Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today I will show you evidence that even in 2018, anything is possible when it comes to thrift stores.

Please direct your attention to the photographs shown here as they depict the evidence — the circumstantial evidence — that led to the purchase of the “Treasure Chest” brought forth in the previous case of Thrift Treasures.

The bag in which these items are contained is not original to these collectibles. It is a Wal-Mart brand food storage container used by a Goodwill in San Jose, Calif., to hold these cards for sale. The cards themselves, as you can see, are at least two decades old, some of them three decades.

At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss this bag as containing commons — items no one would want. But a closer look reveals that some of the commons are 1985 Chong Modesto Athletics minor league cards, about 20 of which bear the signatures of the player or coach pictured.

While most of these guys never made it to the Majors, the fact that their signed cards exist, and that they were saved from a trash can, is a amazing. The basic set is best-known for housing an early Mark McGwire. However there was no McGwire to be found.

Here are the signed cards:

Twayne Harris // Paul Bradley // Kevin Stock

Jim Jones // Steve Howard (MLB) // Oscar De Chavez

Stan Hilton // Dave Wilder // Damon Farmar

Antonio Cabrera// Doug Scherer // Bob Loscalzo

Joe Strong (MLB Debut at age 37 in 2000 – Marlins) // Eric Garrett // Allan Heath

Mike Fulmer // Kevin Coughlon // Jim Eppard (MLB Debut, at age 27 in 1987 – Angels)

Pete Kendrick // George Mitterwald (Spent parts of 10 seasons in MLB) // Joe Odom

There also were a handful of unsigned A’s minor league cards …

One of the first cards I actually noticed when I picked up the bag was a 1985 Topps Tim Belcher Rookie Card which is signed in ballpoint one and personalized “To John, All The Best!” Belcher was a solid MLBer who spent 14 seasons in the Majors. He placed third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1988, and sixth in Cy Young voting, both seasons with the Dodgers.  He won 15 games three times during his career.

In addition to these cards, there was a partial set of these 1987 Fleer Award Winners — including this Tony Gwynn card, which is epic for two reasons: First — he’s wearing a single earbud.

And Secondly …

Made you look!

The remainder of the bag contained little more than commons. But there was a nice flashback when mixed in with the newer press lock baggies was this old school — thinking 1990/1991-ish — nearly full pack of penny sleeves. I’m not sure about you, but seeing the original packaging on supplies from the junk wax era brings about all sorts of memories. In my case, I distinctly remember rummaging through a relative’s bedroom for coins so that I could secure my first pack of soft sleeves.

Speaking of nostalgia, within this food storage bag there were two of these “Sports Card Collector’s Guide” books that give a very broad over view of collecting in the early 1990s. These things were all over the place, usually packaged with what we would equate to a card collector’s starter kit usually sold at retailers like Toys R Us.

The items within this food storage bag aren’t worth a ton, but certainly they are worth more than the  price tag. And when you consider that they were found with the aforementioned Treasure Chest, they certainly added value as circumstantial evidence for the purchase of the box, which as I noted in my previous post, had contents unknown to me at the time of purchase.

Total cost of this Thrift Treasure: $3.99.

You can see more Thrift Treasures posts Here.

This entry was posted on January 25, 2018 at 11:10 am and is filed under Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, basketball, Frank Chong, George Mitterwald, minor league cards, Modesto A's, Modesto Athletics, sports, Thrift Shopping, Tim Belcher. 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.