Continuing my Card Show chronicles as I left Larry's $1 bargain table I headed to a table presided over by a friendly guy I had met before at Houston shows. He had a lot of news cards and packs but the boxes I was interested in were on a table off to the side where he had a big plastic tub of sleeved 50 cent cards and a couple 1600 count boxes of neatly rowed 10 cent cards. Perfect.
As I started into the 50 cent box he told me he would sell me 3 for a dollar. So I dug in. I picked six and then went through a couple rows of his dime boxes and ended up spending about $5.
I came away with the worse for wear Lenny Moore at the top. It'll fill a hole in my Moore collection until I can find a better one. For now it'll do nicely for 33 cents.
This Ken Dryden came out of the fifty cent box. I'm currently reading his book, The Game. It's every bit as good as promised.
From the 10 cent box I pulled Houston Cougars........
Otis Birdsong is the #2 scorer in Houston's hoops program history and a guy I knew quite well from my days in the Athletic offices.
Eugene “The Hitting Machine” Lockhart was a bad ass linebacker at UH but he ran into legal problems after he NFL days. Too bad.
I also landed a few non-sports cards, mostly to round out my take to an even dollar amount. i always like adding Presidential cards. And who doesn'y like cards of attractive ladies?
Then it was off to my last stop, another dealer on the back row who had interesting stuff for fifty cents and a dollar a card. I stuck to the fifty cent box which was full of mostly well worn non-sports stuff.
I spent about five dollars at this table and bought some cards from sets I have wanted to sample but never at eBay prices. These are from the 1954 Bowman Power for Peace set, the 1956 Topps Presidents set and Topps' Flags of the World set also from '56. Below is a sampling of these.
Some of these were worth the 50 cent cost, others maybe not but overall I was OK with the small lot I picked up.
I did a bit more shopping and found a few items that will go out in some mailings I have been planning. Then I hit the road for home. I came in under budget before I factor in my PWE purchases and I had a fun day at an enjoyable show.
Fuji, "King of All Bargain Buys", how did I do?
Top-ho! These those bargains are better than buying sweets for a Bobby at the cinema!
ReplyDeleteThe more I see of vintage non-sports sets, the more I want to get.
When I first saw the Great Britain card, it threw me a little... I'd heard the phrase in the occasional Monty Python sketch and I thought that the phrase was "top-hole" (which I'd assumed was sort of like "top notch"), but hey, it's actually "top-ho". How about that?
Delete"How about that" indeed, because I just decided to do some searching on the phrase, and while I can find numerous references to "Top-hole", the only ones I can find for "Top ho" are pretty well misogynistic.
So maybe teenage Night Owl was right to laugh at these, because who knows how accurate they are.
I've never heard 'top-ho', not even in any of the numerous British TV shows my wife loves so much, or in a movie.
DeleteI was kicking myself for not buying up the guys stock of those. I just sorted thru looking for a couple of specific flags. I didn't occur to me until I was home that I could have had a huge chunk of the set really cheaply. There's another local show in a few weeks, I may go see if the same dealer shows up.
Eric Idle says "Top Hole!" about 30 seconds into this Monty Python clip:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKYL0tW-Ek
...of course, he then goes on to say "Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father!"
I need to use that phrase "Top-Ho". I'm afraid, though, that folks today may not appreciate it as much as in the 1950s.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Shlabotnik -- I like those vintage non-sports sets. The flags one is cool, and I'm starting to want to put a presidential collection together -- or maybe a world leaders collection. Great buys!
Where do I begin?
ReplyDeleteA. Let's start with the flags. I've never seen or heard of this set, but I love it. I didn't even wait to finish commenting... I went over to eBay and picked up Japan for the PC.
B. The same thing goes for the Power for Peace set. How have I never seen these? I'm thinking a few of these will be excellent stocking stuffers for my father.
C. And the Presidents are awesome. You've actually given me an idea for a PC. Stay tuned.
D. I'm a huge fan of attractive ladies!
E. You can never go wrong with dime box vintage or Garo Yepremian.
F. I'll wrap things up with my favorite cards. I couldn't decide which one I liked more: the Lenny Moore or the Ken Dryden. It doesn't get better than 50¢ HOF vintage... unless you're lucky enough to find 33¢ vintage. Great haul.
G. I'm not sure why you pointed me out in this post. Was it to make me jealous? Great job Commish. Bargains will always be my favorite thing to hunt down at shows and for $8, you did awesome.
And how the heck did I not use Card Show Chronicles for one of my series of posts?
Have to find some Power of Peace cards. Love the presidents
ReplyDeleteWhen my dad's co-worker dropped a bunch of '56 Topps on us when I was a teenager, there were also a couple of cards from the Presidents set and Flags of the World set. We used to crack ourselves up with the backs to the Flags cards. I have no idea what happened to those.
ReplyDelete"The Game" is a great read. Are you reading the first version or the re-release?
ReplyDeleteThis is the 2012 version with the new chapter. And yes it's really a great book. I'd heard so much about it and then when I heard Dryden interviewed a while back on NHL Radio I went and found a copy
Delete