The Chronicles of Fuji

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

2026-10-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

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!

More 90's Awesomness!

2026-10-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Sort continues. This morning hit up the farmer's market, Trader Joe's, and did some laundry while cleaning the kitchen and listening to some card podcasts. This afternoon I have set aside a few hours to focus on sports cards. I started by cleaning off most of my desk by putting cards into binders and boxes. Then I cataloged a couple of recently completed sets and put them away.

The rest of my Sunday afternoon is dedicated to a care package from Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders and hammering out this blog post. A few weeks ago, I received a padded envelope with three team bags filled with cards for several of my PC's.

Let's start off with a few Hideo Nomo cards that stood out...

1995 Topps Traded & Rookies #124T

I pretty much figured that I owned all of Nomo's pack pulled (non-parallel) rookie cards. However... I didn't recognize this card. Topps dropped the ball in 1995 and didn't include him in either of their flagship series. However they produced three cards of him in their Traded & Rookies set. I already have his Star Watch subset card in the binder, but I was missing the other two. Now I just need his All-Star card that has him paired with Randy Johnson.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how much I enjoy collecting cards from the 90's. These next two cards are perfect examples of why...

1997 Pacific Crown Collection Prism #114

I'll admit that I wasn't really into Pacific products back then. Their use of gold foil was excessive. However I liked it when they embedded acetate portrait shots into some of their base sets. This card is awesome and the concept was a precursor to their Invincible line.

This next insert is interesting and attractive...

1998 Pinnacle Inside Behind the Numbers #19

Back in 1997 and 1998, Pinnacle produced a product that was distributed in cans. Not packs. Cans. I remember opening up a bunch of the football and a handful of the baseball. However this is the first time I've ever held one of these gorgeous Behind the Numbers inserts.

The card back talks about a couple of notable Dodgers who wore #16 before Nomo. In 1998 he was traded to the New York Mets where he kept that jersey number. However when he returned to LA in the early 2000's, Paul Lo Duca was wearing that number, so Nomo switched to #10.

Here are six more 90's Nomos that Dennis included...

He also sent me this game worn jersey card:

2002 UD Authentics Retro Star Rookies Jerseys #SR-HN

Nomo spent one season in Boston... and in his very first game with the franchise he pitched the second no-hitter of his career.

According to Upper Deck, this jersey swatch was worn in an official Red Sox MLB game. What are the odds that he wore it during the no-hitter?

Next up, let's check out some Rickey Hendersons he included. The note he included specifically mentioned this "ticket stub":

1991 SilverStar AuthenTicket #NNO

Back in the early 90's, a company called Field of Dreams produced a few different holograms that were each paired with a commemorative ticket stub. I have received a few of these "ticket stubs" from bloggers over the years... including another one from Dennis, one from John at Johnny's Trading Spot, and one from Angus at Dawg Day Cards.

Here are a couple of Rickeys that I didn't have...

1994 Innovative Confections Disc #1

I've held plenty of MSA discs over the years, but I wasn't familiar with this one. I tried looking into how these were distributed, but I couldn't find anything outside of the checklist on TCDB.

Here's the other Rickey I have never held in my hands until today...

1993 Metz Baking #NNO

I'm pretty sure that I've seen singles from this set before, but I don't know if I have owned any before today. And even if I have one sitting in a binder somewhere, this is my first Rickey... and my first Metz Baking unopened pack.

Here are a few other Rickey Hendersons that Dennis sent my way...

The final Rickey suffered a factory flaw:

1991 Stadium Club Members Only #NNO

It's pretty obvious that the foil triangles were printed much lower on the card than it should have been. What you might not notice is that this card is completely missing the Members Only stamp that's usually printed right under the player's name. I love oddities and errors like this.

Dennis knew this and included two other cards that fit into this category:

1974 Topps #232

1996 Topps Gallery #32

These aren't foil misprints, but they are poorly miscut cards. Off-centered cards are pretty common, but miscuts like these aren't. Recently I have noticed that these are gaining in popularity among collectors on YouTube, so I'm always excited when they arrive in blogger care packages.

I'll wrap things up with the rest of the highlights from TMV's care package:

Zach Charbonnet is a Michigan Wolverine who was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in 2023. Unfortunately he tore his ACL against the San Francisco 49ers during their playoff run last season. He's close to returning, but the Hawks officially ruled him out for tonight's game against the Kansas City Chiefs. They have struggled on offense for most of this season. Hopefully his return change that.

He also included a fat stack of Japanese baseball players... including a shiny Fujinami, a numbered Satozaki, and a cool Ichiro insert.

Thank you Dennis! I've been putting together a stack of stuff for you. Not sure when I'll get around to shipping it out... but until I do... I'll keep adding things to it.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

The Japanese Jackie

2026-10-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

Back on September 1st, 1964... Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese baseball player to play in a MLB game. His time with the San Francisco Giants only lasted a little over a season, but his place in baseball history will hopefully be remembered forever.

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Murakami back in 2015 and I have slowly been building a collection of his cards ever since. Last month, I purchased two autographed inserts of him off of eBay...

2025 Topps First Pitch #FP-2

This card captures Murakami throwing out the first pitch at Oracle Park on May 17th, 2024 in celebration of the 60th anniversary of his MLB debut.

2024 Topps Japan Edition 1989 #89J-48

This card features a cool koi border design and was inserted into 2024 Topps Japan Edition packs. I'm not 100% sure, but based on the scoreboard it looks like Mashi posed for this photo at Wrigley Field either in 1964 or 1965.

Both of these cards were part of auctions that I won for a combined price of $64.09 ($26.19/$29 + $12 shipping + $4.74 tax). Before bidding, I researched CGC x JSA pricing... which begins at around $15 per card if you're submitting items in bulk. With that knowledge, I was very happy to win both of these auctions.

After playing for the Giants in 1965, he was ordered by the NPB commissioner to return to the Nankai Hawks for the 1966 season. Thirty years later, Hideo Nomo became the second Japanese player (born in Japan) to cross the Pacific to play in the MLB. Since then over seventy guys have followed their lead including one of the greatest contact hitters in the 21st century and one of the greatest players currently in the game.

Each year, it's exciting to see who will follow in Murakami, Nomo, Suzuki, and Ohtani's footsteps. This past season fans watched guys like Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto, and Tatsuya Imai make their MLB debuts.

Kenny (over at Torren' Up Cards) recently sent me ten pack of 2026 Stadium Club NPB. It'll be interesting to see if any of these guys eventually come over to the states to play:

Some of you might recognize Tsuyoshi Shinjo (in the #3 spot). He spent a few seasons with the Mets and Giants in the early 2000's. These days he's managing the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

2026 Stadium Club NPB #139

Can't say that I recognize the other nine guys, but maybe one of them will be the next Hideki Matsui or Masahiro Tanaka. Only time will tell. Until then, I'll keep collecting cards of NPB players in hopes that one day I'll get to see them play at Oracle Park or Sutter Health Park.

Thank you Kenny for donating these Stadium Club cards to my collection.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #192: Nothing Too Crazy

2026-10-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of flea market related posts. It's not for a lack of trips or even purchases. The big change is the amount of time I dedicate to writing posts... which has significantly declined. Over the summer, I was focusing on itemizing and organizing my collection. And the start of a new school year is always hectic. The good news is things begin to stabilize in October.

The bad news is card related deals are drying up faster than ever. That's why I've started targeting other items while walking around the flea market. Two of these items are featured in today's post and were purchased this past Saturday at the De Anza Flea Market.

Here's what I purchased...

Purchase #1: Pair of Sets $1

I'm officially at the point in the hobby where I get excited to find cheap overproduced retail box sets from the 80's. I have purchased stuff from this vendor a few times over the years, but like other card vendors... his prices are becoming unreasonable.

1988 Topps Woolworth Baseball Highlights Sets (x2)

However he had a plethora of these 33ct. box sets... and was asking a buck each or $20 for a case of 24. He didn't hide the fact that he wanted to dump them, so I offered him a dollar for two and he accepted. One of them will go into my boxed set collection. The other will be opened up, possibly featured in a future post, and the singles will either go into player collections or added to care packages.

Purchase #2: Cassette Tapes $8

Outside of trading cards, LP's and cassette tapes are my favorite things to look for at flea markets. Unfortunately, the competition is stiff in this area as well. Luckily I found a guy with some tapes I was interested in and he had reasonable prices. $3 each or two for $5.

I found three...

U2 Live Under A Blood Red Sky

I went through a U2 phase back in the 80's where they were one of my favorite bands. Never actually owned this album, CD, or cassette... but I recognize most of these songs. I was very happy to add this to the collection.

Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-78

My brothers are over a decade older than me, so we weren't exactly close when I was a kid. In fact, they were more like uncles than siblings. But they were definitely the cool kind who exposed me to classic rock of the 70's. I've had this CD in my collection for decades. My brother gave me his LP a few years ago. I'm pretty sure I owned the cassette tape back in the 80's. If not... I own a copy now.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Coming Out Of Their Shells

Never knew this cassette tape existed, but as soon as I saw it... I wanted it. Based on a YouTube video, it looks like you could purchase a these at Pizza Hut for $3.99 back in 1990. I'll never actually listen to it, but if I ever build a TMNT display in my office... I'll add this to it.

Purchase #3: Charlie Hustle Autograph $5

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no guarantee that this signature is real. And even if it is... his autographs are far from rare. I don't care. I wasn't going to pass this up for five bucks.

1984 Gateway First Day Cover

This first day cover silk cachet commemorates Pete's 4,000th hit on April 13th, 1984.

The vendor who had this had an entire table filled with old magazines, programs, and photos. While flipping through the stacks, I came across a sleeve containing a few different commemorative covers. Only two were signed. The other featured Len Barker's signature. Rose was worth the risk, but not Barker.

Purchase #4: Dollar Cards $2

After digging through the programs and purchasing the Rose, I started digging through the guy's dollar box. This was one of those boxes where cards are literally tossed into it... half of which were completely unprotected.

Sitting on top was a small stack of 70's Hostess cards... which caught my eye. Unfortunately there were poorly cut and the biggest name I saw was Davey Lopes. But I did find this 90's parallel:

1993-94 Stadium Club First Day Issue #186

Karl Malone wasn't a good father and if you ask Magic or Kobe... he wasn't a good teammate. But he was one heck of a power forward. Not gonna lie. When I saw this card in a heavily worn penny sleeve, my eyes lit up. Anyone else miss the days when parallels weren't pulled from every pack?

I'm glad I continued to dig, because I found an even cooler card:

1976 Kellogg's #19

Unfortunately this card was floating around in the box without a penny sleeve. However somehow the cardboard gods spared it from any cracks. The back is pretty stained though:

I'm not going to complain. I'll buy uncracked 70's Kellogg's cards of any familiar name for a dollar all day long.

Purchase #5: Box of Old Postcards $20

Another side collection I have been building are vintage postcards... especially one depicting places I've been to. I haven't counted, but I'd estimate you're staring at two to three hundred postcards. I flipped through a couple of stacks, compared them to some purchases I have made online, and figured it was well worth the price.

If you'd like to see some in a future post, comment down below. If not I'll eventually sort and file these away.

Purchase #6: A Wood Box $5

Last month, I saw this gentleman with a bunch of affordable handmade boxes. I stopped at his booth to see if he'd be willing to make some custom boxes for my card collection. Unfortunately he was busy with several customers, so I never got a chance to ask.

I was happy to see him again this month. but he doesn't do custom builds. I pulled out a top loader and discovered that it fit perfectly sideways in this particular design. I purchased one. Haven't figured out how I'll use it. But if I do within the next month... maybe I'll grab a few more.

Well that wraps up my most recent trip to the flea market. Nothing too crazy, but I found some baseball cards to purchase. That always counts as a win.

Positive or negative... I'd love to hear your thoughts on my finds.

Until next time...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Eras Post

2026-10-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Heat waves suck. Blog Bat-Arounds rule.

Yesterday Mother Nature turned up the heat in my area and doesn't plan to cool things off for at least the next four or five days. My happy place is in the mid 50's to mid 60's. I can tolerate temps into the mid 70's, but anything in the 80's becomes miserable. Today the temperature will peak in the high 90's. Not cool (both literally and figuratively).

But what is really cool is when bloggers support each other's Blog Bat-Arounds. It's been awesome reading everyone's contributions to Kenny's which asked people to write about their proudest collecting achievements.

On Friday, Matt over at Cards Over Coffee started another one.

Taylor Swift had The Eras Tour. Bloggers have The Eras BBA.

The challenge if you choose to accept it is to discuss your favorite era of card collecting and show off any recent additions to these collections. I chose the word "challenge", because it was way too hard to pick a single era for my response. On any given day, my favorite card collecting era will likely come from one of these three...

A. The 80's

I'm going to start off with the decade where I officially dove into card collecting. I absolutely loved opening packs and looking for rookie cards of guys like Ron Kittle, Vince Coleman, and Mike Greenwell. When I was a kid, they were easily my favorite thing to collect. These days you can add in regional issues like 7-11 discs, Granny Goose A's, and Mother's Cookies SGA sets into the mix. Yup. I love the 80's.

I couldn't think of any 80's regional issues that I've purchased recently, but here's a Roger Clemens rookie card I purchased on eBay back in April:

1985 Donruss #273

You may (or may not) remember the 1985 Donruss factory set I picked up at a flea market back in January for $15. Unfortunately, it was missing the Clemens. It took a few months, but I finally completed the set for $6.81 ($4.99 + $1.82 shipping/tax).

B. The 90's

As Matt pointed out in his post, the most innovative cards were produced during this decade. It was card companies competing against each other at its finest. Thanks to the 90's we have cards made out of acetate, metal, wood, and leather. The shiniest parallels came out of that decade. And that was the decade that introduced pack pulled autographs and game-used memorabilia. Plus there were things like holograms, die-cuts, embossed cardboard, Dufex technology, etched foil, tree ornaments, and a bunch of other things I'm forgetting in the moment. Yup. 90's cards were innovative and awesome.

Unfortunately a lot of these cool 90's cards are skyrocketing in popularity and prices, so I haven't purchased any from eBay or at any card shows. Luckily, I started reorganizing my collection over the summer and I came across hundreds of cool inserts that were hidden in boxes. Here are three that I figured Matt might appreciate and fit this segment of the post:

1999-00 Topps Gallery of Heroes #GH6

1997-98 Skybox Z-Force Zensations #18ZN

1997 Fleer Metal Universe Marvel Metal #1

I did find some cool baseball inserts too, but I like to showcase some basketball and football every now and then.

C. The 70's

One of my favorite things to collect are 70's lenticular Kellogg's cards. I feel like my dream flea market find involves stumbling across a collection of non-cracked Kellogg's cards at a reasonable price. It's not likely to happen, but this collector can dream. Those cards alone make this era a personal favorite.

But I also love collecting 70's cards of athletes I grew up hearing about on television and reading about in magazines. My two binders dedicated to 70's baseball are arguably the ones that I flip through the most on a regular basis. I just love staring at classic designs like 1972 and 1975 Topps and flipping through pages filled with The Swingin' A's. Yup. The 70's rocked.

I rarely add any 70's Kellogg's cards to my collection these days. Like 90's stuff... they're too expensive for my budget. It's even less common for me to share a card I purchased at a flea market before I feature it in a Flea Market Find post. However I picked up this lovely lenticular at the De Anza Flea Market yesterday:

1976 Kellogg's #19

I have a few Flea Market Find posts that I need to hammer out. But the next one I publish will feature this weekend's haul since you've gotten a sneak peek.

Thank you Matt for starting another round of Blog Bat-Arounds! I hope others will join in on the fun. The more, the merrier. Reading your responses will make this heat wave I'm suffering through more bearable.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

A Few Goodbyes and a Pair of Set Completions

2026-09-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm an A's and Padres fan. You know that. And there are times when the San Francisco Giants are my least favorite franchise in baseball. This isn't one of those times, but they're definitely in the bottom five.

That being said... I wanted to kick off this post by honoring Mike Krukow with a proper sayonara salute as he officially retires from the Giants broadcasting booth after dedicating over four decades to the franchise.

1983 Mother's Cookies Giants #12

1983 Mother's Cookies Giants #11

He's a Bay Area legend who will be remembered for being half of the Kruk & Kuip duo. This week... Duane Kuiper announced to his fans that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer and started treatment. Not sure what the future holds for him, but he assured fans that he would be there to support his close friend on his special day.

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes Signatures #HSMK

Enjoy retirement Mr. Krukow! And here's to a speedy and full recovery Mr. Kuiper.

Now let's check out a pair of PWE's from John (@ Johnny's Trading Spot) and Bo (@ Baseball Cards Come to Life!).

I'll start with three cards for two set/project builds...

1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars #5

1986 Topps Glossy All-Stars #5

2023 Topps #330

John sent me the Robin Yount which gets me one step closer to completing the 1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars set. The Ripken and Rodriguez cards were from Bo and complete both of those sets.

Here are a few bonus cards from John:

I'm guessing I won another Maddux Monday giveaway. I'll have to see how many of these I need for my collection.

Bo included these:

I needed the Matsui in the middle!

Thank you John and Bo for helping me with my set builds!

Hope all of you are enjoying your final weekend of baseball. I'm feeling much better today and should be back in the classroom tomorrow.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

Here are a pair of bonus sayonara salutes...

2014 Topps Chrome Refractor #140

I'm sure everyone watched Verlander being greeted by his daughter yesterday as he stepped off the mound for the final time in his MLB career. What a touching moment. Congratulations on your retirement Mr. Verlander! See you in Cooperstown in a few years.

The sports world also lost a legend earlier in the week:

1994-95 Action Packed Basketball HOF Autographs #27

Bob Pettit played before my time, but I knew he was one of the NBA legends from the 50's and 60's. However... Bulldog (@ Nothing If Not Random) wrote a nice tribute that truly opened my eyes to his greatness.

Rest in peace Mr. Pettit.

Real Heroes and Silly Times

2026-09-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to blogging, I've been kinda in a funk. It stems from Blogger's recent issues with sharing our posts on reading lists. Thankfully a few of you shared the TCDB blogroll... which is an excellent companion to the Blogger reading list. Combined they have pretty much resolved the issue, but I'm not sure all of the wrinkles have been ironed out.

I caught my first bug of the school year and ended up taking yesterday and today off. Figured I'd get back into blogger mode and write something... since I'm just laying around with DayQuil flowing through my body.

The past week or two, I've had anniversaries on my mind and they're all tied to 2001. Here are a few cards that are related to each of them. Let's start with the obligatory baseball card:

This might not feature a baseball player, but it features the 1988 Topps baseball card design:

2009 Topps Heritage American Heroes #49

Two weeks ago marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11. That dreadful day David Lim was working at the World Trade Center with his K-9 partner, Sirius.

When the towers were struck, Lim secured Sirius in his kennel before rushing to the aid of others. Although he survived, Sirius tragically did not. If interested, you can read more about it here. And if you're interested, here's an interview with Mr. Lim I found on YouTube where he discusses that morning.

I have heard plenty of definitions of what it means to be a "hero". I've gotta imagine David Lim and Sirius fit most, if not all of them.

Two days before 9/11, HBO released the first two episodes of Band of Brothers.

2009 Topps Heritage American Heroes

American Heroism Relic #AH-WWII7

If you've never watched it, it's a miniseries that tells the story of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. Simply put, it's one of favorite television shows of all-time.

HBO is celebrating the 25th anniversary of this show, so I decided to rewatch all ten episodes over the past two weeks. World War II was before my time, but this show gives people a tiny peek into what some soldiers faced in Europe. It's also a reminder that love trumps hate... and that we as a society should avoid war as much as possible.

2001 Wizards of the Coast Harry Potter #8

Gonna wrap things up with one more anniversary from 2001. Back in August of 2001, Wizards of the Coast released their first Harry Potter TCG set. I'm going to guess that most of you could care less about this.

However while laying in bed yesterday, I had YouTube playing in the background. One of the videos mentioned these cards, which reminded me of a purchase I made ten years ago at the Santa Cruz Flea Market. I wouldn't call myself a Harry Potter fanatic, but I did enjoy the eight movies. And at the time, I figured $5 for a box of cards was a great deal.

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets #28

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Diagon Alley #26

2001 WOTC Harry Potter Quidditch Cup #11

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Adventures at Hogwarts #13

Well recently fans of the franchise (or maybe the game) have rediscovered this forgotten TCG and this has sent some of the singles soaring in sales over on eBay. We're talking about triple digits for raw, completed sales.

I don't know much about this game, but it looks like this Albus Dumbledore is the Harry Potter version of Charizard:

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Adventures at Hogwarts #1

Last Saturday, an ungraded copy sold for over $1000 on eBay. If you happen to have any singles from this game, you might want to dig them out. These are silly times... especially in regards to trading cards.

Okay... I'd better heat up another bowl of chicken noodle soup and finish catching up on some of your blog posts.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

Another Sort, Another Blogger Issue, & Another BBA

2026-09-13T17:35:58.248-07:00

Another Sunday. Another sort. Another issue with Blogger.

This time... blog posts aren't popping up in Blogger reading lists. Hopefully they resolve this issue as quickly as they did with the commenting one.

Can't worry about that right now, because it's time to sort some care packages from John (@ Johnny's Trading Spot) and Kenny (@ Torren' Up Cards).

Let's start with a flat rate box that John sent me two weeks ago. The majority of the cards he sent my way were for my Japanese Athlete PC.

He sent me a good mix of retired and current players as well as a mixture of base, inserts, and parallels.

After sorting them into player lots, Masataka Yoshida's stack stood taller than everyone else combined. Here are nine that stood out:

The cherry blossom card in the #3 spot is my favorite, because it's a Japanese Edition exclusive. However there was another insert that stood out:

2024 Topps 1989 Topps The Real One #89B-14 (#'d 32/89)

At first glance this card looks like any other 35th anniversary insert. Only this card lacks the usual glossy finish.

It's hard to tell in the scan, but Topps tried to mimic the original 1989 paper stock and added serial numbering to this insert parallel.

The other large stack contained a bunch of Masahiro Tanaka cards:

John also sent me some A's cards. Unfortunately I misplaced the scan containing some of my favorites. But here are two new Barry Zito jersey cards:

2003 Fleer Showcase Baseball's Best Jersey #BB-BZ

2003 Fleer Platinum Portraits Jersey #PP/BZ

The last time an A's pitcher won the AL Cy Young Award was twenty-four years ago. Zito was the guy.

Dave Stewart finished in the top 4 voting... four years in a row (1987 to 1990)... but never won the award.

1991 Baseball Card Price Guide Monthly #44

Stew was rewarded with this cool magazine card in 1991... the same year he led the MLB in earned runs allowed. However A's fans will always remember his great run with the team more than those earned runs.

John also sent me a stack of 80's Topps Glossy All-Stars:

I've been putting together a collection of these sets from 1984 to 1991. None of these were needed for the project, but five out of the six went into my player binders.

He also sent me some vintage non-sport singles:

1957 Topps Robin Hood #5

1954 Bowman US Navy Victories #21

1957 Topps Isolation Booth #14

I'm not building any of these sets... but each of these will be added to my non-sport sampler binder.

John gives away nine Greg Maddux cards every week. I've won a few times. Here are my latest winnings:

The Topps 206 Mini in the middle is the one I was most excited about. Maddux is probably the 2nd largest player collection behind Tony Gwynn. So anytime I can add a new card to the binders, it's a reason to celebrate.

I also won one of his Wacky Packages giveaways:

I was absolutely stoked to see this in the box. John is the blogger responsible for getting me into collecting Wacky Packages and I'd say 80 to 90% of the ones sitting in my collection were gifts from him.

This particular sticker takes me back to my college years:

My buddy and I drove down to TJ a few times and one of the key memories is walking across the Tijuana River and instantly getting smacked in the face by the smell of raw sewage. Good times. There are a few other memorable moments... but those stories don't really fit into a card blog post.

Thank you John for the generous giveaways and the thoughtful care package.

Rounding out this post is another care package. This one arrived the same week as John's... but from the other side of the planet.

Kenny hooked me up with a pack of 2026 Topps Series 2 Japan Edition:

Although there are cherry blossom parallels and koi fish versions of the 1991 insert set... the odds of pulling them aren't very good. That's why I've decided to add this to my collection of unopened Japanese trading card packs.

Don't worry... I do have a pair of Japanese Dream Order game cards to show off:

2025 Dream Order #TBP01-G21

First up is Toronto's Kazuma Okamoto. Next is Chicago's Munetaka Murakami:

2024 Dream Order #CBP01-S02

Each of these MLB rookies have hit 31 home runs this season. And I'm excited to add both to my Japanese binders.

Thank you Kenny!

Not sure how many people will have the opportunity to see this post, but hopefully Blogger fixes the issue sooner than later. If not... this could pose a huge problem for everyone who works hard to write blog posts about the hobby we love. Only time will tell.

Fingers crossed.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

I just discovered on Night Owl's blog that Kenny has started a Blog Bat-Around. He wants us to share our proudest collecting moments.

#1: Becoming a blogger.

Before starting this blog, my hobby world revolved around card shows, card shops, message boards, eBay, and flea markets. However the blogosphere has introduced me to more collectors than all of those areas combined. Sure most are strictly online interactions, but I have met a fair share of bloggers in person.

#2: Collecting 19+ on-card, pack pulled autographs of Mr. Padre.

2007 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius #SG-GW

This wasn't too challenging. However after Rickey Henderson passed away two years ago, I realized that I probably won't be able to obtain 24 on-card, pack pulled autographs of him due to the rising cost of his signatures. This also made me realize that I was very lucky to chase Gwynn autographs while they were plentiful and affordable. It would never happen today.

#3: Attending the final A's game at the Coliseum and owning the Topps Now card that commemorates it.

2024 Topps Now #760

This might be more of a fan accomplishment, but considering how important the A's are to my collecting focus... I felt like this should make the list.

The Struggle is Real

2026-09-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone else struggling to comment on blog posts?

I've tried to comment on several blogs this morning and every time I get the "Publishing..." box without the comment actually being published. I was able to leave a comment on a Word Press blog, but not on any Blogger blogs... including my own:

I'm hoping this is just a temporary glitch on Blogger's end... or a simple fix on mine, because commenting on your posts and responding to comments on my blog are a very important part of my hobby. If anyone has any insight, please let me know down in the comment section below (assuming you are able to).

2026-27 School ID Card

Switching gears, I apologize for the lack of posts. I was hoping to hammer out some Flea Market Finds, but the start of the school year is typically hectic. Plus I've been more tired than usual, so when I get home I've been recharging my batteries watching tv rather than playing with my baseball cards.

I even missed out on publishing my annual birthday post. Here are the trio of cards I've added to my Birthday PC since last year:

2017 Topps Now #547

Back on September 1st, 2017... Clayton Kershaw returned from the DL to help the Dodgers snap a five game losing streak.

Unfortunately the victory came at the expense of my favorite National League team.

2019 Topps Now #778

On September 1st, 2019... Justin Verlander pitched the third no-hitter of his career.

After walking Cavan Biggio in the bottom of the first inning, he shut down the final twenty-six batters he faced in the game (14 by strikeout).

2022 Topps Now #825

On September 1st, 2022... Spencer Strider struck out 16 against the Colorado Rockies to set an Atlanta Braves single game franchise record.

Warren Spahn holds the all-time franchise record with 18 strikeouts in a single game back in 1952. At the time the Braves were in Boston and the Cubs were their opponents.

Speaking of birthdays, here's a cool present I received on Wednesday from one of my students:

1996 Collector's Edge President's Reserve #375

Stubblefield is one of his defensive coaches, so he got me a signed card for my birthday.

Well that's it for today. I'm really hoping that the "comment" issue will be fixed soon. Although reading blog posts are a huge part of my interaction with fellow collectors... exchanging comments is equally important.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

Update

Don't have a solution to the problem, but Angus, John, and Greg have reached out to me to let me know that they tried to comment on this post without success. However Jim was able to comment on this post. Looks like it's impacting some people, but not everyone.

The Best of the Rest

2026-08-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday... which means another few hours set aside in the day to sort cards and hammer out a blog post.

Today i'll be wrapping up Rod's (aka Padrographs) care packages... which arrived back at the start of summer. I'm gonna start off with a 9-pocket page of Athletics:

Once upon a time, the A's were sitting in first place atop the AL West. As of this morning, they have the 2nd worst record in baseball. A lot of that has to do with the lack of quality starting pitching and a ton of injuries... including two of their brightest young stars: Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson.

Both of these guys are out for the rest of the season, but I'll happily add their cards to my collection whenever I can.

Next up are some Padres inserts and parallels:

The A's were crazy to trade away Mason Miller... but I sure am glad that he landed in San Diego. He's recorded 34 saves with a 0.90 ERA since his arrival. That refractor of him wearing the City Connect jersey is right up there with the Swinging Friar card as my favorites.

Rod also sent me a bunch of Topps Now Padres. Here's 90% of the 2024 Topps Now Opening Day Padres team set:

Robert Suarez was the only card missing, but I ran over to eBay and picked up a copy for $2 + tax & shipping.

He also sent me some 2023 and 2024 Topps Now Padres. The card sitting in the #5 spot is a short print variation of Dylan Cease's no-hitter celebration. I had heard about these variations before, but this is the first time owning one.

If you look carefully in the regular version of Cease's Topps Now card, you'll notice the Peter Seidler memorial patch on his jersey. Rod sent me the gray version of this patch:

Peter Seidler Memorial Patch

He also included this 20th Anniversary of Petco Park patch:

Petco Park 20th Anniversary Patch

These two patches sent me on a wild goose chase to track down a few more patches for my baseball collection, but I'll share them in a future post.

He also included some memorabilia cards. Here's my very first Trent Grisham relic:

2021 Topps Allen & Ginter Relic #AGA-TG

He had a few memorable walk-off home runs for the Padres during his tenure with the team. I wonder if this piece of wood came from one of those bats.

Unfortunately Topps didn't bother including any information about whether or not this swatch of wood came from a game-used bat. C'mon Topps... do better.

2004 Topps Clubhouse Career Legends Relic #CL-WM2 (#'d 044/141)

Twenty-two years ago, you at least assured collectors that this jersey swatch was worn by Willie Mays in an official MLB game:

But even this COA could be interpreted a variety of ways. That being said... I'm not going to complain. This is a freaking Willie Mays jersey card. How often do you see one of these pop up in a care package?

I know that memorabilia cards aren't as popular as they once were, but I'm still a big fan.

Here's another one from Rod's collection:

Baseball Card Breakdown Custom Relic #BG-Relic-Bip (#'d 1/1)

This one was created by Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown:

As you can see, Gavin wrote a quality COA that states that the uniform swatch came from a pair of game-used pants worn by Brian Giles during the 2000 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Well that wraps up Rod's three care packages. Thank you so much for all of the new additions to my Padres, A's, and autograph PC's. And of course... I can't forget that sweet Willie Mays jersey card.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Accidentally Left Out

2026-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Friday's post celebrated The Collector's 10th Anniversary. I didn't have time to open up the 1986 Topps rack pack he included in the care package. Today we resolve that issue. However before I show off the highlights from that pack, let's check out three lefties that were also part of the care package:

While organizing and sorting Chris's care package... I set these three cards to the side and accidentally left them out. Then I read Jim's post about International Lefthanders Day and was reminded of the two lefties Chris had sent my way. As a fellow lefty, I decided a few years ago to collect left-handed athletes. Randy and Clayton are two of the greatest from my lifetime.

2026 Topps #22

I was especially excited to see Kershaw's 2026 Topps card, because it shows off statistics from his entire MLB career. Topps drops the ball a lot these days, but kudos to them for giving him and his fans a proper sunset card.

Okay, let's take a look at the contents of that 1986 Topps rack pack...

I'm pretty sure Chris chose this specific rack pack for me, because I need this Garvey for my set build:

1986 Topps Glossy All-Star #13

One card down. One card to go:

When it comes to collecting, 1986 Topps holds a lot of nostalgic value to me. One one hand it reminds me of stolen cards and the end of a childhood friendship. But it also reminds me of a time when I'd open up packs of cards, look them over, and sort them in a variety of ways.

Sometimes I'd sit down and try to build the best team out of the cards pulled in my pack.

Here's my starting nine:

Since this was a rack pack with forty-nine cards, I decided to only use regular base cards (no subsets) to build my squad. If you're wondering why I used Jose Cruz in center when he spent most of his career patrolling left... it's because Oglivie had dibs on that position.

1986 Topps #583

I considered putting Al Bumbry in centerfield, but ultimately I'd rather have Cruz out there playing out of position.

However like Kershaw... Bumbry gets to be in the spotlight today, because his 1986 Topps card is his sunset card. Here's a look at his career stats:

Bumbry is a huge fan favorite among Baltimore Orioles fans, but this card captures his lone season in San Diego.

I'll wrap things up with Al's manager in 1985 and a few other familiar names from the rack pack:

Thanks again Chris for this generous care package. It was cool to see some sunsets. And this rack pack took me back to my middle school days in more than one way.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

It's a Celebration Sensation!

2026-08-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

School trumps sports cards... especially at the start of the school year. There just aren't enough hours in the day. So if you see a blog post published here during the work week, there's a pretty good chance I wrote the post over the weekend and scheduled it.

Not this one. Today we're celebrating a special occasion. It's Chris The Collector's 10th Anniversary... which he celebrated by busting open boxes and building special gift packages for supporters of his blog. I was fortunate to be one of the recipients.

The padded envelope he sent included several team bags stuffed with cards and packs. It took me just under two hours to sort and scan, so without further ado...

Let's start things off with a nice stack of A's cards:

He was able to get his hands on some popular products like Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary.

As you can see, he sent me singles from each of the first three sets in the product line. As much as I love these cards, the Rickey Henderson 1955 Rails and Sails insert is my favorite card in the lot.

2010 Sportkings Series D #180

I was also excited to see this uncirculated Gwynn card. Technically I already own this card, but this particular copy is still in the original top loader pulled from the pack. In other words... I'm considering this to be a variation and keeping it.

He also sent me some nice shiny cards for my two favorite football team collections:

Plus four San Jose Sharks:

Thornton, Pavelski, Couture, and Burns are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th on the Sharks all-time points leader board. Anyone know who's #1?

He also sent me a four pack of Japanese baseball players, including the very popular Munetaka Murakami:

I don't write about them often, but for decades the Los Angeles Lakers were my favorite basketball team. This guy was a big reason I became a fan:

1981-82 Topps #20

Kareem would go on to play eight more seasons with the Lakers and score over 12,000 more points than depicted on the back of this trading card:

This is arguably the coolest card in his anniversary package. It's kind of hard to see, but this card has a wax stain on the front. Back in the 80's, I would have been bummed to pull this card out of a pack. Four decades later, I consider it to be an under-appreciated parallel.

Speaking of parallels, check out this color-matched Elway for my Stanford PC:

2024 Prizm Draft Picks Ruby Wave #37

And here's my latest addition to my Ray Lewis PC:

2025 Donruss Optic Light It Up #17

He also tossed in a pair of Joe Montana cards:

2009 Topps National Chicle Mini #C46

2024 Topps Chrome 1974 Refractor #74TF-18

These may or may not have been intended for my students, but both went into the Montana section of my hall of fame binder.

Rounding out the gift package were three unopened packs. The first two will be added to my rainy day pack stash:

1991 Stadium Club 2nd Series Pack

2025 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary Hobby Pack

Back in 1991, this Stadium Club pack would have been a very hot commodity... as collectors were ripping into them in hopes of pulling Jeff Bagwell or Phil Plantier rookie cards. Today... the 2025 Chrome Platinum Anniversary is the much hotter product.

Chris also included this 1986 Topps rack pack:

1986 Topps Rack Pack

It may seem like just a random pack, but he sent this specific pack to help me get one step closer to completing my 1986 Topps Glossy All-Star set:

Okay... technically I haven't opened it up. Like I stated earlier in the post... my free time during the week is limited. But don't worry... I'm going to tear into this pack on Sunday and when I do... I'll show off the highlights.

And after reading Jim's post this morning, I realized that I accidentally left out some left-handed pitchers. Sorry about that Chris. Don't have time to scan them before getting ready for work, so I'll show them off on Sunday with the Garvey.

Until then...

Happy anniversary Chris! And thank you for this very generous giveaway. Although I think it's sad that you made the decision to retire from collecting cards at the end of the year... I understand that we all must make big decisions that are best for ourselves and our families. I'm glad that you plan on keeping your blog alive... as I always look forward to reading the different series you written.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #191 : A Kitty, a Signed Ball, & some Comics and Cards

2026-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Wrapping Things Up

2026-08-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're having fun. This summer was pretty awesome. Busy, but awesome.

It was only the third summer in my twenty-eight years of teaching that I didn't work and there's a good chance I won't be teaching summer school again. As much as I enjoy the extra paychecks, I enjoyed the free time to focus on other things a wee bit more.

Last summer, I read two of Alan Gratz's books. This summer, I read one more:

Allies by Alan Gratz

Gratz is popular among young adult readers interested in historical fiction. This particular book looks at the events of D-Day from the three different perspectives. It was a really enjoyable read that constantly had me looking up facts about that day.

Summer is also the perfect time to binge watch a favorite show from the past. This year I decided to rewatch the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica. I already mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I look forward to showing off my celebrity crush whenever I can:

2016 Baseball Card Breakdown

Pretty Girls Custom #1

Ten years ago, Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown produced a set of custom cards featuring nine pretty ladies. He held a contest where the winner would receive a complete set. As a bonus, the winner would get to pick a lady to be included in the set. I won and chose Grace Park.

I also went on several short trips this summer. Here are some wallet card shots I took to document those road trips:

Carnelian Bay, Lake Tahoe

Back in July, my brothers and I took a trip up to Lake Tahoe to visit my mother. It was a gorgeous day and we were surprised that there weren't more people up there escaping the Central Valley heat.

When we got back to Sacramento, we stopped off at Whitey's Jolly Kone:

This place was packed, but the fresh peach milkshake was delicious.

Later in the month, my friend and I headed back to our regular vacation spot:

Pismo Beach

If this looks familiar, it's because we've stayed there three or four times since Christmas.

Morro Bay

I was hoping to get a good shot of Morro Rock, but the fog was rolling in when we were there for lunch. We actually planned to drive down again, but we scrapped that idea and started going into our classrooms.

Speaking of classrooms, one of my co-workers gave me a bunch of San Francisco Giants stadium giveaways:

I only kept a few of the items, which I might show off in a future post when I decide where to display them. The rest were offered up to other teachers.

Alright... let's wrap up the final post of my summer break with seventeen new Gwynns that Rod (aka Padrographs) sent me:

2012 Panini Cooperstown High Praise #10

2013 Pinnacle Clear Vision #CV68

2015 Finest Generations #FG-36

2015 Stadium Club #265

2019 Topps 1984 All-Stars #84AS-TG

2019 Topps Gallery #197

2019 Topps A&G Gold Mini #77

2020 Topps Decade of Dominance #DOD-11

2021 Topps Update Cards That Never Were #CNW-12

2022 Topps Chrome Silver Pack Mojo #T87C-36

2023 Chrome Platinum Anniversary Green Wave #442 (#'d 25/99)

2024 Topps Big League #TBL-18

It's not often I receive a Gwynn card serial numbered to 99 in a care package. Rod ended up sending me a few.

2025 Topps 1990 Silver Pack Chrome #T90C-58

2025 Topps 1990 Silver Pack Chrome Aqua Refractor #T90C-58 (#'d 050/199)

2025 Topps 1990 Silver Pack Chrome Green Refractor #T90C-58 (#'d 21/99)

2025 Topps Call to the Hall Blue #CTH-21 (#'d 005/150)

2025 Topps Call to the Hall Green #CTH-21 (#'d 21/99)

Thank you Rod for all of these new additions to my Gwynn PC. I still have one more post covering some of the other items you sent. That should be published next weekend.

And thank you to all of you who took the time to read this post. Some of you might be wondering when I'll be shipping out my care packages. I haven't forgotten about them. I just haven't finished building them. Every time I remind myself to work on them, I get distracted. But I'm giving myself through Labor Day weekend to build them.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

A Whale of a Sort

2026-08-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Summer break is over. Technically I don't need to report until Thursday, but I've been working in my classroom since early last week. It takes me a few days to set up my classroom and prep the first three weeks of lessons.

Not teaching summer school forced me to dip into my savings. Outside of that... it was pretty amazing. I'll have a recap post posted by the time students arrive on the 17th.

Today's post is a continuation of the Sunday Sort. Last weekend I opened up three packages from Rod over at Padrographs and sorted everything into categories. Phase two (which is the focus of today's post) is to sort and integrate the Tony Gwynn cards he sent.

But before we get into that, here's a Gwynn I recently purchased on eBay:

1992 Fleer Ultra Commemorative Promo #NNO

I have been trying to add this card to my 1992 Fleer Ultra master set for years. It was handed out at the 1992 Fleer stockholders meeting and features Fleer's CEO back in the day.

The back talks about Gwynn and how he signed over 2,000 cards which were inserted into packs of 1992 Fleer Ultra.

I thought this card completed my run of 1992 Fleer Ultra Gwynn cards:

Unfortunately... while looking up this Mullan/Gwynn promo, I discovered that Gwynn also has a 1992 pre-production sample as well. There are actually nine other sample cards I need to find, but I'm up for the challenge.

Okay. Let's get to the Gwynns from Rod's care packages. He sent over 200 Gwynns. Obviously I don't have the time to scan them all. In honor of Mr. Padre's jersey number, here are 19 cards that were added to my Gwynn PC...

1984 Fleer #301

Technically, I already have a copy of this second year base card. But completed sets get priority over player or team collections.

1992 Padres Police #NNO

1993 Stadium Club Members Only #538

1994 Donruss Commemorative Anniversary #10

While originally sorting through all of the Gwynns, I thought this was his 1984 base card. But upon closer inspection, it's from an insert set celebrating their ten year anniversary.

1995 Leaf 300 Club #13

1995 SP Championship Die-Cut #90

1996 Bowman's Best Mirror Image #7

One of these guys is not like the others, but there was a time when I thought Ben Grieve would end up being a superstar.

1996 Leaf Statistical Standouts #2 (#'d 1939/2500)

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Slick Picks #15

1996 Topps Master of the Game #MG12

1996 Topps Gallery #147

1999 Fleer Tradition Diamond Magic #5DM

1999 Pacific Invincible Sandlot Heroes #17

2000 Fleer Focus Pocus #2FP

2000 Topps #240a & #240d

Much like the commemorative promo card above, I have been trying to complete the five card subset of 2000 Topps Gwynns for a few years. Split between the two series, Topps highlighted the careers of ten players with a Magic Moments subset. Each player received five cards that were short printed, which is why set builders may or may not consider their set complete with one of these singles.

2001 Fleer Tradition Grass Roots #13

2003 Topps Record Breakers #RB-TGW

If you've ever wondered how long it takes me to integrate and scan a large stack of cards into my personal collection, this Gwynn sort will help paint a picture.

1994 Donruss Commemorative Anniversary #10

Obviously sorting a few hundred cards usually doesn't take too much time, but thanks to the 90's... I had a lot of trouble figuring out which year some of these Gwynns were produced. A card might say 1993 in the copyright area, but actually be listed as a 1994 card. This also forced me to move some cards around in my collection.

Another delay I encountered were late 80's Topps and Donruss variations. Holy cow. Why did I ever decide to collect these? Anyways... looking for missing periods, apostrophes, or asterisks with a magnifying glass took longer than expected.

Toss in a few breaks here and there... and this Sunday Sort took close to five hours. This is by no means a complaint. It's just an observation. There are still seventeen stacks of Gwynns that I still need to integrate into the collection, but I needed to wrap things up and write this post.

Unfortunately... I couldn't stay awake last night and ended up falling asleep before I could finish, so this edition of the Sunday Sort gets to be published on a Monday morning.

Thank you Rod for these awesome additions to the Gwynn collection.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

A Sweaty Sunday Sort

2026-08-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's hot here. Too hot. The kind of heat that makes me skip the farmer's market and grocery shopping. That means more time to clean the house and sort some cards.

Today I targeted three packages Rod over at Padrographs sent me back at the start of summer. I thought it was gonna take me a few weeks to get to them, but it ended up taking a few months.

There's obviously way too much to cover in a single post, so I decided to focus on what he's best known for: autographs.

Let's start with some familiar names...

2011 Topps #178

It's been over a decade since Bell sprinted onto the field at Petco, but I'm guessing most Padres fans can picture it in their head.

Let's take a trip back to the 80's...

1985 Mother's Cookies Padres #1

Dick Williams was the manager of the Padres when I started rooting for them during the 1984 World Series.

1985 Fleer #30

If you followed baseball back in the 80's, then you're familiar with Dravecky's story. If not and you're interested, click here.

What you might not know is that his signature changed after he had his left arm amputated. If you ever see a signed ball, photo, or card of his with his first and last name on the same line, then it was before his surgery. These days, he's signs his last name below his first.

1990 Donruss #302

Did you know that Mark Davis is one of five pitchers to win a Cy Young Award while representing the Padres? He was also part of the trade that sent Dravecky to the San Francisco Giants.

I wish I could write about all of the autographs that Rod sent my way, but it's getting late and I really want to publish this post tonight. But feel free to check them out... and offer any comments on any of these guys down below:

Not all of the autographs from Rod were of the TTM or IP variety. Here are the pack pulled autographs:

2013 Leaf Perfect Game Showcase Jersey Auto #JA-JN1

When I saw this card, his name sounded familiar. Then I looked him up and was reminded of the time he broke into someone's house, got kicked in the face, and tasered. On the brighter side, he's still playing pro ball in Mexico.

2013 Bowman DP&P Autographs #BCA-HR

2020 Bowman Platinum Top Prospects Auto #TOP-59

2022 Prizm Draft Picks Signing Sessions #SS-DM

Rod went big and sent me this really cool Topps buyback autograph of Goose Gossage:

2024 Topps Archives Signature Series (1987 Topps #380)

This is only my second Gossage autograph featuring him with the Padres... and my first with him signing across his face. I was very surprised to see this card slide out of the small flat rate shipping box.

But I was even more surprised to see this framed and matted signature:

Yup. That's a cut signature of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar... one of the greatest basketball players of all-time. When I turned it over and saw it, I was left speechless.

He also sent me an autograph of this lesser known Laker:

2012-13 Absolute Rookie Auto #182

Not gonna lie. I've never heard of Mr. Johnson-Odom. But he does share the last names of two famous and popular Lakers legends: Magic Johnson and Lamar Odom.

Let's wrap things up with the final two autographs he sent me...

1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual #554

Brian Hayward was one of the Minnesota North Stars players chosen by the Sharks as part of the special dispersal draft in 1991. He's credited as being the goalie in the first win in franchise history.

A few years ago Rod sent me a relic card from Harmon's NCIS days. It was one of my mom's favorite television shows. And now I have an autograph to go with it.

If you're wondering why he's featured as a quarterback for UCLA, that's because he was their starting quarterback in 1972 and 1973. The thing I mainly remember him for is his role in Summer School.

Obviously there's a lot of other stuff I need to cover in regards to Rod's care packages, but it's already Monday in some parts of the country, so I'm going to wrap this up here.

Thank you Rod! And thank goodness the temperature has finally dropped into the 70's.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

BBA: The Blogger National 2026

2026-07-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I would have jumped at the opportunity to attend The National Sports Collectors Convention. The only thing holding me back was money. These days it's way more than finances keeping me away from the largest card show of the year.

It's the timing. The NSCC is always scheduled right around the time I'm getting ready for the new school year.

It's my back. I've heard that this show is huge. Standing around at a local mall show digging through boxes starts to wreak havoc on my lower back after 3 or 4 hours. I have no idea what the NSCC would do to me.

And it's the crazy crowds. Based on what I've heard, the NSCC crowds are insane. Thinking about it gives me anxiety. Bottom line... the older I get... the less I enjoy standing shoulder to shoulder with people.

Thankfully Matt over at Cards over Coffee started a Blog Bat-Around for collectors who aren't attending the show. He wants us to show off some of our coolest cards or recent mail days as a way of us getting together in our blogosphere instead of in a large showroom floor. This is much more my speed.

Let's start off with something that's right up Matt's alley:

2006 Rittenhouse Battlestar Gallactica

Season One Autograph #NNO

Not sure if he's a Battlestar Galactica fan, but I know he enjoys collecting autographs of celebrities.

One of the things I did over summer break was binge watch the entire four seasons. It's definitely one of my favorite television shows and Grace Park is one of my biggest celebrity crushes. When I finished the show, I wanted to add her Season One signature to my collection. It pairs perfectly with the Season Three autograph I purchased years ago:

2008 Rittenhouse Battlestar Gallactica

Season Three Autograph #NNO

I've made a few eBay purchases over the summer, but I'm hoping to write dedicated posts for them. However I do want to show off this blog-inspired purchase:

1977 Sertoma Stars Puzzle Backs #NNO

I saw someone post a single (or a few singles) from this set. It's one that I had never seen before, so I started doing some digging and it led me to purchasing the Joe Jackson.

There are a few others cards from this set that I'd like to add to the collection like Satchel Paige and Lou Gehrig, but for now Jackson will suffice.

The card backs are puzzle pieces that when put together feature the 1913 Pittsburgh Nationals. I did some digging on the internet and the gentleman on this puzzle piece is Fred Clarke, a hall of famer and the manager of the Nationals that season.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to remember where I saw this set. If you recently blogged about any 1977 Sertoma Puzzle Backs, please comment down below and I'll give you credit.

Update: Red Cardboard is the one who opened my eyes to the 1977 Sertoma set.

Switching gears... I want to show off another present from Ryan's (@ SumoMenkoMan) advent calendar. However let's take a peek at the haiku riddle first:

I immediately knew he was referring to these gachapon balls, which come out of vending machines (that are really popular in Japan).

Here's what I ended up pulling:

The first three contained key chains. Two were mini Star Wars action figures and one featured Mt. Fuji. Inside of the 4th ball was another Mt. Fuji related item:

It's a draw string pouch that I'll probably use to hold spare change in my car.

This might seem like a weird time to show off these gachapons, but I recently opened up them as part of my summer sort. I also wanted to note that if I ever actually attend the NSCC, chances are I'd be meeting up with Ryan and hopefully a few of you.

If you check out Matt's post, he shared some stuff that Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders recently sent him. Dennis also sent me a care package (back in December) that I opened up this morning. I was going to use it as part of this Sunday's Sort, but this post seems more appropriate.

Here are the highlights:

1982 Fleer Stamps #123

Let's start with the oldest item in Dennis' care package. It's a third year Rickey oddball... and it's fantastic. Rickey loves stamp collecting.

Later in the decade, Sports Illustrated decided to produce a new magazine titled Sports Illustrated for Kids. Each issue included trading cards like these:

Sports Illustrated for Kids Series 3

Technically these nine football cards were released in the early to mid 2000's. The first series cards looked like this:

2004 SI for Kids Series 3 Throwback #341

This card is a reprint of Emmitt's Series 1 card that was released back in 1991. The key difference is the original SIFK logo was replaced by the silver SIFK 15th logo in the bottom left corner.

As we transition into the 90's... we're gonna see some truly special cardboard. Card companies competed with each other to win over collectors and what transpired was an explosion of ingenuity and creativity that ultimately reshaped the hobby. I understand and respect that it's not everyone's cup of tea... but I truly love 90's trading cards.

I'll let the cards explain why...

1999 Skybox E-X Century E-X-Quisite #7

This is one of those cards that you need to hold in your hand to appreciate. This gorgeous insert set combines up and coming MLB stars with acetate and cardboard.

Here's another card that utilizes acetate:

1997 Upper Deck Amazing Greats #AG3

Companies also started printing trading cards on wood too... like the above A-Rod. I wasn't sure why Dennis sent me this card, but upon closer inspection, it revealed this tiny flaw:

Yup. This is another nice addition to my Damaged Card PC.

Getting back to the 90's...

1995 Pinnacle Museum Collection #201

This card blew me away when I saw it in the stack. Pinnacle's dufex parallels might not be as shiny as refractors from the era, but they are still attractive... especially when paired with stellar photography. I don't usually like to pick favorites, but today this card claims the title.

The 90's opened the floodgates for other parallels, like these color bordered ones:

2010 Topps Opening Day Blue #115

2011 Bowman Green #174

These two parallels might not have the same eye appeal as the Rickey, but honestly that can be applied to 99% of the parallels from the 2000's moving forward.

They also introduced memorabilia cards to collectors in the mid 90's. At the time, it was kind of a big deal to have a company purchase game used uniforms, cut them up, and insert swatches into cards, because it allowed collectors to own a piece of the game:

2003 UD Authentics Star Quality Game Used #SQ-HN (#'d 027/350)

2005 Bowman Sterling Jersey #BS-EC

2006 Bowman DP&P Futures Game Relics #FG39

The 2000's saw the memorabilia card market boom. I feel like card companies have shot themselves in the foot with vague COA's and event-worn jerseys. Thankfully the Nomo and Suzuki both state that the embedded jersey swatches were indeed worn in a game.

A few years later (not exactly sure when), card companies started creating manufactured relics like this cool commemorative coin card:

2020 Topps Player Medallion #TPM-MC

Although some manufactured relics can come off as being cheesy... I actually like this particular coin card.

Thank you Dennis for this generous care package. I apologize it too me so long to open it up.

I'd also like to thank Ryan for the very cool gachapons. If I ever go to Japan, I could see myself going crazy at these vending machines.

And a special thanks goes out to Matt for inspiring this Blog Bat-Around. Hopefully a few of you will decide to join in on the fun.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

Garage Sale Grabs #1: Private & Personalized

2026-07-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to shopping for collectibles locally... I prefer flea markets over antique stores, card shops, card shows, social media, or garage sales. That being said... there's no way I'm passing up the opportunity for a private garage sale with items specifically catered to me.

That's what happened back in April when this woman was helping out with her friend's estate sale. She had invited me to a street sale, but by the time I arrived, some of the sports related items had already been sold. She told me there were still plenty of boxes that hadn't been sorted or organized at her house and invited me to come over the following weekend to see for myself.

When I arrived, she had four tables spread out in her driveway and garage with a ton of sports and card related items. The gentleman's collection was truly impressive. Unfortunately most of the interesting stuff was more than I was willing to pay. I did find a few items within my budget...

Purchase #1: 1967 Topps Posters Lot $50

This was the item I was most excited about. I really love the design of the 1967 Topps Posters and when I saw that the lot included Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, I immediately set aside the lot.

1967 Topps Posters #6

1967 Topps Posters #11

The posters were stored in two pocket PVC pages (the thicker gauge plastic pages that people used in the 80's), which made removing the posters a challenge. They're printed on very thin paper (like newspaper), so they're very fragile (especially along the folds).

1967 Topps Posters #12

1967 Topps Posters #15

As a result, more than half of these posters are torn or have missing pieces. I should have examined them at the garage sale. If I had, I would have asked her to reduce the price or put it back.

Purchase #2: Ticket Stubs $40

Giants vs. Dodgers 9/30/99 Ticket Stub

This ticket stub is from the last San Francisco Giants' game at Candlestick Park, which is one of the ballparks from my childhood. As much as I wanted to add this to my collection, her asking price was a little steep.

I asked her if she'd toss in this ticket stub:

Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran 6/20/80 Ticket Stub

She had a stack of these at the flea market. This was another situation where I should have paid closer attention to what I was buying. I thought this was an actual ticket stub to attend the fight. However the fight took place in Montreal, Canada... not Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

In other words, this was a ticket stub to watch the fight on CCTV at the Sioux Falls Arena. At least it's content for a blog post.

Purchase #3: Vintage Lot $70

The third and final purchase ended up being the best deal... with a pretty cool surprise. It consisted of ten vintage sports cards:

The key card was the Willie McCovey rookie card:

1960 Topps #316

This is a card I have wanted to own for a long time. I always assumed it was a high valued card (even in poor conditions), but lower grade copies like this one can be found for under $50... sometimes under $25.

I also added this reasonably priced HOF rookie card to the stack:

1952 Bowman #5

Hidden among the eight remaining cards was this interesting surprise as this card ended up being worth more than the McCovey and Minoso combined:

1963 Post Cereal #119

At first glance, it looks like your standard 60's Post Cereal card. However after doing a little digging, I discovered that Willie Davis is one of the short prints in the set.

There's also a Jello version of Mr. Davis which is more common and affordable. The easiest way to spot the difference is look at the red line in the stats area. If it ends where the blue stars end, then the Davis is from a Jello box. If the red line extends well past the blue stars, then it's a Post Cereal card.

Well that wraps up my first trip to a garage sale in years. Not sure if I'm gonna start seeking them out on a regular basis, but if I do... I'll start a Garage Sale Grabs series.

It's not high on the priority list, but you never know.

Until then...

What's the coolest item you have ever found at a garage sale?

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments down below.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Sunday Sort: Patches, Planes, & The Professor

2026-07-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

The past six Sundays, I've dedicated at least a couple of hours to sorting and scanning with the majority of the cards coming from fellow bloggers. Sadly... after today I'm down one free Sunday. After that, I head back into the classroom for my 29th year.

I'm hoping to continue to set aside part of every Sunday to work on hobby related stuff, but we'll have to see how things play out. The start of every school year is usually very busy.

Anyways... let's get some of the highlight's from today's sort.

Let's start off with some Oakland Athletics that John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me last month:

2026 Topps Rainbow Foil #122

This card features two cool patches. Lawrence Butler has a Las Vegas patch on his right sleeve, while Nick Kurtz features the Tower Bridge in Sacramento on his left sleeve. I'm not exactly a patch collector, but this card motivated me to go out and purchase a pair of those tower patches for my Athletics PC.

2009 Topps Triple Threads Emerald #128 (#'d 31/50)

Back in the late 2000's, Cahill was considered one of the A's top prospects. Unfortunately he only had one notable season with them before being sent off to Arizona. Player aside... this autographed relic is a great looking card with OAKLAND being the center of attention.

1999 SP Authentic Chirography #EC

Whenever I think of Eric Chavez, "underrated" comes to mind. He never played in the Midsummer Classic, yet he won six consecutive Gold Glove Awards and hit 20+ home runs in seven consecutive seasons with the A's.

John also tossed in a trio of O-Pee-Chee A's:

1984 O-Pee-Chee Baseball

One of these days, I'm going to sit down and build a bunch of team sets. 1980's O-Pee-Chee A's and Padres will be high on the priority list and these three cards will go toward the 1984 A's team set build.

Next up is this really cool Kurt Suzuki insert:

2020 Topps Archives Snapshots Walkoff Wires #WW-KS

This card commemorates Kurt Suzuki's three-run walk-off home run off Edwin Diaz back on 9/3/19. The Nationals entered the bottom of the ninth trailing the New York Mets by six runs, but walked away winning 11-10.

Here are a few other Japanese guys for my collection:

And a few mascots:

2019 Topps Stickers #'s 210, 227, & 234

And a quartet of vintage airplane cards:

1957 Topps Planes of the World #15, 38, 53, & 60

My dad would have appreciated these cards.

He worked at Lockheed for a few years in the 60's on the SR-71 Blackbird. I'm hoping Topps will one day produce another set of airplane trading cards and include the famous reconnaissance aircraft.

Rounding out John's care package was a giant stack of Greg Maddux cards. Half were part of a Maddux Monday giveaway that I won. The other half was a stack that John Sharp had won and passed along to me. I picked four favorites from each stack:

Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life! also sent me a pair of Greg Maddux cards:

He also included a pair of Jackie Robinson cards and this Hank Greenberg for my Topps Glossy All-Stars project:

1985 Topps Glossy All-Stars #22

One card closer to completing this project.

And rounding out the Sunday Sort is a four-pack of NPB cards from Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards:

The top two cards are from this year's Calbee set. Unfortunately, when I used Google Translate I didn't recognize either of these guys. However the two shiny Dream Order cards featured familiar names.

The guy on the bottom-left is Kazuma Okamoto. He's the starting third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays. Next to him is Teruaki Sato. He is the starting third baseman for the Hanshin Tigers. If you haven't heard of him, get ready. There's a good chance he comes over to play in the states in the near future.

Thank you John, Bo, and Kenny for these generous care packages! And thank you Mr. Sharp for donating your Maddux winnings to me.

I hope all of you had a great weekend. Happy Sunday and sayonara!

The Street Sale

2026-07-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Stickers, Stains, & Stones

2026-07-19T19:15:31.919-07:00

Every Sunday I try to set aside some time to sit down and sort. Today's schedule was a little hectic. Started the day off with the farmer's market, grocery shopping, and two loads of laundry. Then I headed over to my friend's house to watch the World Cup Final... which was pretty entertaining.

As soon as the game was over, I rushed home and started sorting and scanning stuff. Today's post focuses on some PWE's from a pair of bloggers.

Let's start with this gorgeous gum stained card from Jeremy over at Topps Cards That Never Were:

1986 Topps #531

It's funny. I've opened, sorted, and handled a fair share of 1986 Topps baseball, but today was the first time in 40 years that I noticed that Topps labeled the team leaders card as DEAN OF THE WHITE SOX on the back. Maybe I noticed it as a kid and forgot. Or maybe I just don't pay close enough attention to card backs.

Jeremy also tossed in these two cards for my A's collection:

2025 Donruss #7

2021 Topps Green #571 (#'d 366/499)

Two of my all-time favorite Athletics. Although right now Zuk is managing the Los Angeles Angels who currently have the worst record in baseball. Still it's a nice addition to my Kurt Suzuki collection.

The next pair of Oakland A's items are from Jim over at cards as i see them:

1968-75 Fleer Cloth Team Logo Patches

Once upon a time, I was seeking cheap lots of these cloth patches on eBay. But there are so many variations, I eventually gave up. I already own both of these stickers, but those are part of my set build. These two are headed into my A's collection.

Last week, Jim sent me another PWE. This time it featured one of my all-time favorite cards:

1983 Topps #482

He found this Tony Gwynn rookie card sitting in a quarter bin at last month's Twin Cities Collector Club Card Show. Twenty-five cents! It's obviously not in gem mint condition, but it's too iconic of a card to be sitting in a quarter bin. I'm grateful that he rescued it.

Jim suggested in his blog post that it could potentially be a future wallet card. Unfortunately, my current wallet card will likely be my final wallet card. But don't worry, I will happily provide this Gwynn with a loving home in my Damaged Card PC.

While our attention is on Mr. Padre, I wanted to quickly share this rock that I painted at my friend's house on America's birthday:

It's far from a masterpiece, but it is a one-of-a-kind paperweight. 😂

Thank you Jeremy and Jim for these thoughtful care packages.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Extra Time

1994 UD World Cup Toons Finals Qualifiers Holograms #Q21

Congratulations to Spain on their victory over Argentina to win the 2026 World Cup! I'm not a fútbol expert, but it seemed like they controlled the game from start to finish. If it weren't for some fantastic saves by Argentina's goalie, this game might have been a blowout.

A special shoutout to Dominic over at Don Cardwell Loves this Blog. He's dedicated a couple of blog posts to show his support for Spain. Congratulations!

Flea Market Finds #189: Fill A Bag

2026-07-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

In regards to views and comments, Flea Market Finds are the bread and butter posts on this blog. Unfortunately it's been nearly three months since I've written one of these posts. A busy end of the school year schedule along with prioritizing care packages from fellow bloggers essentially pushed these posts the back burner.

Now these posts are starting to pile up in my draft folder, so it's time to start recapping some spring trips to the local flea market.

Today's post covers a trip to the Branham High School Flea Market back on Saturday, April 18th.

Although I took notes on purchases, I completely forgot to write anything down about the weather, the crowds, or the vendors. Not sure if that's important to anyone, but I usually like to include that info to help keep my memory fresh. Oh well. Let's get to what I found...

Purchase #1: Cheap Cards $4

The first vendor on the first row is a regular I have purchased stuff from on multiple trips. While I was flipping through his card boxes, he was telling me about his mom who is battling cancer. Normally, I would have walked away without making a purchase. However I wanted to leave the interaction on a positive note by purchasing something.

2024 Heritage Baseball Flashbacks #BF-5

1992 Leaf Gold #57

The first two cards were 50¢ each, while the final three were dollar cards:

2020 Bowman Prospects #BP-108 (x2)

1994 Topps Black Gold Redemption Winner A #NNO

Expired redemption cards are one of those collections I don't really talk about... but I truly enjoy finding in the wild.

Purchase #2: Start of a New Collection $2

Maybe it's because there weren't a ton of vendors with cards. Maybe it's because I have a sickness when it comes to stuff I treasured as a kid. Whatever it was, I was drawn to this table of cassette tapes. There were a few I owned when I was a kid, but something in my brain told me rebuilding this collection could be a slippery slope.

So I grabbed the one that stood out the most:

Go-Go's Beauty and the Beat (1981)

This was the Go-Go's debut album which was #1 for six straight weeks on the Billboard 200 in March and April of 1982.

Purchase #3: Cards & Cassettes $22

That slippery slope I just mentioned... just go real. I owned a copy of this cassette tape as a kid:

The Police Synchronicity (1983)

Honestly there's a good chance my childhood copy is sitting in a box somewhere in my garage. But after purchasing the Go-Go's tape, I figured I'd add this to my cassette tape collection rebuild.

The vendor also had a bunch of cards and other knickknacks scattered on a table. That's where I found these two Junk Wax Era hall of famers:

1987 Fleer Update #U-68

1996-97 Collector's Choice A Cut Above: The Jordan Years #CA5

And this 22 card lot of vintage cowboy cards:

1951 Post Hopalong Cassidy

Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero that was popular in films in the 1930's and 40's. There was also a television show based on him that ran on NBC from 1949 to 1952.

The Google app on my phone helped me identify this set on the spot. These cards were inserted into boxes of Post cereal back in 1951.

He packaged them up with the two cards and cassette tape for $22, which seemed like a solid deal.

Purchase #4: Bag of Stuff $10

The couple with this set up had a two tables filled with a variety of items you'd find at someone's garage sale. Their deal was fill a Target bag with as many items as you wanted for $10.

The two Topps factory sets immediately stood out:

1991 Topps Baseball Set

1992 Topps Baseball Set

Both of these sets had already been opened, but at this price I couldn't pass them up. I also grabbed these five items and tossed them into the bag:

At the left are two souvenir photo books which I thought were interesting. They remind me of going to San Francisco with my parents when I was little. These are the kind of items I'd bug them to buy me when we'd stop into souvenir stores.

The black thing is a Nintendo Switch case that I ended up giving away to one of my 8th graders. Under that is a Mickey's Steamboats souvenir baseball. And the final item I tossed into the bag was a package of Christmas cards that I'll use for future care packages.

As for the two factory sets, they weren't complete. Both sets were missing a handful of Giants. But I did end up pulling out the A's and Padres team sets. Also pulled out some key stars (in case I end up building more Topps base card runs) and a few rookies like these:

1991 Topps #333

1992 Topps #156

I'm going to use the base cards for an annual art project I do with my students where they create trading cards of their favorite civil rights leaders.

Well that wraps up my first Flea Market Finds post in nearly three months. I still have a few more trips I need to recap as well as a yard sale yield and a card show haul. With only four weeks left in my summer break, I need to start hammering these out hopefully at a rate of one per week. We'll see how things play out.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Contest

2026-07-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Contest is one of the funniest and most popular Seinfeld episodes of all-time. And it's the perfect lead-in for today's Sunday Sort topic: contests & Seinfeld.

Back in January, Dominic over at Don Cardwell Loves this Blog held a Super Bowl Pick 'Em contest over on his blog. Going into the big game, it came down to me and Tom over at Batting Out of Order. Both of us had picked our favorite teams. He had the New England Patriots and I rolled with the Seattle Seahawks. Their Super Bowl victory led me to winning this pack of cards:

2025 Donruss Football

Here's what I pulled:

As a Packer fan, the Jacobs was the highlight of the pack... although it'll be interesting to see if the allegations against him are true or not. The Burden rookie card could be a decent pull too. I remember he had a big game against the 49ers late in the season last year. Although since he's a Chicago Bear, I won't be rooting for him very often.

Let's fast forward to last month. That's when Gregory over at Nine Pockets held a giveaway for one of his custom cards using a duck race. Tom's duck finished first. My duck finished in fifth. Luckily... Gregory opened up his giveaway to the five fastest ducks, which meant that I got to choose a free custom.

He had a lot of cool cards to choose from including a few Seinfeld related cards and an awesome Beastie Boys In Action custom. I purchased a few of the Beastie Boys cards when he first released them, so it came down to choosing one of the Seinfeld cards.

Ultimately I decided on the one you saw at the top of my post:

2024 Nine Pockets Custom #3

As I've mentioned a few times on this blog, George Costanza is my favorite character. So this card will be joining two other customs that Gregory created:

2019 Nine Pockets Custom #1

2023 Nine Pockets Custom #7

Thank you Dominic for hosting this year's Super Bowl Pick 'Em and for the pack of cards. And thank you Gregory for the custom card giveaway! Your customs are amazing! Keep up the great work.

As for the Sunday sort, it's slowly coming along. I'm over half way through the blogger care packages and eBay purchases. And I have even started working on some Flea Market Find posts that have been sitting in my draft folder since April. Please stay tuned.

Until then...

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

The Antique Store Road Trip

2026-07-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last month, I packed my bags and drove up to Ashland, Oregon to see one of my best friends and her family. It's become an annual vacation that involves a lot of eating, shopping, and catching up.

One day is dedicated to shopping in downtown Ashland where the girls enjoy looking for sticker books, plushies, and clothes. This is usually pretty painful for me, but I have found a few shops on the strip that I'll hang out in to kill time. Plus that's usually the day we grab pretzels at Skout Taphouse & Provisions:

If you're a fan of pretzels and you are in the area, I'd highly recommend this place. It's one of our favorite places to grab lunch.

The following day we drove into Medford. This is my favorite day, because it revolves around a bunch of antique stores that are much more appealing to me. We went to four shops that were located within a two mile radius. One of them had a solid variety of trading cards.

Main Antique Mall had two display cases dedicated to cards:

I've seen this card display in this store the past three to four years. However this one was new to me:

The vendor has some cool sets for sale, including some 80's O-Pee-Chee baseball:

I was very interested in the 1982 and 1984 O-Pee-Chee sets, but $300 for the pair was too rich for my budget. Unfortunately, I didn't make any purchases that day.

However, I did purchase some cards at Timeless Treasures Hub on the day I arrived.

The first day we were in Ashland, I arrived early and had a few hours to kill, I knew that we would eventually go to Medford to check out the four antique stores mentioned above, but one was located a little out of the way. I decided to check it out on my own.

The shop is owned by a couple and has everything from furniture to LP's. Plus there were three display cases with sports cards. I ended up talking to the husband about cards for close to thirty minutes before spending another thirty minutes walking around their store.

In the end, I walked away with these two cards:

1996 Fleer Ultra Series 2 Diamond Dust Mail-In Offer

Sometimes you find good deals. Other times you don't. This card is an example of the latter. I thought it was a redemption card for one of these Cal Ripken Jr. game-used infield dirt cards:

1996 Fleer Ultra Diamond Dust #NNO

However after reading the card this morning, I realized it's actually just an advertisement card Fleer inserted into 1996 Fleer Ultra Series 2 packs. They weren't inserted into every pack, but they're not rare by any means. The box break I watched on YouTube had six or seven of these mail-in cards. In other words, I paid $5 for a card that's worth 5¢.

At least it'll go well with the actual Diamond Dust card I purchased years ago, which by the way is an under-appreciated piece of history. Back in 1996, Upper Deck won the hearts of collectors when they produced the first game-used jersey cards of baseball players. This might not be a piece of Ripken's jersey, but it is the first game-used dirt card ever produced.

The other card I purchased was this sticker auto for my Green Bay Packers PC:

2015 Donruss Signature Series #216

My parents were Green Bay Packers fans back in the late 50's and into the 60's. Forrest Gregg was one of the hall of famers who played on that team. I paid $20 for this card, but prefer to think that I paid $25 and received the Ripken mail-in card for free.

There's one more card related item from this trip, but before I get to it... I wanted to share the final purchase I made in Ashland. On the final full day there, we went back to downtown Ashland. The girls wanted to go back to a few stores, while I wanted to check out Shattered Music which was closed earlier in the week.

Recently, I've been looking to rebuild my cassette tape collection and wanted to see if they had any from my childhood. They did, but their prices were a little steep. But I did find a few LP's for my collection:

The Police: Ghost in the Machine (1981)

The Police: Reggatta de Blanc (1979)

Blondie: Autoamerican (1980)

The GoGo's: Talk Show (1984)

Bruce Hornsby and the Range: The Way It Is (1986)

The sticker price added up to $43, but he gave me a three dollar discount. I probably wouldn't have bought these had I come across them at a flea market. However I like to support small businesses whenever I can.

Was going to comment on each of these albums, but this post is already way too long. Let's just wrap things up with a present from one of my nieces:

Fairfield Baseball Jumbo Box

She saw this at either Walgreens or CVS and asked her mom to buy it for me. Here's a scan of the back of the box:

And a peek at the contents:

It came with a stack of cards that were packaged loosely in the box and a pack of 1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier baseball. The pack is headed into my rainy day pack stash. And here are the highlights from the box:

The oldest card was the 1983 Topps Dennis Lamp, while the newest were singles from 2025 Topps flagship. A few made it into my A's box, but everything else will be taken into my classroom in a few weeks to be used as examples for a project I do with my students.

Well that wraps up another Ashland, Oregon road trip. A special thanks to Tito for talking your mom into buying this box for me.

As for the rest of you, thank you for being patient and taking the time to check out this extremely long post.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

A 70's Set Build & an 80's Project

2026-07-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Sort took place. Set building and scanning did too, however I wasn't able to hammer out a post. Until now.

This week's sort involved three care packages revolving around a 70's set build and an 80's project. Let's start with my Topps Glossy All-Stars collection build.

Collectors who bought Topps rack packs from 1984 to 1991 were treated with a bonus white bordered, glossy card featuring all-star players, managers, and honorary members, captains, or team photos. These are commonly referred to as Topps Glossy All-Stars and each year the set was exactly twenty-two cards.

A few years ago, I decided to build or buy the entire eight year run of sets and house them in one binder titled "The Topps Glossy All-Star Collection".

Tom over at Batting Out of Order sent me half of the 1984 set:

1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars

These eleven cards have me four cards away from completing the 1984 set:

As for the entire Topps Glossy All-Star project, I'm still forty-two cards away.

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me three of the Schmidt Glossy All-Stars:

I actually already had all three of these sitting in my binder, but this is a great way to see that Topps used the same design for the run of these sets.

John hit a home run with one of my other projects though. He sent me ten cards for my 1977 Topps Star Wars set build:

While I hope to complete the Glossy All-Star project by the end of the summer, I'm in it for the long haul with this set build.

I'm not in a rush with this set, because I already own a complete set that I purchased years ago. This particular set build was inspired by this flea market find and will be a source of entertainment for years to come.

Steve at 1975baseballcards.com also sent me some cards for my set build:

Like the blue and red series, the yellow is also slowly coming along:

While the green and orange series are nearly complete.

Steve included a few other cards for my collection. One of them was this Red Schoendienst error card that actually depicts Whitey Herzog:

2024 Topps Heritage #149

Getting back to those Topps Glossy All-Stars, Herzog has the honor of having the most appearances (3) among managers. In fact, the only other manager with multiple appearances is Tony LaRussa with two.

Thank you Tom, John, and Steve for you help and support with these set builds and projects.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

I'm assuming most of you who write on the Blogger platform are experiencing delays on getting their posts added to blogger feeds. Has anyone found a solution to this? Last week, one of my posts didn't pop up on my feed until over 24 hours later. I've also noticed that there are major delays with fellow blogger's publications on my reading list. I try and go back at least one or two days each morning to see if I missed anyone's posts, but I'm sure a few have slipped through the cracks. Hopefully Blogger fixes this issue sooner than later. Until then, if you have any personal tricks, please let me and others know down below in the comments.