Rose Bowl Swap Meet Pick-ups

Earlier this morning, my family and I took a trip to the Rose Bowl Swap Meet in Pasadena.  It is mostly a place to find antiques, furniture and counterfeit goods such has hand bags, clothes or jewelry.  There is sometimes card dealers there also.  Not as many as I was lead to believe.  The place had a couple card dealers and a handful of guys with cards mixed in with the antiques they were selling.  It took a little digging to even find someone that sells baseball cards. 

These cards that you see pictured below are some sheets of mostly 1982 Donruss with a 1990 Bowman Greg Vaughn mixed in for some reason.  The guy was selling these sheets for about a dime a card..  The best of this group is a 1982 Donruss Jack Morris.  All the cards in pages are for trade.

The next batch of cards pictured below are cards that will fit nicely in my PC.  I got a really awesome deal on these and some are cards from sets that I'm no too familiar with.  I love getting cards of players that you collect and kinda oddball cardboard. 

Here are a couple of the 1982 Donruss cards that I am keeping.  Jesse Orosco had a long career as a big league relief pitcher.  He also was able to stick around the big leagues for a few extra years because he could get Barry Bonds out.  I'm also keeping the Lenn Sakata card because a minor PC of mine is collecting cards of Japanese born and Japanese Americans.  I'm half-Japanese and am very proud that Japan has a presence in the bigs.  Please keep the Hideo Nomo, Ichiro and Kurt Suzuki cards coming.  You guys have sent me some very nice cards.  Thank you!

Next up are to keepers of mine.  It's a 1981 Topps card of Rickey Henderson.  This is an awesome looking set.  I think that I am going to collect the Dodgers and stars from this set.  I also was able to pick up a 2003 Upper Deck Playball mini of Hank Greenberg.  Very nice additions to my collection.

I love collecting cards of legends.  Ty Cobb fits that bill as one of the all time greats in baseball history.  This is also my first Leo Durocher card.  The Durocher is a card from a 1981 Cramer set?!?!  I have never seen or heard of these before.  Can someone please give me some background on that set?

I was also able to grab another 1981 Cramer card of Pee Wee Reese.  Reese shows up in a lot of Topps sets in recent years.  It's good to be able to get one from before I was born and made by someone other than Topps.  Pictured next to it is a 2005 Kaz Ishii Heritage Chrome #ed/1956.

This is my first card from a set called Swell which was produced in 1990.  I don't have many Don Newcombe cards so, this of course is a welcome addition to my Dodger binder.  The next card is some shiny goodness featuring Ralph Branca.  This is my first Branca card.  This card is very shiny so, the next Branca card that I obtain will have to be vintage in order to beat this card out.  Also, if anyone knows anything about the Newcombe card, please let me know.

These two cards are from the 2001 Topps Archives set.  This may be my first card of Drysdale where he is depicted in a Brooklyn hat.  I'll have to check.  Campy looks strong and determined to play hard that day.  The game must have been against the Giants where he went on to hit a couple bombs.

The first card is of MVPs Al Rosen and Campy.  Its from the 1975 Topps set.  It's my oldest card of Campy.  Some day I will have to get one of his cards from the 50s.  A Doyer fan can only dream.  The next card is a 1986 Fleer Pedro Guerrero.  Guerrero was a beast for the Dodgers in the 80s.  I have a small collection of his cards.  I hope to add more.

All in all it was a good day.  I got to spend some family time as well as pick up some cardboard.