Garage sale: a great opener and an OK sequel

First off, RIP former Yankee star Tommy John. He shared his favorite card with this blog in 2013. 

For the first time in a very long time, I got some good cards at a garage sale. I picked up two 800-count boxes and a binder for $30.

I'll start off with the binder, the first few pages of which were vintage. I needed the '63 Mauch and Purkey cards. 

The binder was heavy on Red Sox, including a lot of vintage team cards. Ironically enough there's a Tommy John Yankee card mixed in.

Most of the rest of the binder was junk wax stars mixed in with some cool 90's inserts.

Some more modern stuff too.

A '72 Johnny Bench sneaks in there.

The other two boxes were mostly from the "new junk wax era" of 2020 - present, but it was a nice mixture of all kinds of cards, and as you can see from this list, star heavy. Most of this list is probably all of the future hall of famers now playing. Except for Ohtani.

The inside of the box matches the description, Acuna, Alonso, Altuve, etc.

Aaron Judge cards!

 I enjoyed the "common inserts" as well, especially as they were mostly shiny parallels.

Fortunately it wasn't all 2020s cards, but they went back a few years.

Lots of refractors.

They don't photograph well but I like the old Denny's cards.

The other box was more of a mixed bag, but it was half full and he let me augment it with cards from other boxes.

Lots of mixed cards.

Quite a bit of shiny.

Threw in too minor league sets and an oddball Tigers set.

He insisted these Bobby Witt Jr and Bo Bichette cards were valuable, though I doubt it. Bichette has been a big bust for the Mets.

Some '89 Topps football cards to work on that set, all of them are big stars.

I pulled a few Bo Jacksons for Al.

An '84 Topps Traded need, a '73 high number checklist that will make good trade fodder, and some other odds and ends from a big box of mostly junk wax.

That box did have a lot of OPC and Leaf cards, predominantly of Pirates.

In that mix were two '84 Traded Pirates cards I don't need, and what I first thought was a traded Bill Virdon but it's actually a Tiffany. And then notice that '85 Topps card which is a little smaller than the standard sized cards. Talk about something you'd never expect to see at a garage sale!

Yes, there were five 1985 minis, all Pittsburgh Pirates! I had read about this set but had never seen any in person before. Apparently this was a Topps test run in Canada, never issued in the US, and there are only 132 cards - according to TCDB these are the only Pirates in the set.

It's hard to find much information on them online, they seem to be pretty rare. The Beckett book I have from a few years ago has them at $10 each, but also says there were less than 100 made. The backs are brighter than a standard Topps card, not as bright as an OPC or Tiffany.

I probably should have left well enough alone at that point, but when I got home I was thinking about other cards I saw but didn't buy. I reached out to the guy on Craigslist and went back this morning to look at more cards. I ended up spending another $30 but didn't do nearly as well. Kind of like Fuji a few weeks ago, the "private garage sale" sounds better in theory than it actually works.

Some of the cards I'd remember seeing had sold later. I did pick up another long box of rookies. This time he was asking $20 instead of $10. Still some good card but too much of it was 1980s. This was all players who had good careers but were not HOFers.

Lots of copies of Willie McGee, Danny Tartabull, etc. Rookies. Best trade fodder is the '75 Fred Lynn in very good condition, much better than most of the '75s I own.

I saw some boxes of '90 Leaf and I knew I had my wantlist on my phone and only needed a few cards. He told me to take both boxes for $5. I haven't sorted yet but my guess is it won't make much of a hit, especially as it's probably all commons. If you have a want list PLEASE send it my way, I'd love to make a big dent in these 1000+ '90 Leaf cards.

This page was in a binder of nonsports cards he said he bought from someone who was Canadian. (Maybe that's where the Canadian cards from yesterday came from?) Maybe there's a hockey collector who can use the two hockey cards (Ray Ferraro and Joe Sakic). There's an extra Sandberg there too.

Finally, he had a big box of stars that I pulled a few oddballs out of. $5 for these. My favorite by far is the 1992 Phil Rizzuto Money Store promotional card.