Last week, my wife and I decided to take a day away from the kids and get back to something we used to love when it was just the two of us: Thrifting.  Lately we’ve been getting the itch to hit the thrift stores and antique shops because of the slew of television shows that have begun to emerge: Storage Wars, Auction Hunters, Auction Kings, etc.  It seems like every time we turn on the television, there is a new show documenting the kind of stuff that we loved to do.

So we decided to make a date of our thrifting adventure and treked to a local town that has a district famous for its slew of antique shops.  I knew the area would be ripe for baseball items. As it turns out, I was right.

In the first store, I came across a stack of good-looking vintage cards that were marked $4 each.  The cards appeared to be primarily 1961 Topps, but I figured I’d thumb through them just in case something caught my eye.  Among the stack was this 1960 Topps Yankees Team Checklist.  If this card looks familiar, it’s because I already own a copy of this card and showcased it a few months ago. (Yes, the original piece says 1959 … I was wrong.)  But when I saw this card in the stacks, I figured I might as well get it just in case I didn’t find anything else during our adventure.  True, the card has a lick-and-stick stamp on it, but if it were not there, the card would not have been sold for $4 and it would not be in my collection.  Now the question remains: Remove the stamp or leave it for character?  I think I might leave it.

A few doors down the street, a sign on the sidewalk proclaimed that items within another antique shop were on sale ranging from 10 to 50 percent depending on the item. In a showcase near the front door, I saw a vintage All-Star ballot that instantly intrigued me.  The sticker price of $8 scared me; but then I realized there was not one, but EIGHT, un-punched ballots stuffed into a plastic sleeve.  And to my luck, they were on sale for 30 percent off — so I got them for less than $ 1 each.  Look at the samples I’ve shown here.  Look at those names: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Johnny Bench, and so on.  By my count, there are 21 Hall of Famers listed here — and they don’t even show the pitchers.  What also should be noted is that the ballot contains the name of Roberto Clemente, who was elected to the All-Star Game and had two at-bats, one of which resulted in a home run.  Clemente was elected to the 1972 All-Star Game but didn’t play.  He died on Dec. 31, 1972.

And before leaving the town, we made one last stop at a shop that I had visited a few times in the past.  This shop has a card case in the back, but the thing is locked, and judging from the prices I could see, everything inside was priced at Beckett values.  However, on this day, everything in this section — including the cards — was 25 percent off.  I figured if I were ever going to find out what was in the case, this would be the time.

There were lots of vintage cards in top loaders, none of which really struck me as much of a deal.  At least not until I came to this 1969 Topps Bobby Cox rookie.  Since the Braves skipper retired at the end of the 2010 season, I’d been looking to add a Cox rookie to my collection.  And to my surprise, they had not been easy to find, even on eBay.  And when I did see them, the price and condition just weren’t right.  I could not justify spending upward of $15 for a Cox rookie that looks like it had been rolled into a ball and swatted over the right field wall like a Jason Heyward Spring Training homer.  But magically, hidden behind the some-what overpriced old cardboard in this antique store on this day was a pretty good condition (yes, I know it is off center) Cox rookie  priced using an old Beckett … and it was 25 percent off.  In a nut shell, I added this Cox rookie to my collection for $7.50.  A Steal in my eyes.

This entry was posted on January 4, 2011 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, Bobby Cox, Hank Aaron, Jason Heyward, Mickey Mantle, rookie cards, Thrift Treasures. 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.