Out of the depths of the dollar boxes - odds and ends

This $10 purchase was far from the worst purchase I made at the last card show I went to [I don't know if I'll leave things hanging with just that tease] - but I stumbled upon a random dollar box [or '6 for $5'] and while mostly idle, going through dated cards no one wants, my brain is thinking about putting together a small stack of cards anyway.

I fished out some rookie material, including a 1986 Sportsflics Jose Canseco rookie year subset card that features six other players, an oddball rookie year Gary Sheffield, a Curtis Granderson rookie and Cliff Lee rookie - the seller went through my stack just to see what I'd actually gotten out of junk box and didn't know who Nick Markakis [draft pick, factory set insert] was.

That was peculiar, but I can see where despite having a substantial big league career - a Markakis type ends up being quite random and/or forgotten.

I relented to make these two sample / promo cards inserts because of the oddball factor - Albert Belle might be a guy I'll collect in an ironic sort of way as a guy who was universally disliked, but put up monster numbers through the decade of the 1990s.

Presumably the image used for the Nolan Ryan was from the same timeframe as his 1991 Topps Stadium Club picture - but I think the card company [Bleachers] took an image from that photo shoot and then slapped on their 'logo' when the card was being put together.

Through the junk wax era, I can see a 1987 Fleer Kirby Puckett as being a little bit better looking than the usual 1987 Topps - even if the distinctions doesn't end mattering, where one 'star card' was valued over the other.

A trio of 1990s era hitting stars, I'm not sure if I've ever had the 1990 Leaf John Olerud RC signed, so I grabbed it for TTM - maybe the Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell inserts [Circa '97 Boss] have no real value anymore, but the embossed surfaces make them fun keepers at just under a dollar.

The 1996 Pinnacle Summit Ballparks Bagwell card is serial #'d to 8,000 - which ends up still being a lot of cards and doesn't make them seem all that rare.