Chaos and Kanji is the blog where I write about my adventures through Japan!

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Monday, August 29, 2011

Thrift Store Vintage

There's a store in the East Bay called Urban Ore. It's a reuse store, filled mainly with old doors, toilets, sinks, windows, furniture, tools, and other household cast-offs. They get donations from regular houses as well as businesses and production companies (think: small theaters). I love to head over and take a stroll through the giant warehouse and yard. They have some awesome stuff and if I had my own place where I could put things, I could easily walk out each time with some fantastic finds. One little drawer I like to take a quick peek in usually has a handful of baseball cards.

For the past year or so, I've found nothing better than a small selection of poor-condition junk-era baseball and basketball cards. I finally had some luck with a rubberbanded stack of vintage!
This is all the football I grabbed. I didn't get them for any reason other than I didn't feel like sorting them out. I really like that Kermit Alexander card - it's like a little league (whatever football little league is called) posed shot that would end up on a big button your mom would wear to the games.
This is a small collection of the vintage baseball, but it gives you an idea what was there. The '68 is in really rough shape, and I think it was the only '68 in the lot. The Freehan 1970 Kelloggs card is one of three I bought, and they too are well-loved. None of the cards are in high condition, but when it comes to vintage, I'm not picky. All the cards I found will go to future set-building endeavors. Without trying, I'm doing a decent job of stacking up some '60s and '70s Topps!

So, what did I pay for a stack of roughly 50 vintage Topps baseball and football?

$1.90.

It pays to keep your eyes open, even if it takes a full year!

6 comments:

  1. Very nice. The 1974 set was the first football set I collected

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  2. Sweet pickups. I'd love a chance at the Mercury Morris and Garo Yepremian cards if you are interested in trading them.

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  3. Hey, you got a guy named Kermit and he's not a frog. How bad can that be?

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  4. I work for Goodwill, and we just got cards the other day (which was cool!) One was a binder of 93 Topps and 89 Topps (eh). One was a Nolan Ryan Classic Embossed 5 card set (kinda cool). And then one was an epic Barry Foster art card in a plastic holder. We already sold the first two. I'm buying the third for a quarter in 3 weeks if it's still there.

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  5. Hey Ryan, I've got a Gio auto for you for those Lineage Giants, send me an email with your address!

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