The City Wide Yard Sale Strikes Again

Since today was my normal weekday off from work (I work 4/10 hr days), I decided to reward myself for spending the morning and part of the afternoon doing some heavy duty yard work. After cleaning up and having a quick bit to eat, I decided check out some of the early goings-on as part of the city-wide yard sales this weekend. I figured today would be a good day to go out as the remainder of the weekend has rain and storms in the forecast on and off all three days. My five year old decided to go out with me as well, so with him in tow, I hit up the two stops I'd planned on today and found some pretty interesting stuff.

The first stop was an older house who messaged me on Facebook earlier in the week and said she had five tubs of cards available. That was enough to make me stop by and take a look. What I found was a mess, boxes of cards big and small (even some 1600-ct boxes) completely unorganized and mixed together in all sorts of storage containers ... shipping boxes, plastic tubs, and even a laundry basket. Needless to say, this was going to be a chore to sift through. I asked the lady what she wanted for the cards, she said that she'd already had someone make an offer on them but was holding them so I could look through them. I dug through, found a few boxes that were mainly baseball (there was a lot of football and basketball junk wax) and offered her ten bucks for the three plus a Joe Montana Starting Lineup figure. 

Here's the aforementioned Joe Montana figure. It's seen way better days and the bubble that houses the figure is pretty much nearly detached. I'll probably just relieve the figure of his misery in living in a plastic bubble and put the cards into the football section of my collection. I can only imagine how this box got so beat up.

The final stop of the afternoon wasn't far from the initial stop. I found the house, stuffed back in a corner of a newer development and talked with the guy I got a lead from on Facebook. He said he hadn't brought the cards down yet but took me up to where he was storing everything while my five-year-old played with his son, who I gander was the same age. Anyway, to say that my jaw dropped when I hit the floor was an understatement. There were giant stacks of 3200 count boxes that were numbered and strategically labeled along with some miscellaneous stuff on a shelf. I felt like I was the guy from Pawn Stars trying to make a deal. I knew immediately I was in over my head as there was way too much to dig through. So, I quickly ran through a few things in my mind and settled on a few items.

First thing I decided on was this 3200 count box of cards from 1982. He said that he was selling by the box for five each. That's a pretty fair deal so I pretty much grabbed the first one I saw. I took a quick look when I got home and it looks like there's cards from each major set that year ... Topps, Donruss, and Fleer along with maybe a few miscellaneous cards.

There were also a few smaller boxes, again five a piece. I couldn't help but notice this box was overflowing with wrestling cards from the 90s. So, I nabbed this as well. I'm really looking forward to going through this.

I noticed there was a decent collection of bobbleheads so naturally my conversation went to that. He said he had a few duplicates and presented those to me. I settled on this Amir Garrett bobblehead from the Louisville Bats from last season. So far this year, Garrett has been a good addition to a Reds bullpen that is pretty much held together with duct tape and hope.

One other thing that was part of the massive collection the guy was portioning off was unopened wax. Yes, unopened wax. There were multiple boxes of Topps Big, some legends set (I think Pacific Legends but not sure) and one box of 1989 Bowman. I'm not a big fan of Bowman must for another five spot, that was thrown in the deal too. So, with everything it was $35, I countered with $30 and to my surprise, he took it! He even helped load the cards into my car. We talked a little after, he provided his number and mentioned he would do trades for stuff as well and if there was anything I was interested in, he'd dig through and let me know.

I'd say overall for a grand total of $40 I'd say I did pretty well and I've got a nice amount of stuff to dig through. I think I'll spend the rest of the yard sale weekend on my front porch (provided it doesn't rain) and observe the traffic chaos on the main road from afar. If it does rain, well, then I've got a nice little project to work on then.

Four Packs of 2016 Topps Pro Debut

I'll preface this by saying that minor league cards aren't really my thing. I know the prospects inside the Reds system and the major prospects around baseball because of MLB Network but that's it. I was looking for something new and fairly cheap to rip recently as I stopped at the card shop to get some supplies. Nothing really interested me until I saw these for a fairly decent price per pack so I grabbed four of them. I was pretty unimpressed when I opened the packs to be honest as I had no clue who most of the players were. With the help of MLB.com's Top 100 prospects, I'll show off the cards of the guys who appeared on the list.

The smoke effect still rings through on these, just like it does on Series 1 and Series 2 and just like it will on Update this fall. To me, it'd be a good idea to use a whole different design and not recycle the same design from the flagship set. Having the same design as flagship makes these feel like and extension of the same, much like Update.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not familiar with any of these guys as I'm not really a prospector. One of the things that drew me to buying these packs though is getting cards of people who play for some really interesting teams, such as Bradley Zimmer who appears as a member of the Akron Rubberducks, who I somehow have never heard of despite having family living in that area for years.

Another crazy team name, this time it's the Charlotte Stone Crabs. Justus Sheffield is now part of the Yankees organization and Anthony Alford is the #3 prospect in the Blue Jays organization.

Finally some people I've heard of! Almora recently got into 34 games with the Cubs earlier this year before being reassigned back to the minors. Hessman is the minor league all-time home run king so it was pretty cool to get a card of him. Lastly, the lone insert I got out of the four packs, a Louisville Bats superhero card. This makes it the one of the few Louisville Bats cards in my collection and I'm always on the lookout for more.

For a prospector, this would probably be a fun break but for someone like me just looking for something cheap to rip, I'd stick with some flagship as this is pretty much the minor league version of it.