Stopping at a local church thrift store on Saturday mornings is becoming a ritual for me.
I have one just a couple blocks from my house, and easily walkable at that. It opens from 10-1 on Saturdays and 10-2 on Tuesdays, I believe. My daughter finishes dance class at 10am, so once my wife arrives home, I usually had out for a quick morning stroll.
Most days, I'll go to the post office first, which is also walkable. And on the way back, I'll swing by the thrift store. It's basically what you'd expect. Mostly junk in the basement of the church. Only once have I found cards worth buying, a large binder for $5 you can read about here. Since then, I've only seen cards once, and it was a bunch of utter junk in plastic cases for $.25 a card. Not worth it.
I've bought some other stuff here and there. I found a cool electric slot car track there back in December. I've also found a few Wii games for my son, as all games and DVDs are $1, regardless of how new or old.
Anyhow, this past Saturday, I went to the post office at 10 to mail a package to
Kerry over at Cards on Cards. On my way back, I swing by the thrift store, and immediately spotted two binders of cards!
I made a beeline past a guy who was looking at comic books and grabbed the binders. There were marked $1 each and in good condition. Each had maybe 20-25 pages, also in good condition. At quick glance, I spotted mostly junk, but did see a few cards of players of note, so I decided it would be worth the $2.
I also saw eight PS4 games on a very bottom shelf, and snagged them all. (
Side note, but I sold them the same day on FB marketplace for $35 total. That's how you turn $8 into $35.)
Overall, I paid $10 ($2 for the cards + $8 for the video games), which is exactly the amount of cash I had, and headed home. I knew I wasn't going to find anything too great in the binders, but for 40% of the price of a Walgreen's repack, it still felt worth it.
I was right there was mostly junk, but I did find a lot of fun cards. I'd say it was 80% baseball, 18% basketball and maybe 2% hockey cards.
The first page(s) that jumped out at me were a bunch of 2000 Newark Bears cards. That makes sense to me, as I live just about 15 minutes from Newark and pass where the Bears once played everyday on my commute to work.
A few names jumped out at me, especially this guy:
Ozzie Canseco! I've got this card headed to Mario at Wax Heaven, a Canseco brothers completist. Apparently this quite a hard card to find for Canseco collectors. I probably could have gotten a few bucks for it on the open market, but Mario will appreciate it more, so off to him it goes.
A few other interest names: Bobby Bonds! I had no idea there was a Bobby Bonds, the son.
And Joe Borowski actually won a game for the '98 Yanks!
The oldest card in the binders was actually tucked into one of the font pockets, this Pete Rose/Steve Carlton Phillies Leaders. Kind of cool.
There were a few MLB Showdowns, including a couple HOFers.
And some new and old HOFers:
Hey, I know this guy!
The only Yankee I found was a cool Topps Total of Jorge Posada.
This card was very interesting, a promo card to find local card shops. It no longer works. I called the number and and an automated voice asked if I was over 50. Actually, maybe it was working, now that I think about it.
There were some fun art cards too! I remember the Charlie Ward card from when I was growing up.
Among the basketball cards, a lot of Pippen and Rodman. No MJ, unfortunately.
And a very sweet Penny Hardaway.
This card was cool to see. King Rice was from my town, and went on to play at UNC. That is a pretty big deal. He's currently the head coach at Monmouth.
While I know little about hockey, I do know that none of them were massive names other than who I recognized.
There was only football card as well, but it was of a good name!
So that's it. Worth the $2? I'd say so. Fun times, and hopefully I find another treasure at the thrift store soon!
