[JustinD]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

In many years of hitting every flea market, antique fair, swap meet, paper fair, postcard show, etc., I've found exactly four prewar baseball cards, two T206 and two Pinkerton scorecards. One T206 was at the bottom of a box of other stuff, so the seller and I did not even know it was there. The other one, the seller knew generally what it was and priced it accordingly but it was priced as a Piedmont back when it was an Old Mill, so I bought it for my collection. The Pinkertons were at my very first paper fair, about 15 years ago, and they were priced at 10% of market. Other than that, nada. Lots of laughable fakes, though.

I love to walk fleas and antique shows whenever possible and completely agree, baseball items are impossible at less than double the value in most circumstances. I’ve found several things at outlandish prices, I pass 99% of the time. I actually have done well in other sports at times and vintage non sport items. One of my better days was asking vendors if they had any vintage sports items.

One vendor said that he had bought a large autograph collection but didn’t know a lot about them and slid out a large box. I was with my son and I just poked around the papers. I am not fantastic on autographs but just better than a hack, lol. I look at everything side-eyed and use clues.

Maybe just 4 minutes into the box I pulled out a perfect Lincoln Mercury Jesse Owens 5”x8” piece signed beautifully in the sweet spot and no personalization. I knew that piece well because it was on my want list. There was no doubt it was real and I asked for a price to see what I was getting into with this dealer. He looked at it and said twenty bucks in a questioning way. I tampered my excitement and said that was fair and kept digging out winners. Every thing was good in his stuff and I was overjoyed but mad I didn’t bring more cash. I spent the 300 in my pocket and still have most of it 5 years later.