… and the Big Bang.

If you read the last post, you know it was about a little garage sale bust and a nice small find. Today’s post is about much, much more than that.

Because I went back to the garage sale.

And there was a much bigger score waiting for me this time.

I had to wait around a few minutes, as the only cards they’d found when I arrived were some factory sets of ’88 Score, ’89 Score, and ’90 Fleer.

But then, out came a box with these seven boxes inside. One is a partial set of ’81 Topps, another is a partial set of ’74 Topps. One was marked “Nolan Ryan Sets” and three more are marked 80/84 Topps, 79 OPC/74 Topps/74 Traded, and the one that got me really excited: 68T, 64T, 72T, 74T. One last box was marked the mysterious “miscellaneous.”

After a quick rifle through a few sections that revealed the stars were pulled and there are a fair amount of duplicates, we came to an agreed price and I giddily drove home with my purchase. Here’s a quick breakdown of what the contents look like.

Box one is split about with about two-fifths 1980 Topps and three-fifths 1984 Topps.

Box two has lots of ’74, with the Traded cards separated out for some reason, and a small stack of 1979 O-Pee-Chee.
Box three has a good chunk of 1972 Topps, about 1/4 of a box of 1973 and a little less than that for 1964. There are about 30-40 well-loved 1968 Topps on the right.
The Nolan Ryan box had me excited – I saw some of the 1991 Texas Express set that Pacific released, and thought maybe it would be an assortment of Ryan sets. Unfortunately, it’s four stacks of the first 50 cards of that Pacific set, which I already have. They’re up for grabs if you’d like one.
Now, for the miscellaneous box. First, the only non-baseball cards I found: three PGA cards that were being used as dividers, and the Super Bowl MVP insert from 1990 NFL Pro Set. Who wants golf cards?

Then there were some, well, failed investments? I am now the not-so-proud owner of the following:
  • Sixteen 1988 Topps Todd Benzinger
  • Twenty-three 1988 Topps Matt Nokes AS
  • Thirty-seven 1987 Topps Eric Davis
  • Thirty-seven 1987 Topps Wally Joyner
  • Fifty 1988 Topps Kurt Stillwell
  • 150! 1988 Donruss Kurt Stillwell
  • 196!!! 1987 Topps Cory Snyder
If you need one or several of these, please take them off my hands. PLEASE. You can have as many as you like.

Fortunately, there were some other assortments in the miscellaneous box. Here’s a breakdown of these small stacks.
  1. 1983 Topps All-Star glossies
  2. 1987 Fleer World Series highlights
  3. Some of the USA Team from 1985 Topps
  4. 1987 Fleer Star Stickers
  5. Assorted Fleer team stickers from 1988, I think. These were being used as dividers.
  6. Misc. 80’s semi-stars.
  7. 1982 Donruss Diamond Kings
  8. About three dozen 1988 Fleer
  9. Three 1983 Topps Super Veterans and a George Brett All-Star
  10. Assorted Donruss Diamond King puzzle pieces – mostly Stan Musial and Roberto Clemente.
There will be lots of trade bait here for sure. If you’re interested in anything, post a comment or shoot me an email and I’ll let you know if it turns up in the boxes. So far I’ve only gotten to the 1968 Topps, which are pretty worn, and the 1964 Topps. All of the ’64 is above #450, almost every card is crisp, and there are a good deal of extras available. Plus, I landed four of my Colt .45s cards: Claude Raymond, Bob Aspromonte, and two of the rookies duos.

The family still has the higher-end cards and possibly more boxes to come, and some autographed stuff. I’m going to stay in touch with them to see what’s available. I can’t afford to spend a lot on those sorts of things, but if some of my fellow bloggers are interested, perhaps we can arrange a multiple-party purchase of sorts.

I’ll keep you updated. Look forward to a few more posts to come on my discoveries, perhaps box-by-box, perhaps just some highlights.

0 Replies to “… and the Big Bang.”

  1. If you come across any Pirates in the '64, '72, '73, or '79 OPC let me know.

    Enjoy going through all those cards! It's pretty rare even to come across cards at estate/garage sales around here, let alone a find of that quality.

  2. Mark, there are definitely some Buccos to spare. Unfortunately there's only one Gene Alley rookie in the 64 bunch, but there's plenty more here; I'm certain of that.

  3. I'm working on completing 73 Topps, so if you're not planning on hanging onto all those, I could certainly send some Astros your way for some of them.

  4. Looks like you are primed and ready to bip people with Kurt Stillwell cards, if you know what that means.
    I need Cal, Mattingly and Ryno from the green Fleer sticker stack.

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