Great Find: Local Flea Market Hunting Yields Massive Vintage Card Score
By: CSportsandPrints
Recently, I went to a local Flea Market in NY to look around for some cards. I would suggest that collectors not only look to purchase the high end expensive boxes of today but to take the time to search any and all flea Markets they can find. Especially with the economy the way it has been – what better way to begin or stock your collection then to purchase bulk cards for special prices? Back to the story. So I walk into this flea market and ask the owner if he has any baseball cards he would like to sell. On the table he has the usual 1990 bowman 1986, 1988 Fleer etc. for sale. This individual buys and sells all kinds of Antique and flea market product. So he tells me that he has some older cards he purchased from a collector 15 years ago but he would have to look for the cards to find them and asked if I would come back next week on a Sunday and he would have them. Needless to say I did that.
The following Sunday I walk in to the store and tell the gentleman that I was in a week prior and he asked me to come back. He walks behind the counter and pulls a large shoe box out containing about 300 cards all in top loaders containing common and minor stars with some stars from Topps 1953, ’54, ’55, ’57, ’58, ’62, ’65,up to 1969. The cards were awesome. Again the box was packed all in top loaders. I then asked if he had anymore and he said “Oh yeah I have a lot more in the back. I then asked if I could see them and he said “Absolutely I will take you back to show you.
When I walked to the back of the storage room I noticed six very large bins all containing binders and cards. The first binder I grabbed was a set of 1969 Topps cards. The second was 1968 Topps cards. I continued grabbing the albums and noticed that 9 of the albums contained partial sets of 4 to 5 hundred per set of 1970 thru 1979 Topps. There were 1964 Beatles cards, 1960’s Monster cards, 1970-71 Topps Basketball with Lew Alcinder (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and to many other vintage cards to mention. I asked the gentleman if I could pick out what I was interested in although obviously I wanted it all. He then says to me nope take everything all 6 bins with thousands of cards and the shoe box out front for $200.00 total because he didn’t want to get rid of them and don’t have time to go through all of the cards. $200.00 for everything.
Needless to say I purchased these cards and now call this collection the Livingston find. Livingston is the town where I found these cards.
So I wanted to share this story with you to maybe share with your listeners so that they know that one of the best ways to find gems is not only the $500.00 box of cards but also your local flea market.
