Church Bazaar Find

This past weekend was our annual church bazaar. This is a major fund-raising event and the event which brings in the most money is the auction. The items in the auction are donated by members of the church. We usually end out bidding on something which we want but end up spending more than we could get if for in a store. But it's for a good cause so we don't mind. This year, there wasn't too much we were interested in. Near the end of the list was something described as "Joe DiMaggio albums and baseball cards". I took a look at the item (which was a box full of stuff and decided to try for it. I ended up getting it for $50. There were very few people left in the auction tent by this time and I think the guy I was bidding against was just trying to jack me up so the church would get more money. He dropped out at $50.


The Joe DiMaggio Albums turned out to be two 9x7" hardback books in a sleeve which describe Joe's career in newspaper and magazine clippings from his career. It has a price tag on it for $90. There are a few of these going on eBay in the $4 to $15 range. Plus shipping (the books are heavy). But this is just what was on the top of the box. There are 3 old Sports Illustrated magazines, in plastic sleeves including a 1973 cover featuring Willie Mays, a 1988 cover featuring Pete Rose and this cover from 1976. It is apparently Schmidt's first SI cover. Already, I'm pretty happy with this purchase.
Does anybody remember the Senior Professional Baseball Association? It existed in 1989 and 1990. It was a winter league in Florida for former professional players who were over 35 years old. In the box are a bunch of baseball cards from the league, including this one of Dave Kingman. I haven't counted the cards but it looks like most of the set is there.
Next is a 10x8 glossy autographed photo of Ryan Klesko. It's not dated but I guess it could be his rookie year. He looks pretty young here.
There are also autographed photos of Phil Plantier (dated 1991 on the back) and Ruben Sierra with the Rangers. There is also a cover from a 1989 football magazine featuring Warren Moon of the Oilers which is autographed by him.

Look, 10 Tim Hardaway rookie cards (one of the sleeves has two cards). eBay lists these as going for 1 cent to about $12. I don't collect basketball cards so I have no idea.
There are 4, 4x6 wooded wall plaques like this one with a 1987 Topps Mark McGwire card. The others have a 1992 Fleer Frank Thomas, a 1992 Skybox Magic Johnson and a 1991 Leaf Gold Rookie Andujar Cedeno.
In addition to all of that there is:

18 14-card packs of 1992 Fleer Ultra Baseball. Each pack was carefully opened and contains only 13 cards. I'm not sure what the opener was after as there are good cards in each pack
1987 Donruss Baseball factory set
1989 Topps Baseball factory set
1988 Donruss team collection sets for the Cubs, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and A's. These are booklets with the team cards on uncut sheets, 9 cards to a page.
16 1988 Score Baseball rack packs. Each contains 54 cards.
24-count box of 1988 Donruss Baseball 39-card packs
24-count box of 1991 Fleer Baseball 30-card packs
36-count box of 1991 Score Football Series 16-card packs
1978 Astros scorecard magazine
1966 Topps Jim Palmer card
1991 Fleer Ultra Wes Chamberlain
2 1990 Upper Deck Juan Gonzalez
1954 Topps Harvey Kuenn (believe it or not this is the first 1954 Topps card I've ever owned).

I believe that this stuff was all bought an an auction where the contents of a hobby shop were being liquidated. How it came to be at the church bazaar is beyond me but I'm quite pleased by my $50 purchase. I plan to feature much of this material in future blog posts so keep tuned.

In the meantime, I've got to go watch the Phillies hopefully clinch a National League Championship spot from the Rockies.