Cleve's Auction Night: The Experience In Pictures

I didn't plan on attending Cleve's auction in person this week.  There wasn't a whole lot of stuff that held my interest, and the weather was cold and the Lovely Wife had come up with wonderful new soup recipe that I was anxious to try. 

But, I had it in my mind that I needed to put up one final auction post, and needed to be there and give you a better idea of what Cleve's, and his auctions are like.  That's how much I care about you folks!

A while back, Cleve's underwent a bit of a remodeling project.  He put up all new signage, and a big notice in the front window advertising the weekly Tuesday night auction.  The signage and the store look great!

The crowd tonight was smaller than normal, but still decent, with about 20 people showing up.  There's Cleve facing us on the left. 

Basically there are a couple of areas to browse before the bidding starts- the glass cases and the "goodie" table.

Usually, this goodie table contains complete sets, misc boxes and a few non-card related items.  This week, there were about 10 different junk wax era complete sets available, some binders with misc. cards, a couple of boxes of comic books, and a box of LPs (on the far right). 

Cleve usually starts the auction off with the goodie boxes, and then moves to the single cards.  In between, he holds a weekly drawing for a $25 credit.  It's just for the people that show up in person for the auction, which I why I've never won it.  I usually just submit write in bids since my work schedule and family duties prohibit me from attending much.

I have never once seen that dude behind the counter smile, and I've only heard him speak a couple of times. 

Typically, there are about 250 auction items a week.  This week was bigger than normal at around 350.  But again, not much of it did I want.

I managed to pick up a few things though:

I'll list the items along with my grades:

1989 Bowman Factory Set $2  A:  I know 89 Bowman isn't popular, but I kind of like it, and it's a complete set.  For $2?  Come on!

1983 Topps Wade Boggs  $4  A:  This strengthens my 1983 Sampler Album Page tremendously.  I just need the Sandberg and I'll have all of the key 1983 rookie cards.

1967 Al Kaline  $4  D:  I'm giving myself a D not because it's a bad card, but because I already have it!  It's up for trade if anyone is interested, or I may put it up on Listia.

I hope everyone has enjoyed my frequent Cleve auction posts.  I'd say these auction were good for about 20% of my blog subject matter. I'll probably still show some cards on twitter from time to time.

Cleve's Christmas Auction Preview Part 5: Vintage Cards

Cleve's auctions always have a great selection of vintage cards, and the Christmas auction this Tuesday takes it to a whole 'nother level.  I showed a handful of Mickey Mantle and Dodger cards in previous posts, and here are some other sweet vintage cards that will be up for grabs:

 This Sport Kings Bobby Jones might be the most impressive card in the auction.  Look up the eBay auctions that are going on for it now and you'll see what I mean.  I'm going to be very interested in seeing what this goes for.  All I know is that it won't go home with me.

 This Yogi Berra card might though.  It sits just outside my Top 5 most wanted cards from the Christmas auction.  If it comes at a reasonable price, it's mine.

 I'd be thrilled with either of these graded 1961 cards....

 Or this Al Kaline....

 But I will abso-freaking-lutely freak the freak out if I wind up with this Hank Aaron rookie.  You will never hear the end of it either, dear readers.

 This is an actual autographed card of Dom Dimaggio.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but I feel good about my chances of getting at least one of the above cards.

For those of you interested in these, or any of the other cards from the Christmas auction (or any auction for that matter) Cleve does take write in bids.  You can reach him at:   479-927-0067 

Cleve’s Auction Night: My Absentee Pickups

Should I get credit for skipping Cleve's auction this Tuesday and instead spending Valentines night with the lovely wife?  Or did I technically “attend” the auction since I put in write in bids beforehand and may or may not have been thinking the whole night about what I may or may not have won rather than listen to her yammer about whatever she was yammering about? I kid of course!  We had a lovely dinner together sans children, and as I mentioned, she gave me a swell Valentines gift. 

But there was a lot of good stuff at the auction this week, and I put in bids on about a dozen items, hoping that most of the other guys would be in the same boat as me and skip the auction to be with their significant others.   My hopes were dashed when I found that I only one two auctions.  They were solid pickups, so I’m not too disappointed. Here was the first purchase for $5:

What you see is a lot of 61 vintage Topps cards anywhere from so-so to ultra-crappy condition.  I bought this assortment to fill out my sampler album.  For those that don’t remember every word of every one of my posts, one of my goals this year was to build a sampler album of one 9 card page for every Topps base set from 1952 to today.  I will deliberately and systematically trade out and upgrade the "starness" of the players and the condition of the cards over the years.  But for now I at least have a full page of 1959 Topps, and a good start on my 1964 page, including Rusty Staub's 2nd year card. 

Again, these cards are not in great shape in general, but I would love to be able to send the ones that don't make the sampler album to good homes if anyone is interested or needs some set fillers. 

I also got this 1967 Al Kaline for $3.  It’s in good shape, and a neat looking card.  It too will go in the sampler album. 

Grades:

Vintage Assortment  $5  A-:   That's $.08 a card, people.   Not a lot of stars and many cards are in bad shape, but this was a cheap way to fill in my sampler album. 

1967 Kaline $3  B+:  Nice card of a HOFer.  Can’t complain about that.