I’ve heard of people heading down to their local Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. and finding collectibles. I’ve never wanted to spend a lot of time driving around and looking for stuff only to find nothing. Sunday, we made a stop at a local Goodwill and I saw an Easton youth baseball bat that was still in good shape. I decided to look at eBay and what they sell for. I picked it up to resell.
I took a vacation day Friday and after lunch with the wifey, she mentioned going to some thrift stores. I was fine with it. I wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it, but I’m not against it either. We ended up hitting five places, two of which I’d never been to before. The first three were all ones that I’d been to and on Friday, they were pretty much busts. I walked out empty handed. In the second store, I found a book written by Grant Teaff and it was signed on the inside. It was the only thing I would have bought and since I’d have needed to run a card, I passed.
The fourth place we went was a Salvation Army store. I don’t know that I’ve ever been into one. I was pretty shocked when I walked in, as there was a good amount of nice furniture in there. That’s not what I walked out with.
I found four signed baseballs. I was pretty confident on who one of them was. Before you get too excited that I found a Mickey Mantle signed baseball, I didn’t. It was because I could read the first name and it’s not a common one. For the price, I picked all four of them up, no questions asked. If they were all fake and/or no-names, I was only out a few bucks.
I felt pretty good that this was Kiko Calero and once I got home and checked it out, my thinking was confirmed. He appeared in 313 games over seven seasons with the St.Louis Cardinals, Oakland Athletics and Florida Marlins. He wore uniform #50 in his four seasons with Oakland. It’s an official MLB baseball, but I suspect he signed it either in 2005 or 2008 when he was playing with the Sacramento River Cats, who were the Triple-A affiliate. If you wonder why I hypothesized that, please continue reading.
Before I left the store with this, I was intrigued by the fact that it was a PCL baseball and also had the “100 Years” logo on it. That helped me find out more quickly who the autograph was, as did the fact that Mike Edwards signed his jersey number. Edwards appeared in 106 games over parts of three MLB seasons. In 2005, he played in 88 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers and hit all three of his career big league homers. He also played with the Oakland Athletics in 2003 and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2006. In 2003 and 2004 he played 245 games in Sacramento, where he likely signed this. The 100th season for the Pacific Coast League was 2003.
I love when players sign with their jersey number. That also made this one much easier to figure out. As you can see on the bottom of the picture, there is a Sacramento River Cats logo. Brad Knox never made it to the majors, but he did play parts of three seasons at the Triple-A level. He spent the majority of the 2007 and 2008 seasons with Sacramento.
The logos on the baseballs helped make verifying who signed these much easier. The Sacramento logo and Pacific Coast League ball helped as well. However, things aren’t always what they seem.
The other three balls all came in ball cubes. This one did not. It was in a sandwich bag and had this “Certificate of Authenticity” with it. Let’s just cut to the chase here. When you look at this signature, it isn’t Mike Lockwood. In fact, I still have no idea who it is. What I do know is that the logo on the Fotoball was the primary logo from 2000 until 2006, per Sportslogos.net. I looked through the roster from 2000 until last year and can’t seem to find a name that I think could match. Admittedly, I did not search every single name, but I did any that were close. Are any blog readers good at this sort of thing? If you figure it out, feel free to let me know!
Finally, we hit one last place, called Thrift Town. They had a bunch of loose McFarlane figurines, but nothing that intrigued me. I walked around and didn’t see anything. However, the wifey found something Dallas Stars for her desk at work and as she was checking out, I saw it on the table.
I almost walked out and didn’t buy it. I mean, it is Manute Bol. How could I let it get away? I couldn’t. I can probably make a few bucks on this. Completed eBay auctions range between $30 (shipping included) and $75. Those all have boxes, but even on that low end, I can walk away making a profit. One of our great readers, Shane, sent me a screen shot of how high some of these were ending at.
All in all, I’d say it was a successful afternoon. I wasn’t the only one that found items to resell, my partner-in-crime found some items that were new with tag that she can resell. We may have found us a hobby that we can do together.
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Cool thrift store finds!