Well, I made it.  I managed to scan the remaining 200 cards that I bought at the Tri-Star show.  And if you thought Part One and Part Two of this special Thrift Treasures series were awesome, I’m telling you …

YOU

AINT

SEEN

NOTHING

YET!

This is Part Three of Three

I’ve been going to this annual card show consistently for the last six years.  And it was not until three years ago that I learned that the real point of going to these shows was to swoop in on the bargains that are hiding in the dime boxes.

I used to go to the show to look at cards I could not afford, buy some packs and supplies and leave with a handful of cards that really didn’t satisfy my appetite.

But over the years I have learned that I can pretty much buy any card I really want at any time; and a lot of the packs at the show might have been touched by a dozen too many hands if you catch my drift.  So why waste my money and time to go look at stuff that is always accessible to me?  What’s not always available are super cheap cards.  Now when I go, I spend 90 percent of my time digging through bargain bins, 5 percent looking for bargain bins that don’t exist, and 5 percent looking at the autograph area where the athlete’s are hidden behind a blue curtain hoping to catch a glimpse of a legend.

OK, enough of that diatribe.

The following cards are ALL from the same dealer.  The sign on the table said 25 cents each, or 100 for $10.

Do the math and that’s a dime each if you find enough.

Trust me, I found enough.

In the end, these all came out to 10 cents each.  I found 200 cards that had to come home with me.  There were probably another 100 I could have settled on owning, but this was the FIRST table I stopped at.  I spent 90 minutes here and I wanted to see what other treasures I could unearth.

Let’s kick things off in grand fashion.

Meet Michael.  He’s kind of a big deal in the hobby.  Even his most basic card should not be in a dime box.  And now consider that this is an insert … and he’s holding the NBA’s biggest prize.  He’s no stranger to the trophy, and he’ll be no stranger in this post.  This card alone holds a Book Value of $25.

I was in San Francisco, right? Why was this card still sitting in this box?

I love these vintage stickers.  I still have all of the stickers from the Fleer packs I opened in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Maybe I’ll met my kids play with them when they are older.

Let’s stick with vintage for a few …

Some random old school Garbage Pail Kids stickers.  I still can’t believe my mom was buying these for my sister and I when we were 5. Crazy.

Here’s that Michael Jordan guy again …

I remember when Upper Deck and McDonald’s collaborated for this set.  I never had the fortune of pulling one of these holograms, although I did wind up with a dozen Tom Gugliotta and Alonzo Mourning rookies. ugh …  Guess I got the last laugh though.

Who likes wrestling legends?  These two might look familiar from earlier in this series.

And baseball legends?

Some randomness …

Hey, look, it’s Michael Jordan again …

And some more randomness …

Look, it’s Mike again…

You know you love holograms!

And now some mini player collections …

The Iron Man …

The Big Hurt …

The Kid …

The Ryan Express …

I know I am not the only one who remembers how hot these Nolan Ryan cards were.  Especially that high series card where he’s throwing a football.  You know you still love it.

And of course Jordan again …

Quick short story.

As I was digging through these boxes, the seller was sitting behind the table somewhat frantically shuffling through some stacks of cards.  I was doing the same, pulling out dozens of stuff as you can see.  Then I come across a little black box …

Just as I add it to my stack, the seller slumps his shoulders and is clearly dejected.  He mutters the following:

“Oh, you found it.”

He immediately stops shuffling and stands up.  From that moment on, he is watching me like a hawk as I am pulling out dozens more cards.

He didn’t say much else, and I was not about to offer to allow him to keep the cards.  That’s a bad precedent to start … and it’d be bad etiquette for him to ask me to give it back to him.  If we started down that road, there is no telling what else he might ask me to give back to him.

Here’s what was in the box … the 1991 Nike promotional set featuring Michael Jordan and Spike Lee.

Classic stuff.

Not bad eh?

Well …

THERE’S MORE!

While I would have been pleased to purchase everything shown above for a dime each, I would not have gone out of my way to pimp my finds on Twitter.  You know I had to uncover some rookie cards.

These Topps Chipper Jones rookies are some of my favorite cards of his.

But I like the 1991 Upper Deck rookie better.

I found a few of those …

BUT …  There weren’t just two of them …

… or four of them …

… or six of them.

Try 32!

Don’t ask me who needs 32 of these.  There is no way I pass on these when they cost a dime each.

Who wants to see more rookies?

That Barry Sanders guy was pretty good …

Say what you want about Barry Bonds, but he is the Home Run King. Think I found any of his rookies?

Maybe one …

Maybe two …

Maybe three …

Nah.

How about 15!

OK … now we’re hitting the home stretch.

I promise.

Now the final three …

And lastly …

Is that a …

What the puck!?

Yep.

It may not be pretty, but that IS a 1980-1981 Topps Ray Bourque rookie card.

Did I mention these were all a dime each?

Total cost of these Treasures: $20

Simply put this was the greatest card show haul I’ve ever had. And I thank you for taking the time to view this post, as well as the other two parts of this series.  If you care to revisit them, or view them for the first time, click the links below.

Part One // Part Two // Part Three

This entry was posted on April 19, 2012 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, Bo Jackson, Jerry Rice, Michael Jordan, Nike, Nolan Ryan, Ray Bourque, rookie card, Thrift Treasures, 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.