There are some things I know to be true.  One of them is that a certain San Francisco Bay Area thrift store ALWAYS has a trough full of cards priced at 10 cents each.  Whether or not they are worth that much is always up for debate, but they are there for the picking.

It’s the same store at which I bought the reprinted of the first Sports Illustrated magazine, a piece I posted yesterday.  I actually bought the cards in this post along with the rookie edition of SI, but figured the magazine was so awesome it had to be shared on its own.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have already seen what I saw at this shop.

Looks like a mess to a lot of people.

I think it looks like potential.

Normally I would have spent the next hour or two pouring over this entire box to purchase anything I found interesting.  But on this day I didn’t have the luxury of time.  I had to do a cursory search.

I’d seen many of these cards before.  There were remnants of a 1990 Topps box in there, as well as 1988 Donruss and random Junk Era wax.  But among the scrap heap were small stacks 2000-2001 Ultra basketball and baseball. At that moment, I knew there was some new stuff in there.

1992-93 Ultra Robert Horry rookie

Superstars are celebrated every day, but history DOES remember winners, too.  And Horry is a winner.  He wasn’t the greatest player on any of his teams, but he played a critical role on each one.  This is how he ended up with SEVEN NBA World Title rings … one more than …

1998 Upper Deck Living Legend Michael Jordan #165

… Mr. Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

I’m not saying Horry is better than Jordan.  Just saying he has more jewelry.  Funny thing is, between Jordan and Horry they have 13 rings.  That’s crazy talk.

2000-01 Ultra Slam Show Vince Carter #7

Of course there was a time at the end of Jordan’s career that we thought Vince Carter was going to be one of the guys to carry the NBA torch into the future.  He was a dunking machine and at one point the hottest hoopster in the hobby, even bigger than Kobe.  But … injuries hampered Carter, whose remained in the league as a good player, just not a player in Kobe or Jordan’s realm.

2000-01 Ultimate Victory Parallel Shareef Abdur Rahim /350

Hey, I’m not passing on a serial numbered parallels from the early 2000s for a dime.  Not even a Sahreef Adbur-Rahim in a Grizzlies uniform.

1997 Collector's Choice "Big Show" Barry Larkin

I like buying inserts for a dime …

1998 Collector's Choice silver Roger Clemens

… and an occasional parallel, especially one of my favorite player.

Does this card look familiar?  It should.  I have bought maybe 5 of these at thrift stores over the last year or so.  I have a feeling that Hall of Fame rookie cards found for a dime are going to be pretty common place over the next decade. Sad.

1998 Topps Stars rookie reprint Johnny Bench

Love this.  Reprinted hall of fame rookie card as an insert from a late 90s release.  That’s a $8 BV card, ya know!

OK, remember I mentioned there were some 2000-01 Ultra basketball cards in this box?  Here are the best two:

2000-01 Ultra Quentin Richardson rookie /2999

LOVED serial numbered rookie cards in the early 2000s.  I spent a lot of money chasing them.  Now I’m getting them for not so much money.  All kind of evens out I guess … or not.

2000-01 Ultra Platinum Vonteego Cummings #'d 17/50

Yes, I realize this is Vonteego Cummings.  But I also instantly realized that this was a Platinum parallel serial numbered to just 50 copies.  I don’t care if the card was of the 12th man on the Vancouver Grizzlies, the card was coming home with me for a dime.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2012 at 7:49 am and is filed under Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, Michael Jordan, Robert Horry, rookie card, 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.