Who Doesn't Love a Good Flea Market?

     About a week ago I visited a flea market with the family. I haven't been to one in years, and boy was I missing out! There was a huge variety of really cool stuff there, from antiques to candy, power tools to wartime mementos. I enjoyed looking around at some of the awesome things people were selling; really old swords that were extremely cool, as well as coins over 100 years old, to name a couple. I'm afraid I don't collect swords (though a vintage sword collection would be pretty sick) or coins, but there were a couple booths selling baseball and football memorabilia, which caught my attention immediately.

    The assortment of items these booths had for sale was most impressive - there were thousands of cards, some slabbed, some autographed, as well as packs and signed bats, balls, and photos. It felt a lot like my LCS actually.

    I know from reading The Chronicles of Fuji that you can make some great card finds at the flea market, and I felt like a kid in a candy store staring at all the memorabilia that was displayed before me. I can't quite say I went crazy, unfortunately, but I came home richer in cardboard than I began with.

    This post and the next one are dedicated to the purchases I made at each of the two booths. I think this is appropriate because of the difference in cards I acquired. I'll start with the first vendor I visited.

    The man running this booth had a huge collection of baseball, football and hockey cards, and had a ton of autographs for sale, including two Mickey Mantle balls! Those were a little bit out of my price range that day, but I did come away with two pretty cool autos that were pretty well in my wheelhouse.

    I don't have a super ton of autos in my collection, but this one is in the top two in terms of how cool it is. From 1999, Spahn signed this card just four years before his death in 2003 (may he rest in peace). At 78 years old he still had a pretty nice-looking signature. The case this card is in needs to be replaced, which I'll pick up next time I go to the LCS. Definitely one of the coolest adds I've made to the collection.

    Mr. Carpenter was right behind to Mr. Spahn in the box of cards, so I picked his card up as well. From 2013, it's a little bit younger than it's neighboring card, but still a cool auto. I guess signing this card was good luck for Matt, who had one of his best seasons in 2013, when he batted .318 with 11 home runs and scoring a league-leading 126 runs. He finished fourth in MVP voting.

    It was certainly a pleasant surprise to find these two cards at the flea market. Somehow I didn't consider until I showed up the possibility of finding some additions to my collection there, and these two are a welcome sight into it. 

    I said 'cool' a lot in this post, but that was exactly what the visit to the flea market was. I enjoyed myself there much more than I initially thought, and it's definitely a place I'd like to visit again.

    By the way, I think I might have lied when I predicted 50 posts this year....my eight posts in January is the most I've published since March of last year, and I have eight more posts ready to go as it stands lol. Oh well, I'm liking it. Thank you all for checking out the blog! I hope y'all have a great rest of the week, and happy collecting!