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

[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?

[Smanzari]

I found a good stack of 1962 Jellos in a Dollar box at a show a few years ago (actually thought they were Post until I got home), spent like $14 for 18, flipped for like $9800 total.

[ullmandds]

3 e94 commons for $2 ea...in the mid 90's.

[jcmtiger]

Not a card show, at a flea market in Michigan. This guy had many different items, mostly books in a large see thru case. Saw a Mickey Mantle Mini bobbing head in the case. Ask to see it, hard to get out of the case. He said if you are going to buy it I will take it out out of case. I said ok, sold to me for $35.00.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by JimC

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

Junior Johnson? No. So far as I know, the set is composed of:

38087F Roberts, Fireball
38088F Lorenzen, Fred
38089F Petty, Lee and Richard
38090F Jarrett, Ned
38091F White, Rex
38093F Weatherly, Joe

I am guessing the Bakers are 38092F

The Pettys:

[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.