What's the best item you've ever pulled from a dealer's bargain box?

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

I've picked up a couple raw 1949 Bowman PCL cards over the years that were not identified as PCL cards.



I once pulled 7 1940 Play Ball color proofs out of a dealers' bargain bin for $5 a piece at a show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Here's the one I kept ...

That's pretty cool.

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[bigfanNY]

Not a bargin bin but a binder on his table 1977. The binder had some postcards early exhibits that I had no interest in (mistake) ..but he had a Connie Mack that was signed priced at $30. I pulled it out said I would take it and kept looking. On back page he had an odd sized card that was definitely 1800's but I had never seen one before. Written in light pencil on back was $175. I muttered to myself the price and dealer said did I want to buy it for $75? I said yes..he said fine. I needed to go back to my table for the cash and he let me take cards. Showed them to my Dad as I took cash from our little metal cash box. He asked what it was.. I said I don't know, but would ask some dealers about it on my way back from paying for it. Paid and saw John Ramirez who I had met a year or so ago and I was pretty sure he would know. He looked at it said it was from 1890 part of a set of Clevland Spiders the name of the tobacco company was on the bottom Just So Tobacco. He asked where I hot it and told him 2 tables away. He shook his head and told me it was a good one. Held on to it for 25 years.

[swarmee]

Scanning COMC nonstop for the past few years feels like going through dollar boxes. I've found 4x 1952 Topps Gray backs over the years, 3x raw priced at $5-10 each, and 1 KSA graded VG-EX Yogi Berra that was priced at $200.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Scanning COMC nonstop for the past few years feels like going through dollar boxes. I've found 4x 1952 Topps Gray backs over the years, 3x raw priced at $5-10 each, and 1 KSA graded VG-EX Yogi Berra that was priced at $200.

I complain about the completely worthless search engine they have and how the majority of the cards on COMC are insanely overpriced. Saying that like John I I spend a lot of time on there looking for cards. I have found easily 10 cards that I paid less than $5 each for that I sold for several hundred to a few thousand each.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by bigfanNY

Not a bargin bin but a binder on his table 1977. The binder had some postcards early exhibits that I had no interest in (mistake) ..but he had a Connie Mack that was signed priced at $30. I pulled it out said I would take it and kept looking. On back page he had an odd sized card that was definitely 1800's but I had never seen one before. Written in light pencil on back was $175. I muttered to myself the price and dealer said did I want to buy it for $75? I said yes..he said fine. I needed to go back to my table for the cash and he let me take cards. Showed them to my Dad as I took cash from our little metal cash box. He asked what it was.. I said I don't know, but would ask some dealers about it on my way back from paying for it. Paid and saw John Ramirez who I had met a year or so ago and I was pretty sure he would know. He looked at it said it was from 1890 part of a set of Clevland Spiders the name of the tobacco company was on the bottom Just So Tobacco. He asked where I hot it and told him 2 tables away. He shook his head and told me it was a good one. Held on to it for 25 years.

Jonathan, have to ask. Was Cy Young pictured among the Spiders?

[ocjack]

Over the course of many years during the 80's and 90's, I would rummage through dealer's 1957 Topps commons looking for the Baker error card. As to scarcity, after two decades I only found 2. Paid the price of a '57 common each time.

[MantleMarisFordBerra]

A bit of a curve ball for this board but several years ago I entered a vintage toy store with my (then) young son. While he picked out a few toys I saw these sitting on a shelf - totally raw, not even in penny sleeves! For those that don’t know the 1986 Carnation Wrestling set is extremely rare. The Road Warriors card in this condition goes for approximately $600 while the Martel would fetch around $200. Guy threw ‘em in at no charge when I purchased some toys for my son. Not too shabby!

[jthorst75]

Not card related but rather coins. I bought a $9 bag of a hundred wheat pennies for my son as he was trying to complete his wheat penny books. We were both shocked to find a 1909 S amongst them. Not big money but it easily filled the spot he had in his book. I later ended up buying a graded S VDB for him, that one is a toughy.

[sbfinley]

Not sports related, but about 20 years ago I was on an antique trip with the wife and we found an shop in Kentucky. It listed as an antique store, but it was more of thrift shop and after about a two minute walk I decided it wasn't worth the time. I told her I was going to wait in the car and by the front door I saw a box of books with some modern history textbooks on top. I stopped and asked the guy at the register how much the books were and he said they just came in and he hadn't priced them yet. I said "okay thanks" and walked out the door. He shouted and stopped me and told me I could take the whole box for $30. I hadn't seen anything except for the history books so I just replied back "I'd do $15." He nodded, I paid, and took the box out to the car.

An hour later we were at a drive in having lunch and I went to the trunk to see if there was anything worth reading on the drive home. At the bottom of the box under about 20 random history books and autobiographies no older than the 60's was a weathered old book. I took it out and saw it was dated to 1840's. At the time I had a friend who worked for a book dealer in Nashville. I made a call and she said she would call me back.

On my drive home I got a call from the BYU library asking for as many pictures as possible. Once home I took all the pictures they asked for and emailed them. 20 minutes later someone else called on behalf of the University and made a low 5 figure offer for the book with half up front and half when it was received. He ended up sending the whole amount up front and I shipped it the next morning. All in it was $15 to $15k in about 8 hours. A couple months later I saw my book dealer friend and asked if she ever earned a broker fee for the sale and she just smiled so no idea what she got.

I'm pretty sure this is the exact book I sold to the University: https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digita...0-1846/id/3718

I later saw another copy sell during covid for six figures.

[timn1]

Seems to me it's a seller's responsibility to know what he's got. If he's priced it, I have no problem buying it at that price... It's not nearly the same as ripping off grandma for dead grandpa's Honus Wagner card.

My best find of this type was my first two Star Player Candy cards from a longtime dealer's $5 box. He mostly dealt in postwar Topps/Bowman and couldn't be bothered to look these up. I was happy to take them off his hands

(PS: They were raw when I bought them. I later made the genius move to have GAI grade them, LOL.)

[dbrown]

I was about 12, circa 1981, and there was a flea market dealer with binders -- not bargain, just regular -- where I found a 1970 Johnny Bench, priced like the other, non-high number stars. A couple or a few bucks. I thought I was pretty hot shit for finding that. (I have no idea if the 1970 Bench is still as prized as it was back then.)

On the other hand, in '82 I was selling at shows and somehow I had mistakenly put a 1971 Garvey in a sheet with a $.50 price tag, and someone tried to buy it, I said no, that it was a mistake.

Plenty of bargain box postcard and book stories but those are different and a lot easier.

[butchie_t]

Joe Coleman and Ed Brinkmann 1968 Milton Bradley cards. And I did not even know it at the time. I was just picking up Washington Senators cards.

This was over 20 years ago too. I did not even know that Milton Bradley cards existed.

[Exhibitman]

Depends on the definition of best.

I was going through a box of miscellaneous automotive PCs and pulled the last card I needed to complete the 1962 Racing Pictorial Daytona International Speedway postcard set, which is basically the first NASCAR set. Joe Weatherly (a NASCAR HOFer):



Really, really HTF. Not very valuable, of course, but finding it at random for $0.50, well, that was a heck of a stroke of luck. As it turned out, there is still one more card I need to finish the set, Buck and Buddy Baker. Been looking for that one for about two years.

[JimC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Depends on the definition of best.

I was going through a box of miscellaneous automotive PCs and pulled the last card I needed to complete the 1962 Racing Pictorial Daytona International Speedway postcard set, which is basically the first NASCAR set. Joe Weatherly (a NASCAR HOFer):



Really, really HTF. Not very valuable, of course, but finding it at random for $0.50, well, that was a heck of a stroke of luck. As it turned out, there is still one more card I need to finish the set, Buck and Buddy Baker. Been looking for that one for about two years.

That's really cool. Does Junior have a card in that set?

[LEHR]

Nothing major but around 1999-2001 I was in Indianapolis with nothing to do on a Saturday and found a small card show at a Holiday Inn. While browsing through a dollar box (something I never do) I pulled and purchased a few sharp 1969 Topps hockey cards for a buck each. When I got home I realized they were actually OPC cards, not Topps. I ended up sending the the best card (Derek Sanderson) to PSA with some other cards about a year later and it graded a 9. I sold it on eBay a year or so after that in an auction and it sold for $125.00 if I remember correctly. Not bad for a $1 purchase.