Savvy Shopping: Go Figure

I know I promised cards, and next post will have that I promise, but I want to clear out some scans and photos and try to use the first in first out method.  Though I do have a folder somewhere from last year with a lot of cards I never showed, but hey, at least I'm posting more than once a month.  Today's post will be my most recent trip to my local second had store, and honestly I do have a couple cards to show, and some sports related items, so its not a total bust.  First I'll start with an item that my mom found on a trip by herself and broke the bank on- 10 cents.  Still an awesome deal though.

Here is a double sided cardboard sheet with a summary of Super Bowl 43 and included is a patch.  I never seen one of these before, but it is pretty cool, despite it being slightly bent.  It's not something I really need, but I would have gotten it for the 10 cents, maybe even a quarter, so I think its a great deal.  Here's a little close up view.  Since its slightly larger than my scanner bed part of the tops and bottom are cut off.

To be honest, the patch is all I really care about, but its still pretty cool.  I remember watching that game but for some reason don't remember what the halftime show was.  I had to look it up and it appears it was Bruce Springsteen.  I have no memory of that performance.  Now I'm second guessing if I did see the show or just the highlights.  Maybe I had to work that night, but by then I'm sure I was only working days.  Oh well, I know I was rooting for Arizona Cardinals to win because despite the fact I didn't like the Steelers, one of my bosses at the time, Jimmy Haslam, was a minority owner of Pittsburgh Steelers.  While it wasn't a huge ownership, I still didn't care for certain upper management of Pilot Travel Centers at the time (I mean who really does like their bosses) but I never really met Jimmy, my displease was more on the regional level.  A few years later Jimmy would go on to own another NFL team- the Cleveland Browns.  I wish him the best of luck because part of me wants to see the team win, though I wish they would do something with those uniforms.  Jimmy has had some troubles involving Pilot in recent years though as some of the upper management was defrauding truck drivers but the last I hear he had no direct involvement in it (at least those who were convicted all said he didn't).  Personally I don't think he did because his father founded the company and scamming truckers would ruin his business and any chance of probably running an NFL team so I tend to believe it either never reached him at worst heard about it once and forgot to look into it.  As of this time, he is still the CEO of Pilot and hopefully some of his better management decisions from there makes its way to the Browns soon.

So while on this trip to Savvy Seconds, my mom spotted some action figures and she wanted to give me a heads up.  For that reason a few days later I decided I had to check them out.  She only knew they were Starting Lineup and some guys like Emmitt Smith, Dan Marino, and Barry Bonds were some of the names.  She said the prices were like 5-10 bucks each.  I was somewhat skeptical, but I figured I'd still go and take a look.  In the end I'm glad I waited a few days as they had a store-wide sale on everything $1 and over, which was 30% off.  So with that teaser, I'll wait a bit to show off what I got.  In the meantime, let's check out the musical portion of the blog.

My mom is a big Jazz fan (but not the Utah type, sorry Mailman) so I found this CD which mixed the history of Kansas City with Jazz and new it was worth it.  What's even better is the CD was still sealed so I knew it wouldn't be scratched.  I played it for her once we got home, and she really liked it.  I wasn't a big fan, but I'm not the target audience.  Since then, she's listened to it a couple times so I know it was a good deal.

This one was more of a "screw you" purchase.  A week earlier I was watching stuff on Youtube and I believe it was the Watch Mojo channel, and during one of their lists they mentioned Savage Garden.  They called them a terrible band that had a good song.  I was quite offended by that as I thought they were a good band and had a few good songs.  Sure "I Need You" was a non-sensical song, but I still like it even if others don't.  So when I found this, I checked to see if it was scratched, and I bought it.  Going in, I knew I got my money's worth just because "I Knew I Loved You" was on it, so that was enough to make me happy.  The rest of the album isn't too bad, and I listened to it almost all the way through so I got my value out of it.  I don't think I'll celebrate their entire catalog but I do stop and listen when I hear one of their songs.

At this point, you might need some cheering up, I mean Savage Garden isn't everyone's cup of tea apparently so I got just the thing for you.

It's a plastic megaphone which as best as I can tell is a stadium giveaway of the Kansas City Chiefs.  I know its the Chiefs, not too sure on the SGA part of it.  I remember when they lost their title of loudest stadium a few years back and was trying to set the record again, so I think this is from that time.  The 137.5 I think was the original record I though, then the Seahawks broke it, then Kansas City reclaimed it with 140.  I could be wrong, but hey, this is a cool piece to show off.

I love that I can also display it as advertising too since it has the logos of Kansas City TV stations KSMO and KCTV on it.  KSMO is a MyNetwork TV affiliate and is ran by the same people as KCTV which is the CBS affiliate.  On good days I can pick up the KSMO signal at night with my antenna, and on very rare occasions the KCTV signal.  Its amazing since their towers are about 100 miles away and in comparison I can't pick up locals 40 miles away.  All in all, this was on the 10 cent shelf and it was too good to pass up.

Saw this, saw $1, saw it go into my basket.  No way I'd pass on this, especially since I was just talking to a friend about this a week earlier.  For those unaware, this was a McDonald's Happy Meal toy from 1987 during the Christmas season.  So not only is it 30 years old, it was when McDonald's had good stuff in Happy Meals.  If I'm not mistaken, he had some type of clothing besides the scarf.  There were three to get, the others being Kermit the Frog, and Miss Piggy.  I thought I had the Fozzie Bear one at one point, but I don't think I did now.  I know I had the Kermit one, and might have had the Miss Piggy one, but who knows.  As I get older I somewhat like collecting stuff I remember from childhood so I'll try to look for the others again.  I'm sure I can find them on EBay, but finding them like I did with this one is so much more rewarding.  Maybe that's why I'm holding off on an Oscar the Grouch pull toy I had as a kid that I can buy at anytime on EBay.

My mom thought I'd want this book and got it for me, but I haven't had the chance to look it it yet.  I will soon, but I do know it covers pretty much all sports.  She glanced through it and found a Missouri Tiger in it so it was worth it.  I'm just a little confused how Sports Bloopers translate very well into a book.  Besides maybe the Canseco ball bouncing off his head, you may not have a lot of context with the photos.  I'll find out soon.

Okay, I guess I left you in enough suspense to show you the figure I got.  When we got there there were still about 8 or so left, and while the Smith one was gone, I could have gotten the Marino.  I passed on that one and all the others except one.  The main reason was debating on weather I really needed them or not.  Plus I've noticed recently they've been pricing certain items using Ebay so while these are market value I suppose, its tougher to find a deal.  The prices ranges from 5-10 bucks and none stood out too much, except one.  They also had a plaque, but it didn't look that great so I passed.  Also I passed on some Pinnacle "can of cards".  It was tough to do because I always wanted some of them, and two fit into my PC (Brett Favre cans), and one sounded cool- Ice Bowl.  But they wanted 8-10 bucks a can, and while I'm not sure if that was a good deal, I couldn't justify it to just get 10 cards a can.  Even at 30% off spending over 5 bucks each seemed a bit high.  So with that I grabbed the one action figure I wanted when my mom spouted off names and was good to go.

Oops, wrong side.  Though I was going to scan this anyways.  Now that I think about it, I remember there being a couple Ryne Sandberg figures there as well, but I passed on them also.  None were Kansas City Royals or St. Louis Cardinals, so that made it easier not to buy more than one.

Barry Bonds fits into my PC so 7 bucks seemed like an okay deal, then I tried to do match in my head and realized it would be around 5 bucks, so I went ahead and got it.  It was the week after he was celebrated in San Francisco which was pretty cool of MLB TV to show as their free game of the day.  One thing I noticed though that Starting Lineup messed up on.  On the checklist, they have him listed with the Pittsburgh Pirates and not the Giants.  Even on the Trading Card Database it had him listed incorrectly, but that has since been fixed.  The plastic is starting to yellow and while I don't like opening too many figures these days, I think I will with this one.  Besides the fact the figure might look better on the shelf out of the plastic, I can not only scan the cards for the database, but can put them in with the rest of my Barry Bonds cards.  I haven't opened it yet, but pretty sure I will in the next couple weeks once I hang another shelf up I got recently and once I find my other wrestling action figures to display.  That should be easy, I just have to go to storage to get them.

Here's a somewhat better look at the cards and by the looks Barry was just starting to bulk up at this point.  How he did it, I can't say, but most have their opinions on that.  At any rate, I was happy with the purchase.  Having shown this I'm starting to get an itch to go back and see if any are left and maybe I might buy another.  Maybe the cans have gone down in price and I might buy one of those.  I just hope they don't start pricing some of the stuff like this off of online pricing.  I understand them trying to get the most value for the items, but at the same time all these items are donated to them, so they aren't out any money to begin with.  Sure its for a good cause, but one of reasons I don't care if I can make it to Goodwill or Salvation Army much these days is it seems they try to price stuff higher then they need to.  I'd much rather go to these stores 2-3 times a week with a lot of turnover then going twice a month and seeing the same stuff.  Again, I'm not saying sell everything for a quarter, but if these figures were all 3-4 bucks a piece, I might have bought 3-4 of them.  They'd still make money, and I'd get a good deal.  Anyways rant over.

Lastly before I go its almost football time and I think I've posted this book each of the last couple years, so why stop now.  The new issue came out recently and its a local magazine for all the local high schools, so I thought I'd show it off.

My town doesn't have high school football, so I never got into it much, but I've been to a lot of these schools and so I knew some people that went to these places at some point.  The book also features local colleges so its good for me to see the schedule of Central Methodist University even though according to the book they aren't likely to have a good season.  Also included is Mizzou's schedule and prediction and a SEC preview.  They expect Mizzou to have a decent season, but I don't think they want fans to get their hopes set too high.

So with that I guess I'll wrap it up.  Using the "subscription box" method I mentioned before where instead of buying a box and maybe finding a couple good things for 20-30 bucks, I'll use that money on this stuff instead- I got all this stuff for under ten bucks, so I think I did pretty good.  The big item of course was the Barry Bonds figure (which I am curious if it was ever worth 40 bucks like that old price tag on it suggest), but don't underestimate how excited I was for the Fozzie Bear.  Any other day, that's the best item.

So thanks for reading and I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I do promise to show cards next time,  as for now, I think I'll find something to watch on Netflix.  I have a free trial and will finally use the gift card my sister got me afterward so I will have it until about December or longer if I switch to a cheaper plan after my trial ends.  I've watched The Rance and GLOW so far and almost done with the new season of Orange Is The New Black, now just waiting for season two of Ozark to drop next week.  Also eventually I hope I can catch the next season of Daredevil if it is ever released.  I hear later this year but I hope its before my Netflix card runs out.  Before I do that I might make another trip to Savvy Seconds, its been a week, it might be a good time to go.  Thanks for reading and hope everyone's weekend is a fun and safe one.