What I'm Buying: Questionable Historical Ephemera, Bob Ross Rookies, and More

We haven’t done one of these in a while, so I’m bringing it back – What I’m Buying. The only rule is this: it has to be fun. If it goes up in value, awesome. Generational wealth! If it goes down? At least we had a good time doing it. 

Let’s proceed.

1. 1982 Topps ET Rack packs ($10 on eBay)

Look, I never claimed to be completely and fully in touch with every aspect of the collecting world, but it’s Halloween time (approximately) and I was thinking of E.T. …and it led me to looking up some cards, and I was floored to see rack packs were selling for about $10. I thought there was some kind of “oh these must be easy to tamper with” catch, but I think it’s just a set of cards nobody really wants. But why? It’s a classic movie and it’s right in the wheelhouse of that 80s nostalgia era that seems to be doing well everywhere else. It’s not like I’m going to buy up a case and hoard them, but I grabbed a couple to open, sift through, and become overrun with warm fuzzy feelings of my childhood. 

2. Weird JG Auction Items ($50 and $25 opening bids)

We’ve mentioned JG Auctions in these hallowed pages before — there’s often a dichotomy of “cool stuff I would love to buy” and “...but they just sent me an email pimping Hiroshima destruction paraphernalia.” I clicked on the auction anyway and lo and behold there was such an interesting item in there that I almost pulled an Indiana Jones “this belongs in a museum!” line to the group chat. 

JG is auctioning off a piece of paper autographed by Robert Lewis that tells the story of his piloting the Enola Gay and dropping the bomb. The opening bid is $50 and I feel like while the signature is mostly worthless and we don’t know who typed the letter up and asked for him to sign it (maybe it was Lewis, maybe it was just the guy getting the autograph) – it’s still such a giant piece of first-person history by the guy who did it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits like $400; I’ll stop at $100. Please don’t outbid me. Or maybe you should because this still feels kind of icky to me. 

In that same auction there’s an autographed Martha Stewart Christmas cookbook for $25. I can’t decide what to do with this. If I’m the first bid I might end up with it. Is that good? I think so? 

3. The Bart Bridge Sacramento A’s hat ($35)

I used to have a roommate who would use the 1943 Steagles as a metaphor for a lot of things back in our day, as we rifled through ET cards. When a new person was around he had to explain the history to them. I think history is going to largely, similarly forget the Sacramento A’s (does anyone, for instance, remember the Blue Jays playing in Dunedin and Buffalo in 2021?) but this hat is wonderfully designed and there’s this cool element to it where you can tuck your license and credit cards (or other things, I guess?) into the pocket patch. Just fair warning – if you flip through the site, you may end up putting a few in your cart and casually hit $100 for three hats, which is a little absurd. But I’m in for one!

4. Niko Kavadas, 2025 Topps x Bob Ross The Joy of Baseball ($3-$20)

Niko Kavadas is a 26 year-old 1b/3b/OF who was just DFAd on Friday by the Angels – who are in a fight with our beloved A’s for last place in the AL West. But I’m telling you — there’s something there. Kavadas has three 20 HR seasons in the minors and saw 400+ ABs just once. His average is admittedly bad, but his OBP is almost .400 (it’s .397 in 457 minor league games). He’s going to sign somewhere, they’re going to let him walk and hit homers, and he’ll be the next Adolis Garcia story (DFA’d and then an All-Star/fantasy stud). A .400 OBP is elite. And the power is real. And someone thought highly enough of Kavadas to dedicate one of 100 cards in a limited run set to him. BUY THE DIP! And then flip them in a few years for more Martha Stewart ephemera.

I wanted to quickly give some love to my new favorite thing to do Thursdays at 6:30 pm ET — the Cranberry Boggs Primitive Country Decor livestream. 

You know how we all can’t stand breakers and there’s nothing to really do about it because companies keep enabling them? This is the polar opposite. A woman and her off-screen husband (and a third woman who I can’t figure out where she fits into all of this) sell stuff from their store on Facebook Live for 2-3 hours every Thursday. Their banter is incredible. The pacing, the item descriptions, the weirdly scribbled index cards, the high-level knowledge of the product – it’s all perfect. The actual items are kitschy (the good kind of kitschy) and a little more expensive than I thought they would be for a small town bordering Canada. But I’m not here to buy. I’m here to eat my dinner with my phone propped up against something…and enjoy my new favorite show: the Cranberry Boggs Primitive Decor Livestream. 

Since we started with what I’m buying, let’s end with what I’m not – any kind of kids meal right now. The toys are total crap across the board. The Fickles are now (temporarily) doing something we should have done a long time ago and have been forced to… cook healthy balanced meals at home. So weird. 

Anyway, the kids meal scene is at a disappointing low: McDonald’s is in the slight lead with a forgettable line of Tinytan x BTS figures. Burger King is kind of in the middle with Scooby-Doo, and Wendy’s pulled a fast one by featuring those Halloween Frosty toys on the website but giving out hard-to-figure-out Mr. Potato Heads instead (and I’m not the only one who noticed this!). It’s like when all the channels you want to watch are on a commercial at the same time. Someone should’ve planned it better! 

I’m sure in a few weeks we’ll be flush with Halloween stuff all over the place (Dunkin’ Donuts is always a dark horse here, too – remember the inflatable spider donut?), so our moods will shift and we’ll go back to chasing toys at the expense of a 5 year old’s eventual high cholesterol diagnosis – but that’s for 2040! For now…onward, upward, and here’s hoping the Rockies see something in Niko Kavadas!