pay attention to your peripherals, kids. even when driving on a saturday morning running errands. you never know when you might be passing by folks setting up a here-to-fore unknown flea market and catch a glance of some familiar white cardboard boxes being added to a table.
that's what happened to me last saturday. i doubled back after completing my errand (hastily, i might add), and sure enough, my well trained eyes had not deceived me. there were three or four large white boxes set up - dime boxes at that. two of the boxes were even sorted by team. by team! what a timesaver.
i wound up buying 140 cards for 13 bucks. it was awesome.
the very first card i saw was this 2008 topps chrome matt kemp xfractor
nice.
there were a bunch of non-team sorted inserts, too. like this 2013 topps lance berkman cut to the chase die cut card
a 2013 topps opening day aroldis chapman blue sparkly parallel
and a 2010 topps angels/vladimir guerrero gold parallel
i wound up buying about 25 different gold parallels from 2006 topps update, as well as a few gold, emerald, and walmart blue parallels of 2013 topps.
there were some rarely seen sets represented in the boxes like 1999 upper deck victory. i grabbed some dodgers and a double play card that was new to me. hello orlando cabrera
let's get back to the dodgers. here is a nice and shiny 1998 donruss mike piazza fantasy team insert
fellow rookie of the year raul mondesi was represented by this 1999 pacific private stock card
i also picked up a black bordered mini of rafael furcal from 2010 topps allen & ginter
in total, i had found 110 singles featuring dodgers, double plays, memorial patches and a few others that will turn into cards for some of you out there in baseball card blogging land.
the other 30 cards i bought were part of a twins' stadium giveaway set from 2005. it features 29 of the most memorable twins moments throughout their history. the 29 tied in with the local station that carried twins Saturday games that year. can you tell that the station was the twin cities' fox affiliate? yes, the 30th card in the set features homer simpson.
note that the geniuses who produced the set also misspelled 'collectable' as 'colletable'. d'oh!
here's a look at nine of the cards from the set. many of the images look like they were tv screen grabs, which makes sense, i suppose.
in addition to the homer card, we have cards commemorating the all-star game at the met in 1965 (the twins also hosted the all-star game in 1985 (at the metrodome) and will host it again in 2014 at target field). there is also an homage to harmon killebrew's monster home run (which is still honored inside the mall of america), dave winfield's 3000th hit, eric milton's no-hitter (i was supposed to be at that game), bob allison's catch in the 1965 world series that robbed jim lefebvre of a base hit in game 2 (the twinkies beat sandy koufax to even the series at one game apiece), paul molitor's 3000th hit, kirby puckett's home run to win game 6 of the 1991 world series, and the first postseason game in twins history - game 1 of the 1965 world series.
the twins faced, of course, the dodgers in that series. the photo which was used on this card features dodger reliever howie reed as he pitches to either mudcat grant or zoilo versalles.
back to the allison card for a moment - at target field, the twins have done a great job recognizing the history of the franchise, as well as baseball as a whole in the twin cities and the state of minnesota, too. there is a wall where they have posted famous quotes and calls regarding the twins, and the dodgers' own vin scully is represented by his call on that catch by allison. here's a picture i took during a tour of the stadium.
here are the rest of the cards from the set
that's not a bad set - killer, carew, tony o, and herbie pulling ron gant off the base. not a bad flea market find.
