Friday, July 29, 2016

A street trade

A while back I acquired a collection that was very heavy in Mets cards. I asked Al, the baseball card street vendor, if he could use any. The only ones he was interested in were cards of the 1986 Mets. This worked out great for me - there's not much interest in a 1988 Donruss Mookie Wilson on the blogosphere, but he can sell it for a dollar to a casual, nostalgic fan passing by. I gave him a 600-count box filled mostly with Mets junk wax, plus a handful of Yankees, highlighted by a Topps Derek Jeter rookie card that is probably $5 tops online but he was confident he could get $15 for. In return I pulled about 100 cards, mostly Yankees and random stars but also just some random cards he had bagged together as well.

Here are some highlights from the closest thing I have to an LCS, a folding table on 37th and Broadway:

Lots of 2014 and 2015 Bowman, many of which were nice and shiny.
 The opposite of shiny, but I liked how the very simple print, that looked like it could have been done on a typewriter, gave this card a real vintage oddball feel.
 Great photo of a pensive Bernie Williams.
 In the early days of interleague the Yankees and Mets only played one series a year. The Yankees only played one day game at Shea Stadium in 1998 and I was at the game, so I am always interested to pick up 1999 cars that show the Yankees at Shea Stadium.
 There were a dozen or so 2016 Topps cards - my first ones in the set! After all the negative commentary on this set I was expecting not to like it, but in person they were quite colorful and I think they're all right.
 There was even one of those shiny parallel versions (I forget what they are officially called).
Finally, a couple of cards that are reminiscent of when the Post and Daily News have the same headline. I think we can all agree that George Brett is one of Baseball's Best. Turned out I had both of these already - DefGav I see you collect Brett so I will put them in your trade pile unless you don't want them.

3 comments:

  1. Good stuff. And sure, I'd be happy for the Brett cards.. thanks!

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  2. That's an A+ trade right there. Sweet Sori, especially - I've always loved the early Fleer designs.

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  3. I don't know if it would be possible, but it would be cool to see a picture of your vendor's 'set up.'

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