On the Road to Pittsburgh : Card Purchases in the Steel City

 

I promise this will be the last one of these types blog posts for a bit.

            These look-what-I-got blog posts.

            But…HEY…LOOK WHAT I GOT!

            I kid.

            But over the last weekend, I got to go home and visit family, see a Pirates game, and, oh, yeah, do a little bit of card shopping at my favorite flea market and antique store. This blog post was supposes to have been about a combined trip to Buffalo AND Pittsburgh…but let’s just say that COVID-19 isn’t do with us yet.

            Buffalo will happen.

            First things first, my awesome brother gave me this.

            Just straight up gave it to me.

            I’m not an autograph collector…except in certain circumstances. And Pirates players from my childhood ARE those circumstances. Especially ones that I actively collect like I do with Dave Parker.

            On Sunday, Mother’s Day, I was up bright and early to hit my favorite Flea Market, Rossi’s, in the North Versailles suburb of Pittsburgh. Rossi’s has three main card dealers that I like to…um…deal with. If you read last week’s blog post, then you know I’m shifting gears into over-drive collecting cards from Pittsburgh major sports team. And there’s no shortage of Pittsburgh sports team collectibles at a Pittsburgh flea market

            The first vendor I went to had a big ol’ box of Pittsburgh Pirates cards from the 1950s on up to the 2020s for me to sift through. It was the kind of box a Pirates collector would want to buy en masse. And I probably should’ve taken the opportunity to have purchased some cards from the 50s and early 60s. But I had an agenda. And that agenda was to begin adding cards to my personal collection of Buccos.

            I added a few cards to my Manny Sanguillen collection.

            And my Andrew McCutchen collection.

            This vendor even had a 2021 BL Ke’Bryan Hayes rookie card. The first of any of the 2021 BL Cards that I’ve purchased.

            The next card vendor I went to is probably my favorite at the flea market. Not only does he have a large assortment of Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins cards, he has big bins of $1 cards, and three humongous boxes of 10-cent Pirates, Steelers and Penguins cards. I spent to bulk of my time sifting through the Pirates ten-cent box and came up with these.

            Some Tony Pena anyone?

            How about a little Teke?

            Omar Moreno your cup of tea?

            Got my fill of The Candyman.

            And the Hitman.

            Including his rookie card. 

            My lone Bill Madlock purchase.

            Then there were these guys.

            Yeah…I know…Dodgers cards. But these are Dodgers cards in name only. Sid Bream and R.J. Reynolds were major contributors to helping bring the Pittsburgh Baseball Club back to its winning ways in the late 1980s/early 1990s. I was a huge fan of both, so naturally I wanted their rookie cards. The vendor saw fit to include them in a 10-cent Pittsburgh Pirate box. So….

            And, no, we’re not going to talk about Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS.

            Fun Fact: Sid Bream and R.J. Reynolds were traded to the Pirates for Bill Madlock.

            In my worldview…if you come across 10-cent Bobby Bonilla Rookie cards and XRCs…you buy them.

            So I did.

            And some other Bobby Bo cards as well.

            Let’s not forget Mr. Andy Van Slyke, the best centerfielder I’ve ever seen play the game.

            And while we’re reminiscing on the 1986-1992 Pirates, I grabbed myself some cheap-o 1993 Topps Jose Lind and Bob Walk cards as well.

            Not bad so far?

            But…but…

            Every team has a dark history. A period they’d rather forget. For me, that would be the 1993-2012 Pittsburgh Pirates. Twenty full years of losing seasons. To put that in perspective that era includes Barry Bonds leaving and Andrew McCutchen arriving. Let’s just say I watched a lot of bad baseball during that era. And I tend not to appreciate or really acknowledge the players I rooted for during that length of time, especially from 1993-2002, before I moved from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn, New York.

            But history is history, right?

            And time heals wounds.

            So, I’ve started thinking about players from that losing era I want to collect.

            I found these two guys in that 10-cent box.

            To be honest, it was nice to sit back and think about that time. Not the losing. But the hope that was always there.

            The hope that arrived with Andrew McCutchen.

            And these two guys.

            Yeah, Pedro Alvarez probably deserves his 10-cent status. Overall, he was a bust for the Pirates. But for a small window…man, he felt like the second coming of Willie Stargell.

            And this guy felt like the second coming of Dave Parker...but the Pirates traded him away.

The last thing I found via this vendor was this.

            I mentioned last week about collecting Steve Blass cards. Well, the 1965 card is his rookie card. To me, that was an amazing find for $3. In fact, when I brough my 10-cent haul and my Mr. Blass card up to the guy running the joint; he only charged me $3 for the whole lot. So, I paid for Blass card and every else was…free?

            Or else I was doing him a favor.

            The last vendor at Rossi’s is guy I’ve been going to, to complete some sets. He has a lot of boxes of commons from various Topps years. The last time I was in he helped me with my 1980 Topps set. This time I was looking to put a dent in my 1981 Topps set. Thankfully, the vendor had some 1981 Topps.

            Sadly, they were all out of order so picking through was kind of impossible. Thankfully, he was willing to sell me his whole lot of cards for a reasonable price. That means this weekend, I’ll be going through the cards and plugging in my missing spots.

            I’ll also be going through these bad boys.

            Found a 500-card lot of 1981 Fleer cards at The Hub, my favorite antique store, also located in the North Versailles suburb of Pittsburgh. I know I’ve been ragging on my set building here as of late. But you can’t look a cheap 500-card lot of Fleer in the face and walk away. So I bought them. And I’m going to make the set. Looking through the box, there are some doubles. But if I can get 200-300 cards into the set I’ll call it a success.

            I also came across this.

            It’s in pristine condition and there isn’t a single sticker in there.

            But I want there to be.

            I’m thinking of getting myself a box of 1981 Topps Stickers and putting the album together. That said, I am worried that, due to age, the stickers won’t stick. But, because I’m a part of the greatest and most helpful hobby in the world, I reached out on Twitter to some fellow collectors, and they were all kind enough to give me ideas on how to make this sticker book work even if the stickers don’t stick right.

            Thanks to all of you for that.

            If I build the 1981 sticker set, I’ll post updates here on the blog.

            Finally, no trip to Pittsburgh should ever happen without a trip to this place.

            Hands down the most beautiful Major League Ballpark in the country.

            Yeah...I know…I’m biased.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY:  Like I said, enough with the show-and-tell. Let's travel somewhere, shall we? Or should I rank something? Yeah....let's do that! I'm going to go over my head and rank Topps 1970s baseball cards from what I feel are best to worst. I know, I know...it's been done. But not by me!