A few days ago I went thrifting and that was part of the plan when I went to pick up something nearby. But, at first I was second doubting myself if I should go home after I picked an item or go thrifting anyway.
I was in this middle intersection and on my left is a left turn to the thrift store direction or the right which will be on my way home. Since I am still a bit far from the stop light so I didn’t make a decision right away.
I am slowly creeping forward, and heck when the stop light turned green I turn my signal light left, as I finally made the decision to go thrifting. I only go that area maybe once a month since it is a 30 minutes drive from where I lived.
Once inside Savers Thrift store, I usually will browse and since time is not a problem, most time I spent two hours or sometimes more. It’s been a habit for me to look for books especially vintage books. There were few people, so I stay away and once the people are gone, it was my turn and there’s no one around.
On the magazines section I took noticed eight thick catalogs from Mile High Card Company, so I grabbed it and flipped the pages. It was an expired catalogs full of baseball players that got authenticated and maybe already sold. These magazines are heavy and thick, so I put it back since I do not have any use for them.
But, I keep going back and forth to the magazine section and truly was gravitated with these catalogs. Almost I got hypnotized. At this time it was a matter of walked away from it or buy it.
Then, an idea came to mind, so I started looking at each covers and that’s where the light bulb got turned on in my head.
All the covers are of sufficient quality to be framed because they were made of heavy and thick cardstock. I plan to frame each cover and sell them as sports art posters, as they are derived from authentic vintage photographs captured by a talented photographer.
When I looked at some few pages, I also discovered some pages only featured one famous players which is very neat. I know these pages will be collectible and ready to be frame.
When I got home I started browsing the other catalogs and these are vintage from early 2001. I brought home all which a total of 8.
Then all of a sudden, I got curious if all their catalogs are only dedicate to baseball player and I was happy to find out no. All the covers are related to baseball only, but towards the middle and the end of each catalog is where I found the non baseball ones.
I got excited knowing about the varieties of who could be featured on each catalog. There is football and other non sport trading cards like from movies, cartoons and TV shows. And I said to myself could they have Duke’s image on any of their catalogs.
These catalogs are not for public consumption. When I looked on eBay and other online e-commerce, there’s only few that are selling them and they are selling them cheap because they didn’t see what I see.
For all these sellers they only considered it as an expired price catalog while with me it is about arts. To those that recognize what I am selling they will be able to purchase it cheaper considering these came from the actual photos.
I grabbed the one from February 2007 and the cover for that is the Pennant Ticket collage of baseball, and this is my first choice to dissect the pages because the cover alone not only colorful but also desirable.
After I removed the cover, I used the razor blade to remove them one at a time, and I was actually surprised when a familiar face came in sight.
On the America’s Pastime section a familiar sighting meet my eyes. Oh boy, there is actually an image of Duke and on the caption 1933 Sport Kings #20 Duke Kahanamoku PSA 5 EX with a minimum bid of $100.
What a surprise to find him even he didn’t graced one of the full image.
I went to the catalog website to look him up, but his authenticated card was marked as sold. Nothing else.
After that I got a notification that my mail was delivered, which happened to be a few of Duke’s Surfing Invitational for 1965 through 1968. They are all posters and in good condition.
What a timing indeed and I will be featuring it on one of my upcoming stories.
Why did I bought them is another story that touched my heart.
