As bloggers, we're constantly reminded by the extreme generosity passed around our community of collectors.  This custom built advent calendar is just another reminder.

Thank you Ryan for putting this together for me.  I truly appreciate the time, effort, and money you put into such a generous care package.  Looking forward to getting together soon and catching up.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!