The Elegant Flea: Keeping My Figure

Two weeks ago (wow, lazy!) I went to several flea markets and picked up a bunch of cards (see yesterday's post), but I also grabbed several figurines.

I took these pictures with my iPod after the sun went down, so you'll have to excuse the grainy shots. I shined three lights right at them but it's still not enough.

 The Palo Alto High School flea market dealer that provided most of my cards (including those wonderful 8x10 Zenith cards) also had several Starting Lineup figures from the late '90s at a quarter each. I grabbed most of the baseball ones. Above from 1998 you see Greg Maddux twice (oops), Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey Jr. (kneeling), and Scott Rolen.

 Here is Frank Thomas, Tony Clark, a leaping A-Rod, and takin the throw at second is Ryne Sandberg.

This Eric Karros headliners also came from the same guy. Aren't these figurines cute?

 

Finishing up my purchases from the Palo Alto dealer was this Cooperstown Collection figurine of Tris Speaker. Still only a quarter!

 I bought two Starting Lineup figures at the flea market at the Ohlone College flea market. This is all I found worth buying there, but I might give it another chance in a month or two. We'll see. Frank Thomas and Mark McGwire cost me 50 cents each.

 The two boxed bobbleheads came from the Palo Alto flea market, from a different dealer. I paid $5 each, not bad considering most people sell them for $30 or more (someone else at the same flea market had one for $20). The Pinnacle Inside can/pack of McGwire came from the San Jose flea market, and was only $1. Not bad since it's sealed! If you weren't collecting in the late '90s, Pinnacle Inside was released with a pack inside a can, and each can featured a different player. I have a full set of 24 unopened cans from the first year ('97) of release, and I've been working at the '98 set. This is from the '98 issue. In fact, this is a gold can, which is limited to 1 in 24 cans. I'd say I got a pretty freakin' good deal for a dollar! Also shown is an RC Cola can with Joe Morgan, which I paid a few bucks for at the Danville card shop I mentioned yesterday.

Last, one more Bobblehead. I got this at the sketchy flea market at Laney College for $5. The box, as you can see, is pretty beat up, and the styrofoam was missing, but before I bought Willie Mays I made sure he's intact - he's perfectly fine! You usually don't see this one around these parts for less than $50. Crazy, huh?

I love bobbleheads and figurines. I already have many Starting Lineup-style figurines (they even count towards my Cardboard Zoo collection), and I have a pretty nice statue and bobblehead collection, mainly from stadium giveaways. The SLUs and MacFarlanes stay in the package (you can see them through the plastic anyway), but I take bobbleheads and such out of the box for display. What's the point in having them if you can't enjoy them, right?

So, two weeks later, my flea market finds are finally posted! There was a card show yesterday and I picked up a ton of cards, so you'll see those this week (they're already scanned and everything). Keep an eye out, because there will be trade bait in some of those. (Oh, and I posted yesterday offering a contest that as of this writing hasn't received a response...)