When it comes to finding baseball cards at thrift stores, I always envision two very grandiose outcomes. One, I find a heaping pile of vintage baseball cards that yields some of the finest cardboard treasure known to mankind. Two, there is a very toxic smelling Bowman Chrome stash sitting there just waiting to be picked. Well, the latter came true on Tuesday … only it was evident that I was a few years too late.

In what can best be described as a scene from a prospectors graveyard, there were probably 200 binder pages chalk full of Bowman products from about a decade ago, teasing me with the possibilities, but in the end yielding maybe five cards that I can honestly say I will hold in my collection.

The cards in the picture posted here at the top of this blog would have netted the seller probably about $150 cash in 1999 when these cards were brand new. Abraham Nunez and Wily Mo Pena were two of the budding stars from this one-time legendary 1999 Bowman Chrome set. And in this thrift store, being sold for a NICKEL each were four Bowman Chrome base rookies and a refractor of Abrham Nunez. Want another kick to the nuts? The Refractor is drop dead gorgeous. No “Chrome Curl”, no refractor lines, no dinged corners, just a perfectly centered copy that would have surely netted a very hefty sum in 1999.  As for Pena, there were three Chrome rookies and a base Bowman rookie that I am not sure why I purchased.

Football or Baseball? How about neither.

Speaking of failed prospects, when I saw this 1999 SP Top Prospects card of Drew Henson, I knew it had to be mine. Henson turned out to be such a waste of talent. The guy was supposed to a two-sport star and what he wound up being was the ultimate sports cock tease. This card shows him juggling two baseballs and a football while staring off into the distance with the “ooh” face. Let it serve as a reminder the next time you start banking big dollars on baseball cards of some “very athletic” guy who should be able to hit a baseball with a little training.

While there were probably 1,500 total cards for sale, I walked out with only about 40 cards for $3, and I was probably stretching it as you can see from these next few not-so-exciting rookies.

We all love rookie cards of closers.

But even though most of these cards are not exactly worth much, that’s not to say there was not a fair share of neat things I was able to get for almost nothing. Take for instance these refractors.

Or this very cool looking 1999 Bowman International card of Jung Bong.

Or these two autographs of failed Major Leaguers Ron Wright and Peter Bergeron.

Or this still very cool looking 1995 Bowman’s Best refractor card of Juan Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran, or should I say Juan LeBron? There was a time when this was one of the hottest cards on the market, need I remind you?

And now we get to the cream of the crop.

In this mountain of hot, stinky mess was a lot of 18 rookie cards that come from the now legendary 2001 Bowman Chrome set, popular for the almighty Albert Pujols rookie card. Seeing these cards made the possibilities seem endless. Needless to say, there was no Pujols. But there was this nifty Cody Ross card (Honestly, had no clue his rookie was 2001 BC; it’s going in the Rookie Card Collection now), a gold refractor of Rafael Boitel (#’d 98/99) and an XFractor of Noel Devarez.

I would like to draw your attention to one card in particular though. Look at the Yhency Brazoban card. I think he’s got problems spelling his name. Kind of reminds me of the 2007 Bowman Chrome card of Johnny Cueto. Or is it Jhonny Cueto?

This entry was posted on March 30, 2010 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Thrift Treasures with tags 2001 Bowman Chrome, Albert Pujols, baseball, baseball cards, Bowman Chrome Thrift Treasures, rookie cards, sports, Topps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.