Whew doggie - this was one heckuva busy weekend, filled with familial engagements, communions, graduations, and day-drinking. As far as what concerns Wrigley Roster Jenga and it's "brand", there were two major events that took place during the two-day span: the Cubs suffered a humiliating three-game sweep at the hands of the hated St. Louis Cardinals and my community held it's long-running, annual resale day. The former was an offensively and defensively challenged embarrassment that more closely resembled the "Lovable Losers" era of the North Side franchise, while the latter was the day that my hometown waives the usual fee associated with setting up a garage sale and everyone is welcome to hawk their wares in their yards or garage. One of these two events was much more exciting to me than the other - can you guess which?
In the past, I've portrayed Midlothian Annual Re-Sale Day (MARS Day, for short) as my own personal Christmas. Ever since I was a 90's kid, prowling for deals on lightly used Beanie Babies, Hot Wheels, and Pokemon collectibles, this "holiday" has been circled in red on my calendar. These days, what I target has changed, but the level of anticipation remains the same. That's because, over the last few years, I've stumbled across some nifty things - including a Keith Magnuson autograph, a complete Bowman reprint set, and a full-size Red Bull cooler, among other treasures. You really never know what you're going to find on MARS!
As part of my most recent exploration - Saturday morning - I salvaged a few intriguing items. Don't be alarmed, but the following item somehow made it into my purchase pile:
Bought this (on purpose) at the community wide garage sale event. I don't even know who I am anymore. pic.twitter.com/sKWFTbUucm
While the Cubs' five-game losing streak has been absolutely pitiful, I'm not about to switch allegiances. However, I do attend a fair amount of White Sox games on an annual basis, seeing as I love our nation's pastime, my wife cheers for the Palehose, Sox Park is a short train ride away, and tickets are much more affordable. Since I'm not a jerk and support my city, I always cheer on the home team (except when it's a Crosstown tilt), usually wearing a borrowed cap from my brother. For two bucks, now I can keep things in house with a "Winning Ugly" era hat of my own; you're not going to be able to beat that a Lids location, that's for sure!
Unfortunately, that was the only baseball-related purchase made during my hours of garage sale hunting and baseball cards were nearly completely absent from the bins and boxes. That's okay though - because, with the Cubs' play as of late, I'm not in much of a baseball mood right now anyway. On the other hand, while some cheap DVDs, video games, and a pinata (of all things) helped fill the void, there was still one cardboard-related discovery to be made that made the trek worth it:
Of course, the Blackhawks were extremely disappointing this season, as well; but, as we approach the Stanley Cup finals, I've since gotten over that let-down. Therefore, a new Blackhawks oddball for my burgeoning hockey collection was just the ticket.
This Chico Maki stamp hails from the 1974-75 NHL Action Stamps checklist, a 324-ct set which was issued in promotional strips at participating grocery stores throughout North America. While kids across the country originally obtained these 2.1" x 1.6" hockey "cards" from Loblaw’s, IGA, A&P, Acme, etc., I found mine in a driveway in the "Jolly Homes" neighborhood.
There was still one other way to acquire a sampling of these non-postage stamps and it came in the form of a book:
Issued by the league itself, these books contained a write-up on the previous year's Stanley Cup Champions (the Philadelphia Flyers), profiles for each team competing in the '74-75 season, and - perhaps, most importantly - a full sheet of Action Stamps:
These stamps were intended to be separated, wet, and pasted into corresponding pages for each club's roster. For example, my Chico was intended to be affixed to this page:
As you can see, the whole set-up is quite similar to the popular Topps and Panini sticker albums we see for the various professional sporting leagues today. Also, while I'd rather have had Stan Mikita than Maki, I'm not going to complain about such an interesting, vintage discovery at the bargain-basement price of two dollars. After all, I'd never even heard of these oddities before this weekend.
Chico may have been the only Blackhawk included as part of the one-page sampler; that said, he wasn't the only Chicago-connected player on the sheet:
The trade of Phil Esposito to Boston in 1967 ranks near Brock for Broglio in terms of the worst transactions in Chicago sports history. The center went on to cement a Hall of Fame legacy in Bean Town - but, never forget, the first two seasons of his star-studded career were spent in the Windy City.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Joey Johnston spent the last year of his professional hockey career in Chicago. After several years with the Golden Seals, the winger played in 32 games with the Hawks in '75-76, with only five points and zero goals on his ledger.
Unfortunately for me, all three of these men were previously represented (in Indian-head sweaters, no less) in my Blackhawks All-Time Roster Collection. Nevertheless, this was still an intriguing find and a welcome diversion from the baseball atrocities occurring concurrently.
All in all, not a terrible outing for MARS day - nothing out of this world, but I didn't get totally skunked. The Blazing Saddles DVD that I purchased will provide hours worth of entertainment and the stamp book was definitely worth the price of admission. Does anyone else have any 1974-75 NHL Action Stamps of their own, or perhaps further information on this oddball set? Maybe you see a stamp that you need in the sheet above? Does your community have their own version of MARS Day? Feel free to let me know in the comments section below!
You never know what you'll find on a MARS expedition.
For the first time in weeks - perhaps since the beginning of 2018 - the wife and I had ourselves a free weekend. No family get-togethers, no friendly shindigs, no extra work commitments, no surprise apartment fumigation (yes, that's happened this year)... nothing, glorious nothing. With such a wide open itinerary, naturally, we took advantage of this unfamiliar situation and enjoyed doing absolutely nothing. I must say, it was quite nice not trying to hurriedly pack up our Kia or frantically shop for a last minute birthday gift, for once.
During this downtime, I was able to sit down at the coffee table, grab a cool beverage, and flip through my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection binder for the first time in months. It's my favorite cardboard endeavor, the linchpin of this entire blog; however, the behemoth requires a significant amount of free time to page through. Thus, I was kind of excited to dust off the cover of my marquee, six-inch three-ring.
While idly flipping through these Ultra-Pro pages, I noticed something about this collection that hadn't registered with me in a long time and had gone pretty much entirely undiscussed here on Wrigley Roster Jenga. This story involves one of my greatest garage sale finds of all-time, an oddball set of trading cards, and flashback to more than a decade ago:
Sometime in the middle part of the previous decade, I was a broke teenager, sans job, who was just launching his CATRC project - the 2003 "Why Not Us?" Cubs had recently re-ignited my passion for our nation's pastime and it's trading cards. While I did pop into my LCS on occasion, it was during these cash-strapped days that I began mining thrift shops, flea markets, and garage sales for good deals on previously discarded cardboard.
Unsurprisingly, with my previous collecting period having occurred during the tail end of the overproduction era, my pasteboard holdings focused heavily on the 80's and 90's, while new acquisitions began to fill in gaps with the current club. Vintage cards from the 60's and 70's were well out of my minuscule price range and were never seen outside of the sliding-glass display cabinets of the card shop and players from before that might as well have been ancient relics from Mesopotamia. In short, nearly three-quarters of the history of my favorite franchise was almost non-existent in my then much smaller binder.
That is, until one glorious Saturday morning.
As I've mentioned on this blog before, my favorite local tradition is our village's annual Garage Sale Day, where residents are invited to lay their wares out for sale in their driveway or lawn without need of a permit. Since the days of my chasing Beanie Babies in the 90's, I've never missed this Saturday morning festivity and, honestly, it's one of my favorite days of the entire year. You just never know what you're going to find... maybe there'll be a giant Red Bull cooler, or a super cheap Keith Magnuson autograph, or a long sought after LP... it's a community-wide treasure hunt! During one such quest, circa 2005, I happened upon the box you see above.
I might not remember the exact year, but it was at a house on Lawndale Avenue that, hidden among the strewn about junk, I happened upon a complete, reprinted box set of the 1951 Bowman checklist. I couldn't grab that sucker off of the folding table fast enough.
Back in the late-80's, a company known as Card Collectors Company jumped into the burgeoning baseball card market by reproducing iconic sets of decades previous. Colloquially referred to as CCC for short, the group recreated highly-priced and treasured tobacco/bubblegum cards for collectors on a budget, including '51 Bowman in 1988. Fast forward a little bit to 2005-ish and I was a collector on an extremely tight budget, whose blossoming collection of all-time Cubs contained a massive vintage blackhole. In short, this set was basically meant for me!
If I recall correctly, this bad boy only set me back about five dollars, as well; the seller appeared to have once been a big investor in the trading card boom and was looking to rid himself of the clutter. Although created as a cheap alternative to real, super vintage, these reprint sets still often change hands for upwards of thirty bucks and are rarely broken up into affordable singles. Thus, this was an absolute steal of a deal on product already designed for those with light wallets.
Thankfully, this discovery came near the end of the garage sale tour because I recall fighting the urge to immediately dig into the contents of the box. Surely it was going to be a significant boon to my burgeoning Cubs All-Time Roster Collection.
Not only were my lofty expectations met, they were far exceeded! From just one transaction that cost me nothing more than a meager Abraham Lincoln banknote, I added what had to be nearly fifty new names to my All-Time Roster tome. In just one purchase, the decade of Elvis Presley and Sputnik went from nearly completely absent to more than halfway complete. I don't have any recorded statistics to back this claim up; but, this has to have been the greatest one-time addition to my CATRC throughout it's existence.
This massive boost was aided by not only the Cubs team set - as showcased by Bill Serena, Wayne Terwilliger, and all those shown previously - but also by Cubs of a different color. By that, I mean future/former Cubs shown in other uniforms.
After all, since day one of this project, I've accepted such cards as placeholders until a properly-attired card can be acquired. Furthermore, in many cases, several such players never received a genuine Cubs card or only super duper rare regional issues; so, in the interest of completion, I welcome the colors of other clubs to this very day.
During the ensuing decade and a half, many of these cards have since been upgraded in my collection by actual vintage or by cards printed in the more traditional, standard size. I must admit, though I would never have turned down this find, I do have an inherent bias against mini cards, be it modern Allen & Ginter or authentic Bowman dimensions. Even still, a hefty amount of these CCC reprints still rest comfortably in my CATRC accumulation, including all of the cards featured in this post.
All of these years later, a total of 18 Card Collectors Company recreations are still included in my marquee collection. Even if that total represented my initial acquisition, that would still divide out to just over 25-cents per card, an investment which I would easily pull the trigger on right now.
Sadly, this isn't an entirely happy story. While I have no qualms about breaking up the set, I no longer have the fancy-pantsy box that originally stored the brick of cardboard (I lifted that image from Ebay, in all honesty). As a matter of fact, I no longer have ANY of the cards which lacked a connection to the North Side franchise. After initially sorting through my Garage Sale Day bounty, in a short-sighted move I re-packaged all of the non-Cubs into that box and immediately tossed them in the trash. Hell, I didn't even use the damn recycling bin. All of that glorious cardboard, wasted to the great landfill of time.
What a nitwit! At the very least, they would have been fun to include in various trade packages; of course, this was well before I had any communication whatsoever with other collectors.
Oh well, how typical of your average American teenager. At least I was able to hang onto to all of the rest of these oddballs!
All in all, I think I can say, unequivocally, that this box of 1988 CCC '51 Bowman reprints was my greatest Garage Sale Day find of all-time. This five-dollar purchase from 2005 (or thereabouts) continues to provide a significant contribution to my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection here in 2018. With that in mind, I know I can't be the only cardboard collector on the blogosphere who has an unbridled love for garage sales. So, I have to ask, what is the best secondhand discovery that you've ever come across at such an event? Please feel free to share in the comment section below.
In the meantime, my lazy weekend has officially run out - it's now Monday morning and it's time for work. And if that wasn't joyous enough, we have a coating of snow to go with the beginning of the work week dread. Thank goodness I was able to unwind with my big ol' binder this weekend!
First of all, can I just say, "damn Yankees!" What an ugly series that was for the Cubs - a blown save one strike away from victory, a blow out, and a tough-to-swallow 18-inning loss. It all mounted to a series sweep at the hands of former mate Starlin Castro and the evil empire. Not to mention, the bullpen has been absolutely shredded by the super-duper long extra-inning affair, Brett Anderson's implosion as the fifth starter, and a plethora of short outings by the rest of the starting rotation. Needless to say, it certainly wasn't a good weekend for the Cubs.
On the other hand, despite the three-day beating my favorite team endured, I had myself a pretty darn good weekend. After all, the sun was shining, the rain stayed away, the birds were chirping and my absolute favorite day of the year just so happened to be this past Saturday.
That would be the community wide Garage Sale Day that my hometown holds every year. As a kid, most of the rest of the neighborhood youths would count down the days until the arrival of Santa Claus and Christmas or eagerly cross off boxes on their calendar in anticipation of their next, upcoming birthday. However, like usual, I was the odd one in my neighborhood; the day that I could not wait for, year in and year out, was the day when the fee for holding a garage sale was temporarily waived for the morning/afternoon and families across the town would open their garages to sell their used goods and trinkets.
Beanie babies, action figures, Hot Wheels cars... all of my favorite collectibles available for just pennies on the dollar. Plus, you just never knew what you were going to find, courtesy of these random households. It was like a day-long treasure hunt!
That enthusiasm has yet to die down, though my focus has shifted from vintage Transformers to cheap furniture, records and, of course, baseball cards and memorabilia. Thus, after rushing through my morning workout and breakfast, my wife and I jumped in our car and began to peruse the neighborhood for good deals; luckily, she's as big of a fan of secondhand shopping as I am! Last year, I was astounded to uncover a Keith Magnuson autographed card for three bucks - there was no way I was missing out on a minute of this event.
For what should be obvious reasons, the sign seen in the image above immediately caught my attention. While I wasn't in the market for any more Cubs t-shirts (lord knows I have enough), where there's smoke there's fire - by that, I mean that if they have some type of sports memorabilia, it's quite likely that they will have other kinds.
And I wasn't wrong!
I should have taken a picture - this house was a vintage sports cards gold mine. This person clearly sets up at card shows, though I don't recall seeing him at any of the local shows that I have attended - he had a couple of display cases of Cubs/White Sox/Bears/Blackhawks goodies from throughout the last 60 years, boxes full of All-Star laden grab bags, and a bunch of unopened product from the 80's/90's. I could have easily blown my entire GS Day budget at this one stop and spent the entire day gabbing with the seller, but the thrill of the treasure hunt was calling my name... or maybe it was my wife... I don't know.
In the end, after much hemming and hawing, I decided to limit myself to the two, vibrant, crisp-cornered, '59 Topps that you see above, which just so happens to be my favorite vintage set.
The contemplative Bill Henry is his only Cubs card and, thus, serves as a highly desired "Cubgrade" to the '67 Giants single in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection binder. The longtime, Major League reliever spent two seasons with the Cubbies (1958-59), near the beginning of his 16-year run, appearing in 109 games with 2.75 ERA as one of the only valuable arms in their woeful 50's bullpens.
In drafting this post, I've discovered that Mr. Henry turns out to be an interesting character. For instance, he did not play baseball in high school and instead made a name on the sandlots as a softball star. Furthermore, long after his playing days, in 2007, his death was reported by a Florida newspaper. However, he was still very much alive and, as it turned out, the man who had died had stolen the identity of the former professional athlete decades ago... the dead man's own wife didn't even know better. Instead of getting angry, the real Bill Henry phoned the grieving widow and offered his condolences - “I just hoped maybe it helped him in his career,” he said.
The other card I purchased featured Bob Will and I thought that it too would be a coveted Cubgrade. Unfortunately, my scrambled mind got the names "Bob Will" and "Lee Walls" switched up and it didn't help that both men played the outfield during the same era. So, if anyone has a stray Lee Walls from '59 available for swapping, I'd love to talk trade.
While the sad trombone music played in my head when I opened my binder and noticed to mix-up, I still can't be too upset about acquiring a 58-year old piece of cardboard in such pristine shape. It gets extra bonus points for displaying the hats with white piping that the Cubs briefly employed in the preceding season.
Not a bad way to kick of the Garage Sale Day festivities, eh? Unfortunately, that was the only location where I was fortunate enough to come across trading cards. That said, there were still plenty of cool treasures to uncover, including one more purchase related to our nation's pastime:
The local storage locker place got in on the resale fun and filled their lot and building to the brim with unclaimed and unpaid for goods - they're loss is my gain. Among the forgotten items for sale, there were several cardboard boxes that were filled to the brim with books of all sorts, many of which were related to Chicago sports. Priced at a quarter a pop, I just couldn't help but pick up the above novelty - an account of the Cubs' 1989 season, told through the eyes of NL Rookie of the Year, Jerome Walton.
"The Boys of Zimmer" surprised everyone and won the NL East title that year, partly on the strength of the flashes in the pan that were Walton and Dwight Smith. The team has long been a fascination of mine, owing to the fact that I was also born during that 1989 season and I absolutely wore out my VHS copy of their season recap that I bought from the local video store as a teen.
As far as this hastily put together (no doubt to capitalize on the surrounding hype) semi-biography goes, it's interesting to go back and read the optimism expressed in this youth movement and the confidence that Walton was just beginning a star-studded career. Well, it didn't quite work out that way and it would take nine more years before that Cubs even made the postseason again.
As with most sports "biographies," the middle of the book contained a compendium of pictures from the subject's life. My favorite of these snapshots was the image you see of Mr. Walton asking Santa Claus for a Cubs World Series win. Mr. Claus did finally deliver on that request, it just took 27 years longer than Jerome wanted.
That did it for my sports-themed purchases on the 2017 edition of Garage Sale Day; however, there were still a few other odds n' end finds that I couldn't help but pull the trigger on, like records:
That same storage unit sale had a nice stack of 45's to go through and I gladly took a few of them home with me, including the 5th Dimension single that you see here. I've never seen the musical hair, but "Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" is a phenomenal track with some tight vocal harmonies that truly make your hairs stand on end. This was my favorite find from this stack of wax.
Another house had countless boxes strewn about their driveway which contained nothing but LP's - when I saw it, I almost began to salivate, subconsciously. It appeared as though they had bought out a closing record shop with intent of selling on the second hand market - sadly, what was left about at their garage sale was almost assuredly the rejects. After half an hour of digging through no-name dance remixes and the nadir of disco music, I was able to salvage one record of note:
"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song that I will absolutely never skip when in it comes on and a tune that is near and dear to my heart as a former radio disc jockey. However, I must admit, I've never even heard so much as a snippet of another song by the new wave group, the Buggles. For a dollar, I was more than happy to rectify that fact.
I haven't put it on the turntable yet, but here's hoping that the rest of the album is at least half as good as it's most iconic single.
With that, it's time for me to reveal my favorite find from my own, personal Christmas. It has absolutely nothing to do with any of my collecting habits, but it's something that I've irrationally desired for a long, long time:
Yup, for five bucks I purchased myself a full-size, Red Bull cooler - the same kind that you see at gas stations or bars. I simply could not help myself. *Please disregard the uncontrollable weeds*
Back when I was in college, while in the middle of a long run through the local neighborhood, I came across a stray one of these in a ditch. I though to myself, "that would look awfully nice in a college apartment and I sure could use a cooler." Plus, Red Bull is one of my favorite vices and I've always been attracted to their can design. However, there was no way I'd be able to run with it and when I came back with my car, an hour or so later, some enterprising young fellow had beaten me to the punch. I was thoroughly disappointed.
Now, six years later, I've finally righted the wrong. After a little TLC, this piece is going to be a great conversation starter when the wife and I host parties and will eventually move into my "man cave," when we get the space. My better half long ago resigned herself to the fact that I'm a giant man-child and has even suggested we turn it into a kegerator. I knew I choose wisely.
Here's something I definitely WON'T be doing with my prize.
That man-child can officially decree that Garage Sale Day 2017 was as an absolute success. I was able to pick up some precious few vintage baseball cards, an intriguing book, some new additions to my vinyl collection and a giant Red Bull cooler. Yea... I may be older, but Garage Sale Day still definitely brings out the kid in me. Does anyone else's community put on such town-wide garage sale festivities? If so, do you partake? Have you ever found anything super cool? Please feel free to tell your tale in the comment section below.
In the meantime, I'll just be over here in the corner, polishing my new cooler.
When I was a kid, waking up on that special morning was always a joyous moment. After sleeping very little due to my immense excitement, I would hop out of bed, check the weather outside my window and then enthusiastically wake up my parents before rushing downstairs in anticipation of a mountain of toys and fun-tastic finds.
Why am I talking about Christmas in the middle of May? Well, I'm not - I'm talking about my village's annual "garage sale day," which has been my Christmas ever since I was a child.
Having been born a penny-pinching, scavenger and a natural collector ever since my first bucket of patterned super balls, the vast and seemingly endless array of garage sales, peddling all sorts of mysterious items, appealed to me on the deepest of levels. Nothing has changed today; as an adult, I've planned work schedules, family functions and even vacations around this special day.
This past Saturday, my Christmas came.
After a slow start, including one card guy who felt the need to tell me how old everything I picked up was and what a great deal the price was (being pushy will just push me away, sir), I was finally able to track down a garage with just the right stuff.
Held together with a rusty, ancient paper clip, was a set of Keith Magnuson oddball cards, which had seen better days, for the price of three bucks. Included within that bind was this 1970 team-issued post card featuring a baby-faced photo of the Chicago sporting legend.
As you can see, it's got thumb-tack holes, some paper loss, wrinkles and, based on the backside, it looks as though it was affixed to the inside of a scrapbook at one time:
That said, these sorts of things don't pop up very often and, when they do, get a significant hometown fee. My interest was certainly piqued, especially since Mr. Magnuson was not yet represented in my Blackhawks All-Time Roster Collection.
Like I said, there were multiple oddities of Keith found clipped together, including this seemingly homemade card:
This well-framed and joyous shot of the defenceman is printed on thick, cardstock-like photo paper with a matte finish. Additionally, it's standard-sized with rounded corners; if Mother's Cookies made hockey cards, I think that this is what they'd look like.
However, I can find no information on this particular card and one can kind of see the faded markings of Kodak on the reverse; thus, I'm leaning towards a vintage custom. Still pretty nifty, though.
On the other hand, there's no doubting who was behind this next card:
I have a feeling that this postcard-sized premium was issued by 7Up - the Uncola; it's just a hunch.
You see, Keith Magnuson had a long relationship with the soda brand as a spokesman and, after his playing career came to an end, as a Chicago-area salesman for the pop company. Keith even played a strong role in getting the "uncola" served in the omnipotent restaurant chain that is McDonald's.
I guess that 7Up made it into Chicken Unlimited's doors as well, judging by the fact that his facsimile signature here also includes that fast-food chain's name. Perhaps these were given away at those establishments?
The last card in the stack was very similar to the above premium, but with one key difference:
Well, okay, two key differences - no white white border and the facsimile signature is real... wait, what?
That's right, I was able to score an autographed card of the late, great Keith Magnuson for three bucks. Of course, it's inscribed to some guy named Thomas, who apparently didn't take very good care of it either; nevertheless, this was an exceptionally pleasant surprise of a find.
**EDIT** As pointed out by Once a Cub, I should be blaming Theresa for the condition. Damn my eyes! Sorry Thomas.
Hot damn - that honestly might rank as my greatest Garage Sale Day find of all-time. At the very least, it's now the cornerstone of my Hawks collection.
The seller must have been a collector, through and through, himself - seeing as he had wide-offerings of all sorts of memorabilia. His tables were crammed with Disney stuff, die-cast cars, Beanie Babies and even cereal boxes - one of which was this bad boy:
Just a couple of weeks ago, in my post about RizzO's, I discussed how I wanted to track down a box of the only other Chicago Cub to have his own cereal, or even grace the front of a cereal box. Seriously, not a single one has ever even appeared on a Wheaties box (to my knowledge).
I remember having a couple boxes of these for breakfast, back in the day; unfortunately, childhood Tony did not think ahead and save future Tony one of the boxes. But, have no worries childhood Tony, your mistake has finally been rectified.
As you can see from the front, this was issued in 1999 in the wake of the epic home run race from the previous year. Sadly, the "super-limited edition" card was no longer resting inside this now-empty cardboard shell.
In case you were curious, here's the back of "Slammin' Sammy's Frosted Flakes." Do you think it's too late to send away for all of this (unlicensed) swag? I really want to "slam it like Sammy!"
Anyway, this was something that I've been searching out for a long time. Usually the price on these gets trumped up by cereal box collectors and vendors who see the name "Sammy Sosa;" courtesy of this awesome garage sale, I got it for a solitary green Washington. Score!
Furthermore, I never would have found my "Mega Magnuson" find without Slammin' Sammy. Knowing that I'd be looking for this box, my brother kindly pointed this sale site out to me when we ran into each other at the pushy guy's garage. Woot!
From here, the rest of Garage Sale day was pretty much a dud - I didn't find a single thing before or after that really caught my eye. That said, I'm quite satisfied with what I did track down - I mean, just look at how great these look together:
Sidenote - my fiancee collects rubber ducks and Buddha statuettes, as you can see above.
With that, I now have approximately 363 more days to prepare until that next magical Saturday morning, where I can wake up and catch the smell of superb deals and exploration wafting through the air... or is that must? Well, I guess that's not EXACTLY true, since all of the neighboring communities now hold similar exhibitions and I plan on making the rounds through all of them.
I'm a fiend.
In conclusion, I'm just curious, what are some of your best garage sale finds? If you found something better or more meaningful to you than my Magnuson oddballs and Sosa cereal box, please mention it in the comments - it'll give me inspiration for the next garage sale scavenger hunt.
There are many quintessential signs that spring has finally and permanently sprung. The flowers start blooming (or weeds start sprouting), the birds begin chirping, ants start to invade my basement, etc. etc. However, my favorite sign, by far, is the garage sales that begin to pop up throughout the neighborhood.
Luckily for me, on this lazy Sunday, the first garage sale of 2016 sprouted up a few blocks over:
Even better, it had a nice stash of trading cards!
I balked at their initial offer of $15 bucks for the whole bin - while it unexpectedly contained very little junk wax cards, it was mostly made up of Bowman cards from 10 years ago with all the key names picked out.
Instead, I opted to weed through the Rubbermaid tote and pick out a nice handful of singles that I could slot into my collection:
Mike Parisi made the Major Leagues back in 2008 as a member of the Cardinals bullpen and sported some pretty awesome socks along the way up the ladder. The next year, he was selected in the Rule 5 Draft by the Cubs and spent the next few years in their system.
The pitcher was released in 2011 without having made it back to the Bigs. So, while he never was an official Northsider, he still fits in nicely with my Coulda Been a Cub collection - MLB'ers who were once property of the Cubs org, but never made the parent club.
Speaking of guys who never made it to Wrigley, here's a couple of failed prospects for my... failed prospects collection. I have yet to come up with a clever name for that binder.
Jeremy is, of course, the twin brother of Jonathan and was drafted by the Cubbies in 19th round of the 2006 draft. He dominated in the low minors, but was hit hard during his stints in AA and AAA, leading to his release in 2010.
Collins was a 24th rounder in the 1999 draft who stuck around the system for 7 years, never making it above A ball.
Alex Burnett was a Cub for all of one game in 2013 and Berry only wore Cubbie blue for 8 games last year; however, Cubs they still are. Both are already represented in my main project, the Cubs All-Time Roster Collection; that said, these will fill a couple of gaps in my Cubs of Different Color binder (Cubs players in different uniforms).
This Futures Game card of another brief-stint Cub in Brent Lillibridge will qualify for my Baby Bears binder (Cubs in the minors), although I usually shy away from using Bowman cards for it. Since this one shows him in a clear MiLB uniform, I'll accept it.
Wrapping up the Cubs portion of my dig were these eventual Cubs all hailing from the 2007 edition of Bowman.
While that was it for my Cubbie portion of my purchase, I did add one more baseball card to my stack:
While the expression found on Mr. Mejia's face here might have been enough for me to pull the trigger on this card alone (such intensity!), that's not the reason I grabbed it. No, I picked it up because Gilberto spent several seasons playing second base for our hometown Independent League team: The Windy City Thunderbolts of the Frontier League.
He looks much more photogenic in those SGA cards. Anyway, I picked that up purely for nostalgic reasons.
While I was there, I found a few Bulls cards too:
I've been contemplating starting up a full-fledged Bulls roster collection, to go along with my Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks and NASCAR efforts; so, I've been picking up a few stray singles whenever I can find them.
That Horace Grant card might show him on the Magic; however, I assure you he played in Chicago from 1987 through 1994.
At this point, the heat of the day was kind of starting to get to me - we damn near hit 80 degrees and it's only mid-April. So, with one final card, I called it a day on the first garage sale of spring:
I love UD's MVP brand, so this was a nice Duncs to wrap the afternoon stroll up with.
So, one garage sale so far and one successful trading card dig - resale season is off to a good start here at Wrigley Roster Jenga headquarters. Hopefully that's a good sign; the village-wide annual Garage Sale Day is coming up in less than a month and I'd love to be able to uncover more hidden gems.
In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the rest of this beautiful, sunny weekend (which has already included beer, bonfires and baseball cards) and try to ignore the fact that the Cubs just lost a series to the Rockies as I was typing this post. I guess 9-3 isn't so bad though.
