For about a year, one of the thrift stores that I frequent has had thousands of cards sitting around for the price of 20/$1. Sadly, most of them were straight up commons from 1989 Fleer, 1989 Upper Deck and a few other sets from the same time frame. The boxes had been picked clean of anything worth owning.
Well, when I walked in this week, those boxes were gone and in its place was a single smaller box of cards, which had just arrived. Judging from the contents, I had to have been the first one to get a crack at them.
Most of the box consisted of Jacksonville Jaguar cards, mostly Mark Brunnel and Fred Taylor, but there were some other stragglers that made this a fun box to pillage. In all, I chose 20 cards and spent a whopping $1. And as the title of this post suggests, six of these 20 cards were hits — relics and or autographs. While they aren’t going to net me a fortune or anything, that’s still a huge win for being a thrift find.
And to the guy who walked in behind me and started rifling through the cards clearly in search of something worth owning, all I can say is: better luck next time.
Without further adieu, here is the haul:
Eight of the cards were relatively basic. But I figured I may as well fill out the 20-card order with whatever base cards or parallels seemed worthy of a nickel.
Here’s a pair of 2000 Ultimate Victory Football Parallel rookie cards. Deltha O’Neal is a local guy so it was a decent pick up. Besides, the two top loaders were worth a nickel on their own.
A few inserts and a Matt Holliday were a fun addition at this price
In 1999, numbered parallels were still in demand by collectors. Here’s a Dan Marino 1999 Encore F/X “Seize The Game” Gold parallel numbered 063/250
And not the hits. Like I said earlier, these aren’t going to break the bank, but consider that they cost a nickle each.
Speaking of nickels, here a 1998 Edge Ryan Leaf Draft Special featuring a swatch of Leaf’s jersey, which is the size of … a nickel.
Remember Shaun King? For a minute he was a legit NFL quarterback. Here is a 2000 UD Ovation cards featuring a piece of his helmet. This may be the first helmet swatch I have ever owned.
Game-used cards were in full effect in 2000. Playoff, former known as Donruss.Leaf, Playoff 9DLP0 made some of the coolest ones. Here is a Absolute Leather and Laces card featuring a swatch of ball used ont he Dec. 19, 1999 game between the Atlanta Falcons and Tennessee Titans. Phenom Jevon Kearse is shown on this card, which is serial numbered to 250 copies.
Playoff made lots of game-used items in the late 1990s. Among them were these weird team checklist cards which featured TWO swatches of jersey, neither of which were attributed to any particular player. Bad idea …
After I went through the box and fished out what I thought was every decent cards, I did one more search and stick — literally — in the middle of a stack of 2000 Victory commons was this 1998 Skybox Autographics auto of Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala, former of the Uniiversity of Utah, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Say that name three times fast.
And the last card if perhaps my favorite. After the St. Louis Rams wont he Super Bowl in 1999, Upper Deck made championship relic cards and inserted them into packs of 2000 Ultimate Victory. They were gorgeous cards then and even now, a decade and a half later, they’re still great-looking examples of relic cards done right.
Total cost of these treasures: $1
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