Failures and success at the flea market

Over the past few years I've gone to the flea market once or twice a year and came away with a nice amount of cheap cards. I went this weekend hoping to do the same.

There are so many tables at the flea market that I do a once-around first to see everything, then go back and take a closer look at what I am interested in. In that once-around I did find something that I really wanted and bought on the spot. I'd always been interesting in owning some vintage LIRR schedules. I found three from 1965, 1966 and 1968 from local stations I know well. I asked the guy how much he wanted for all three, hoping it would be a buck each, or at worst 3-for-$5. He asked for $2 for all three!

With that little success in hand, I approached the tables with baseball cards. They all had various boxes of loose cards, commons mostly with a mix of junk wax and newer stuff. The kind of boxes that I've gotten for $20-30 lots of times. In each instance I am talking about boxes where the cards have just been thrown in, going to be lots of dings and creases. There were three tables which had boxes like that. Surely I could get one of them?

First table - several large boxes with probably a couple thousand each. Asked the guy how much for a box, or to make my own box? Would not give me an answer, just to fill up a box and he'd look at it and decide. But he did say that someone else had bought two boxes for $170. Nope.

Second table - Four small boxes, maybe 200 cards in a box. Mostly junk wax era, though a fair amount of oddballs. Wouldn't budge on $1/card even for the whole box. Nope.

Third table - One small box. Mostly junk but some minor league sets and a few oddballs. Maybe worth $25. Guy said $125. Nope.

There was a fourth table - in my once-around the guy was talking about how he was "motivated to sell". All of his cards were in plastic toploaders with prices. I leafed through them - there were a few interesting vintage oddballs but all Mets. Then there were some pretty junky cards with high prices - like a 1987 Topps Willie Hernandez for $1. Didn't even try to make an offer.

This was my first instance of really seeing the inflated prices for cards. Though I am guessing this is why I rarely see good lots on Craigslist or see them at garage sales. 

I didn't come home empty-handed, though, not at all. I did find one seller with what was apparently a box of cards that was his childhood collection. Mostly very rough junk wax, and I might not have bothered had I bought a big lot. But I hadn't so I leafed through the box and found about 25 cards that I might have needed. I offered $1 and ended up paying $2.

The cards on top in this photo I needed. Nice variety at least. The ones on the bottom I had already. A couple I suspected I did, like the Sierra Pro-Visions, but included it just in case. I can always trade my better copy of these cards in the future.

There were three football cards in the box, and it turns out all three were needs. I knew I had those three '72s but I had to include them anyway, never know when they can be handy trade fodder, freeing up a better-conditioned version to trade.

One table I kept walking by had a "Paper - $1/each" box at the front, with various miscellany like postcards and such. However, there was an autographed photo of Joe Morrison that I assumed must have been in there by mistake. I asked the guy and he said no, that was $1. It appears to be real - the guy said that his brother (Larry) got it as a kid. Joe Morrison played for the Giants from 1959 to 1972 and is 14th all-time in rushing for the Giants. (Not to be confused with Joe Morris who played from 1982 to 1988 and is 3rd all-time.)

Not bad for a buck! I picked out two other items from the box. Norcross was a stationery company that put out these little calendar books throughout the mid-20th century. The back of this one says "Courtesy Shop" and "2084 Broadway". I couldn't confirm whether that was 2084 Broadway in NYC (which would put it at the intersection of 72nd Street, which is a pretty major intersection), or somewhere else entirely.

I picked up this too for $1. People Today magazine ran from 1950 to 1977. This is from October 1959. It is digest sized, 64 pages with a variety of articles on news, entertainment and sports. Mostly fluff but a fun snapshot of the time.

Baseball-related!

Part II.

Finally, at one last table I made my smallest and largest purchases of the day. I was able to get these minor league cards for $1. 1986 Omaha Royals set. These cards were scattered around a box with a lot of other random stuff. Only one missing was manager John Boles.

My other purchase was very exciting but will have to wait. The guy had a crate full of old newspapers, mostly related to the moon landing. They were in pretty good shape, not falling apart too much, so I asked him for a price thinking I'd buy one or two. He said $25 for the crate. There were easily more than 25 newspapers in there. It would be hard to find a better deal than that. Mostly NY Times issues from around the moon landing, but I saw Newsday in there as well. I also saw some copies of the last issue of the Long Island Press (March 25 1977) and a very brittle front page of the Detroit Free Press from FDR's death. The papers were in pretty good shape but there was a strong mildew smell, and a couple of moldy-looking items that I wasn't interested in anyway (there were old prints and stuff) had to get thrown out. The whole stack is sitting in a big box with lots of baking soda and will stay that way for a while. However, if there is interest maybe I'll post some photos from the papers at a later time.