I recently heard from one of my Twitter followers that he enjoys the Thrift Treasures series, but wished they were more frequent.  Believe me, me too.  My time these days, however, is occupied by work and my kids.  It’s easy for me to stop into a store and buy something, which I frequently do, but finding the time to chronicle it on my blog is another.

That said, here’s a trio of baggies I found earlier this week that set me into a small, cheap cardboard frenzy.

I’ll say this up front: It is NOT uncommon for me to find bags of cards in thrift stores.  I see them everywhere, but it is worth the time to look closely and see what should be inside.  Notice I did not say OPEN them or to do a full-on search of them like a pack searcher.  But look closely and see if you see flashes of shiny inserts, drab-looking vintage or something else. Something that might lead you to believe there is more than a stack of 1989 Topps or something.

Heck, with the exception of the baggie shown here on the right, which has a 1974 Topps Boog Powell showing on the back, you might just gloss right over the other ones.  After all, it looks like the bag contain nothing more than junk wax era filler.

But a little visual inspection shows that the one on the left had a small section of a dozen or so cards that appeared to be 1992 Japanese Baseball Magazine (BBM) cards, the one in the one in the middle had some parallels and inserts, and the one on the right had multiple vintage cards within.

For the price of two retail packs, I figured I’d roll the dice.  You know I love to share my Thrift Treasures.

We’ll start with the middle bag.

In 1995, Pacific released this pretty decent looking base cards set that had full bleed photos on three sides, and then a strip of gold foil along one border. It’s a very 90s design, one I actually enjoyed. Within this particular bag, I could see a small section of about a half-dozen cards that had blue edges instead of the gold. Obviously they were parallels.  Additionally, I could see the sweet die-cut crown insert peaking out from within the stack.

There were no big names among the parallels, but the die-cut was Drew Bledsoe, and there were other inserts, notably the Dan Marino “Hometown Heroes” an the Jerry Rice “Gems of the Crown.”  And the base cards weren’t half bad:  Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and John Elway were the highlights.  Not a bad stack of cards for $1.99.

Next we’ll turn our attention to the left baggie, the one with the more modern cards.

As noted earlier the primary reason I wanted this one was the small section of what turned out to be 10 1992 BBM Japanese baseball cards. Ichiro’s rookie is in 1993  (I own it) and Hideo Irabu and Hideo Nomo are in 1993 (I own those as well).  So who is in 1992?  No clue.  But I don’t get to see these very often.

As you can see there are a total of 10 Japanese BBM cards here, nine players and a checklist.  One name is familiar — Carmelo Martinez, who played in the Majors — but the others are guys I’ve never heard of.  My favorite is, of course, the rookie card of one Jun Takeshita.  What a fantastic name.

The remainder of this bag had a few notables: a 1990 Bowman Larry Walker rookie card, a 1989 Bowman Ken Griffey Sr. card that also features the younger Griffey as a rookie, and these pictured.

And the last bag is where the fun really begins as it contained some cards that were some 30 and 40 years old. And they weren’t just commons. The first card on the outside of the bag is a 1974 Topps Boog Powell, who was a member of the Baltimore Orioles on this card.  There were a few other Orioles in the bag as evidenced by the 1972 Frank Robinson and 1974 Brooks Robinson also in this lot.

There were a few Cincinnati Reds too …

Like Hall of Famers? Me too. They were in here as well.

Loving my new 1971 Topps Tom Seaver, even if the borders appear to have been touched up at some point.

This is a sweet 1972 Topps pitching leaders card with THREE Hall of Famers on it …

How about Hobby King Mickey Mantle?  He’s on this 1967 Topps Yankees checklist somewhere …

How about four more HOFers: 1974 Topps Billy Williams, 1978 Tony Perez, 1978 Rich Gossage and a 1983 OPC Gaylord Perry …

And three more HOFers: 1981 Fleer George Brett, 1985 Topps Ryne Sandberg and 1986 Donruss Highlights Steve Carlton (shown as a member of the San Francisco Giants)

Can’t hate on a 1963 Topps rookie card of Diego Segui …

Know what else I really like? O-Pee-Chee from the 1970 and 1980s. Check out these 1978s … Love the fact that I have an Montreal Expos Team Card from OPC.  Also dig the Bob Bailor Topps Rookie Cup OPC card.

And finally a few random lots of …

1974 Topps (LOVE this set)

and 1978 Topps

Sure, the condition on these older cards may not be top quality, but if they had been, they would not have been on the thrift store peg hooks waiting for me to save them.

Total cost of these treasures: $5.97

To see more Thrift Treasures posts, click HERE