Gifts from the flea market

WARNING: This is a very impromptu post. The pictures were hastily taken, and next to no research has been done, but the items being shown were too much fun to wait for a more well thought out post, so just be sure to keep that in mind while your scrolling through.

The setup: The Nashville flea market is pretty big deal for a lot of people. It's large, and there's lot of crap for sell, if that's not a recipe for drawing folks in, then I don't know what is.

I've been in TN for over four years now, and I haven't been to the flea market. It seems like my kind of place, but I've been told that there are a lot (or whatever more than a lot is) of people that attend these monthly gatherings, and me and large crowds don't go together too well, #SocialAnxiety. Plus, I'm really not a big fan of Nashville (Knoxville is much more to my liking), so other than the occasional card show (which is on the outskirts), I don't have much want to make the drive, no matter how great something may be -- now my mom on the other hand, well, she loves the flea market, and doesn't mind the drive, so she's pretty much been on an every other month schedule since moving here (five or six years ago).

Having a mom that frequents these sorts of places definitely has it's benefits, as you can see from the photo at the top of the post, this past weekend is a perfect example -- I don't go anywhere, and yet I still end up getting stuff.

The stuff:

Interesting!

Interestinger (yes, I know that's not a word)!

Thumb sighting!

I admit that I was a bit confused at first as to why my mom would've bought me this, but that confusion was only temporary, as it only took a look inside to answer that "why". This book makes up like a decade of someone's life, one day at a time. It appears to have been primarily used from 1951 through 1960, they started 1961 as well, but for some reason they didn't keep it up. The daily entries are pretty interesting unto themselves (at least from what I've seen), but there is also a ton of loose ephemera stuck between the pages.

This person also seems to have been a timekeeper at quite a few events. Here's one for a 1956 Golden Gloves competition at the Gannon Auditorium - now the Hammermill Center - which Google tells me is located in Erie, PA.

Any old school wrestling fans out there? If so, you should recognize a few of the names from this show (side note: I have a really cool original photo of Tony Marino when he worked as the Battman in a box somewhere).

See... loaded with stuff! As of this "writing", I haven't even had this book for more than 8 hours, and yet, an idea is forming, an idea that would involve starting a new blog, a new blog that would feature a page from this book each day (and any accompanying loose paper), this blog would run for exactly one year (length of the calendar)? I don't know how many people will actually read this post, but I wouldn't mind some feedback (good or bad) on this idea -- don't worry about hurting my feelings if you think it sucks, as I'm not fully committed to it yet anyway.

Second item:

I haven't really looked at this one yet, so I've really only got a few pictures to show, and that's it.

I'm not really a boat person, so some of this probably isn't going to make a lot of sense to me.

Types of butts??? :-)

Third item:

I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned it on here before (there's been no reason to), but one of my absolute favorite things in this world is old radio programs, often referred to as old-time radio, or as the non-kids call it, OTR. This has been an interest of mine for about as far back as I can remember, I learned from an early age that most people in my age group could care less about radio shows from the 1930's-50's, so I never really talked about it then, or even now for that matter. I have a fairly large library of shows on vinyl, cassette, and CD -- all of which have been rendered pretty much obsolete by the internet. All the old shows are part of the public domain, so now you can listen to just about everything for free online, that being said, I still prefer my physical copies (even though there's a lot more episodes online than were ever released on hard copy).

I don't know if anybody cared to know that about me, but I thought it help explain why my mom got this 1935 Mikerscope Album & Log Book.

The original owner.

It looks like there's a missing photo just inside the cover.

It looks like there's around 30-40 bios in here, and early bios at that. A lot of the bigger names are covered... Fred Allen was so far ahead of his time!

The funniest woman who ever lived!

Jack would've been 41 in 1935, funny, he doesn't look a day over "39" :-)

Even if your not a fan of OTR, you should probably recognize that name.

During my quick perusal, I noticed a few unfamiliar names as well, Vincent stood out, if only because of the fist line on his bio...

You can tell this is old, as it's been a while since numerology has been referred to as an occult science. By the way, I long for the days when people still studied occult sciences, people used to be so much more interesting!

Despite the bio section, this log book was very much meant to be used, and thankfully, Mr. Edward Shirley did. He clearly was a radio enthusiast, as it only took him 10 days to fill up the stations received section, although judging by how quickly this section was filled (I'm guessing that he got the book on the 21st or 22nd of August 1935), he probably had an extensive log book of received stations. This is a person that I would very much like to know more about.


Fourth, and final, item:

Cool, an out of date book about how to play basketball.

There are lots of photos and diagrams.

There's also some stuff in between the pages of this one as well, including this bookmark from 1959.

See, obsolete! How do I know this? Simple, this diagram doesn't show a guard pulling up for a 3 at the end of the four on two fast break.

Hopefully this letter is readable, as it too was in between the pages. If it isn't, all scan it and show it again in future post.

Not a bad selection of stuff, eh? I have a habit of asking how much things being given to me cost, some might call this a bad habit, but I just like to make sure that not too much money is being spent on me. After so many years of me asking, my mom is pretty used to it, and save for birthday/Christmas presents, always tells me. Anyone else curious about the price of the contents in today's post? Would you believe me if I told you that it was just $4? I guess even if you don't believe it, that won't change the fact that that's much everything was, a buck apiece. Hmm, I might have to rethink this whole not going to the flea market thing...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A postcard for your thoughts

Another weekend, another postcard post! If there are any postcard haters out there, don't fret, this isn't going to become a regular theme... at least not on a weekly basis that is.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, I've been posting a bit more than usual this past month, most of which has been sports card related -- in order for me to keep up this kind of pace, I need to throw in a few non-sports card posts here and there, hence another post about postcards (although it's just one this time).

Yesterday ended up being a "me" day, meaning that I had no plans, and could do ever whatever struck my fancy (within reason of course). Surprisingly, I actually had the urge to go somewhere, somewhere that would hopefully be fun. I don't like to waste my whole day gallivanting around, so when I do go out, it's always in the morning -- and even though I felt like going out, I still didn't feel like going very far, which did severely limit my options, but seeing as how I hadn't hit my favorite semi-local antique mall (the only good one in TN that I've found so far) in a while, I figured that would be good way to spend the morning.

As much as I like this antique mall (and the guy who owns it), I really only go for one particular booth, I've written about this booth before, but for anyone knew to the blog, it's got pretty much everything that I could possibly want in one single place: stamps, postcards, magazines, sports cards, trade cards, coins, toys (of the vintage variety), all kinds of old paper ephemera, and just a bunch of other random junk that your average modern person no longer cares about (aka my kind of stuff).

"My" booth was looking a little sparse this, which makes me think that some "new" stuff is going to be added soon (note to self: go back next week), that being said, I still spent over an hour looking through various boxes and binders, although I only ended up finding one thing of interest:

Before I go any further, I've got to admit something, and it's a little embarrassing... it took me about an hour of searching on the interweb last night to identify the location! I knew that I recognized the place, but my goldfish brain wouldn't let me recall the name. Thankfully I was at least able to still recognize Mt. Etna in the background, which of course narrowed it down to Sicily, but still, a whole hour of searching?

Anyways, what your looking is the ancient theatre of Taormina, built by the Romans - on the spot of an older theatre of Greek origin - sometime in the third century B.C. This particular theatre happens to be the second largest of it's kind in Sicily, with the Greek theatre further down the coast in Siracusa being the biggest.

As you can see from this modern picture (pilfered from Google btw), the theatre is still very much there, and is quite the tourist destination, with a panoramic view like that - Etna on the right, Ionian Sea on the left - it's not hard to see why.

Keeping with Greek tradition (the Romans would've used it for gladiatorial events), temporary stages are put together for modern performances -- most of the original seating is gone, but clearly that's been remedied as well.

I usually prefer cards that have been used, but I wasn't about to pass this one up just because of it's lack of postal history. I am far from an expert, but I'm thinking that this card dates to the 30's, and while not rare by any stretch of the imagination, I do believe that it was worth the four bits (fifty cents) that I paid for it.


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COMC Shuffle #8

It's hard to believe that this week's Shuffle post marks two months of doing these already, time flies...


2018 Panini Classics Timeless Tributes blue #102

As far as modern cards go, this one is pretty darn close to perfection in my book.


2013 Panini Golden Age Playing Cards #8H

This set is taking far longer to complete than I would've imagined. At least I'm still enjoying it though, unlike a lot of other things.


2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #BL

The thought of abandoning my quest to complete the three years worth of Golden Age autographs has recently popped up. I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit to it, but if I did, I'd probably keep a few, and sell the rest -- Fred MacMurray's adopted "son" wouldn't likely be one of the keepers.


1998-99 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminous #T16a

It's still hard to believe that the Dallas Mavericks took Tractor in the first round of the 1998 draft, then promptly traded him to Milwaukee for a skinny German kid who would one day become a hall of famer (Dirk Nowitzki).


1962 Topps #99

I can't remember exactly when it was, but sometime early last year I bought a cheap port - in case anyone doesn't know, you can buy ports on COMC, which are either all, or just part of, someone's inventory - it wasn't very big, maybe 60 something cards for $28 (in credit). I ended up keeping a few cards, Boog's rookie being one of them, and then put the rest up for sale (which is the point of buying a port). I still have a few cards that haven't sold, but so far, I've made around $20 profit, which isn't too bad considering that it wasn't the greatest of ports (hence the price).


2012 Panini Black Friday Kings Progressions - Magenta #1

I don't have a most wanted list of any kind, but if I did, the black Progressions Jim Brown from this set would be #1 on that list, as it would complete my rainbow. I have much to say about this card, but I will be talking about it in a post that's currently halfway finished, so I'll just wait until then to do so.


1933 Goudey #68

Hod Lisenbee led an extremely interesting life, on and off the diamond. I give the SABR people crap sometimes, but this is an instance where praise is owed to them, as they have a wonderful article about Horace up on their site. If reading about a former major leaguer who didn't play baseball until he got to high school, at the age of 21 no less, sounds interesting, click on that link. If reading about a former pitcher who went 5-1 against the Yankees Murderer's Row during his rookie season (1927) sounds interesting, then click on that link. If reading about a former player who was still pitching into his 50's sounds interesting, well... you know what to do!

For you back addicts :)


1969-70 Topps #53

I keep going back and forth as to whether or not I still want to try and complete this set, I think I'm over halfway done with it, but my heart (and wallet) just isn't really into it anymore.

2014 Panini Prizm Red, White, and Blue Prizms #53

In case you can't tell, I'm kind of fond of this particular card! Although I'm gonna have to keep an eye on that Frank in the bottom left corner, he could be trouble.


1998-99 Skybox Thunder Lift Off #2LO

I bought a lot of Skybox Premium back in '98, but never bought any Thunder, there was only enough money for me to choose one, and I made my choice. In fact, until just a couple of years I had never even owned a card from the '98-99 Thunder set. Since moving to TN though, I have found a number of inserts in dime boxes, but one that I had yet to find (or even see for that matter), was any of the Lift Off's, so when I came across this Ray Allen a while back for just a little under $2, I had to have it. I can't overstate enough how great these look in person, and to me, they really do seem like something that should go for quite a bit more money.

The shuffler came up with a pretty good mix this week, certainly more variety than last week, which is always a good thing... at least for me (and hopefully for you as well).



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My first Twitter trade

Twitter... it's a thing. Some people love it, some people hate it, some people love and hate it. Some people can't live without it, some people live just fine without it. Love it or hate it though, it's not going away anytime soon.

Personally speaking, I'm not very good at the social media, and it often makes me feel considerably older than I actually am, which isn't a good thing. Twitter has been good for the blog, and it's allowed me to get to know a few fellow bloggers a little better (in one particular case, a lot better), both of which have been good things. On the flip side though, there's a lot of rabble rousing going on, arguments over extremely trivial things, plenty of name calling, and lots of politics -- and all of the propaganda and misinformation that goes hand-in-hand with politics on social media as well.

Another popular thing on the Twitter, at least amongst card collector's, is trading. There seems to be a lot of good and bad with that as well, more good than bad though (at least from what I've been able to gather). I think I've been using the site for about a year and a half now, and up until two weeks ago, had never used it for trading before. This is mostly because a) formal trading isn't something that I enjoy doing a lot of, and b) most of the stuff I see people wanting to trade away tends to be of the higher end variety, which is something that I don't collect -- and even if I was interested in any of it, I wouldn't have anything to trade for it, as usually folks are looking for other high end stuff in return, which is the kind of stuff that I don't have for trade.

A few weeks ago though, Adam, who goes by the handle Alindz99, tweeted out that he had gotten a binder of 90's basketball cards, all (or least the majority of them) of which were going to be available for trade... 90's?.. Basketball?... My interest was officially piqued!

I don't collect a lot of base cards anymore, even stuff from the 90's, I've already seen it all way too many times, or I already have what I want (for the most part) -- but I do love me some 90's inserts and parallels, so I went ahead and asked if this binder contained any such things.

The binder did contain such things, I have pictures to prove it, speaking of pictures, Adam really went above and beyond by sending me literally dozens of binder page pictures via DM, it seemed like an awful lot of effort considering how small the trade ended up being, but it was an effort that I very much appreciated nonetheless.

Anyways, I got lots of pictures sent to me, most of the inserts were one's that I already had, and didn't really need any duplicates of, but there were two that stood out -- and not because they're crazy rare and valuable or anything, no, in fact they're both cards that can routinely be found in dime boxes. Instead they stood out because I didn't already have one of them, and the other is a card that I'm trying to get an entire pages worth of.

First up is the "new to me" card:



1994-95 Fleer 1st Year Phenom #8

It seems like it's been a lifetime since Big Dog's rookie season! Drafted in the #1 spot, Glenn had a ton of hype coming into the NBA, which I think he did a pretty good of living up to, or at least as good as anyone could playing for Milwaukee at that time.

1994-95 Fleer Super Star #4

Did anyone have more inserts than Fleer during the mid 90's? I don't think so! I have found four copies of this card in dime boxes during the last year or so, which is fine by me, because I absolutely love this card, enough so to chase an entire page's worth. With this latest acquisition, I am now more than halfway towards completing this goal. I feel the need to note too, that the card isn't miscut or anything, it was just a really bad picture by me, the cracked screen on my phone is really making the act of taking well centered pictures quite difficult (I know, first world problem).

So that's it, a two-card trade, certainly not the biggest Twitter trade ever, nothing like the one's that Matt routinely pulls off, but I'm still pretty happy with it, I might even have to try it again sometime.

I only spend about ten minutes a day on the site (there just isn't that much for me), so I'm glad that I saw this trade opportunity during one of those short stints, kind of makes me want to spend a little more time on there, just in case something else similar ever arises (kind of).

Thanks again for the trade, Adam! And to everybody else, go give him a follow, you certainly could do worse :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Happy Easter!

In an effort to break up the monotony, I thought it might be fun to celebrate today's holiday with a few (seven to be exact) Easter themed postcards from my mom's collection (thanks for letting me use these ma).

Since I don't think that there's going to be a lot of people reading the blogs today, I'm not going to spend too much time writing, so these cards will be shown with next to no commentary. And for those of you who enjoy seeing the backs of postcards, don't worry, I've got you covered -- so let's get this show on the road, starting with the back of the card that led off the post:

This is the chunkiest postcard that I've ever seen... and I absolutely adore it!

Hopefully those of you who stopped by enjoyed the cards (it wasn't easy limiting myself to only showing seven). To those who are celebrating today, may you have a wonderful day! And to those who aren't celebrating today, well, I very much hope that you have an awesome day as well :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.