My family and I drove up to Nashville today to check out the Nashville flea market which we had never been to before. I was of course on the look out for baseball cards and other baseball memorabilia such as tobacco packs, old ball gloves, etc.
Just after arriving I found a dealer with a very small number of 1970's vintage cards. Not knowing if I would find any other baseball cards at the flea market, I picked up a 1979 Reggie Jackson in really nice EXMT+ condition for $5, a 1977 Brooks Robinson in excellent condition for $5, and a 1976 Willie Stargell in maybe VG/EX for $3. Even if I didn't find anything else, I was happy to have at least picked up a few vintage HOF'ers.
Luckily, this was just the start of a good day of card hunting. Inside the flea market pavilion were a few other sports card dealers. I hit one up who had a couple of display cases, one filled with stacks of stars and hall of famers from 1950s-1980s. After going through several stacks I picked out a 1957 Robin Roberts which cost me $25 and a 1972 Rollie Fingers which was $5. I will come back to this dealer in a minute...
My wife and kids were basically done looking at this point, but I asked to go over and check out the area that I hadn't gotten to yet. Not too far from that last dealer was another one who had several display cases of vintage baseball and football. He also had a bin of 70% off vintage cards so I started to dig through those. During my search, I found out he was a semi-retired dealer who only did the flea market any more but he lives about 20-30 mins from me and he lets folks come to his house to buy cards! From the 70% off bin I found a 1961 Richie Ashburn that is nearly perfectly centered with just a little corner wear that cost me $4. I also found a 1964 pitching leaders card with Whitey Ford, Camilo Pascual, and Jim Bouton on it that ran me $2. This one has some waviness at the top that I didn't notice when I bought it, but it was $2 so no big deal... it can go in the dupes trade box if nothing else. In talking with this dealer, he pulled out some 1947-66 Exhibits and I picked out a Larry Doby for $8. That is the first exhibits card that I've ever owned.
Now back to the previous dealer. I went through his 50% off boxes and found two winners. First was a 1967 Joe Morgan which is a little O/C left-to-right but otherwise pretty nice for $7.50. Then I found the big score of the day. A 1973 Mike Schmidt rookie card which after the 50% discount applied only cost me $2.50!! In the condition it's in, that is a $100+ card! Made my day and knocked off a HOF rookie card that was on my want list!
I'll be going back to the Nashville flea market for sure!
Just after arriving I found a dealer with a very small number of 1970's vintage cards. Not knowing if I would find any other baseball cards at the flea market, I picked up a 1979 Reggie Jackson in really nice EXMT+ condition for $5, a 1977 Brooks Robinson in excellent condition for $5, and a 1976 Willie Stargell in maybe VG/EX for $3. Even if I didn't find anything else, I was happy to have at least picked up a few vintage HOF'ers.
Luckily, this was just the start of a good day of card hunting. Inside the flea market pavilion were a few other sports card dealers. I hit one up who had a couple of display cases, one filled with stacks of stars and hall of famers from 1950s-1980s. After going through several stacks I picked out a 1957 Robin Roberts which cost me $25 and a 1972 Rollie Fingers which was $5. I will come back to this dealer in a minute...
My wife and kids were basically done looking at this point, but I asked to go over and check out the area that I hadn't gotten to yet. Not too far from that last dealer was another one who had several display cases of vintage baseball and football. He also had a bin of 70% off vintage cards so I started to dig through those. During my search, I found out he was a semi-retired dealer who only did the flea market any more but he lives about 20-30 mins from me and he lets folks come to his house to buy cards! From the 70% off bin I found a 1961 Richie Ashburn that is nearly perfectly centered with just a little corner wear that cost me $4. I also found a 1964 pitching leaders card with Whitey Ford, Camilo Pascual, and Jim Bouton on it that ran me $2. This one has some waviness at the top that I didn't notice when I bought it, but it was $2 so no big deal... it can go in the dupes trade box if nothing else. In talking with this dealer, he pulled out some 1947-66 Exhibits and I picked out a Larry Doby for $8. That is the first exhibits card that I've ever owned.
Now back to the previous dealer. I went through his 50% off boxes and found two winners. First was a 1967 Joe Morgan which is a little O/C left-to-right but otherwise pretty nice for $7.50. Then I found the big score of the day. A 1973 Mike Schmidt rookie card which after the 50% discount applied only cost me $2.50!! In the condition it's in, that is a $100+ card! Made my day and knocked off a HOF rookie card that was on my want list!
I'll be going back to the Nashville flea market for sure!