Do You Have The Heart?

My mother-in-law is always keeping an eye out for me when it comes to sport cards. She checks yard sales, Walmart, Pawn Shops and other places they may exist. When she sees something, she grabs it.

Sometimes that isn't always the best decision.

On Friday of last week, she called me and told me that Christmas had come early for me. I knew immediately what that meant. She must have been somewhere there was cardboard! But, what kind of cardboard? Was it marked down wax from Walmart? Pharmacy? Did she find some at a yard sale? Will it be late 90's? Today? Older 2000's with a mystery Tom Brady card within? Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

That joy got even bigger when she brought this box inside. I love mystery boxes of cards!

She explained to me that she was out at a antique store and found three boxes of cards sitting there and skimmed through them. She saw some Giants in there spent $30, $10 a box,  to get them for me because money didn't matter since I would enjoy them.

I took a quick glimpse inside the first box and felt dead inside. 1989 Topps. 1989 Topps! She just spent $10 on a not full box of stinkin' 1989 Topps baseball.

I used my poker face when she looked for my approval and I said, "Thanks! Really cool! I will go through it all later"

She said, let me know how I did!

I had a bad feeling after that first box and it only got worst as more appearances of the junk wax, yes I will call it that so don't unfollow.

Brands like 1991 Fleer, 1991 Upper Deck, 1989 Donruss, 1991 Donruss and so on. And it wasn't like there aren't some decent cards in those brands, they just weren't in these boxes. They were pulled out.

 Here are some of the highlights or low-lights however you may look at them.

I saw 1989 Upper Deck and got excited, but this was it.

Here was the Giants she was talking about. Wrong sport....

There was an inside look at $30 and here is the outside look.

There was maybe $3's worth of cards here with so much junk and the conditioning on some. I don't have the heart to tell her what they are truly worth when she calls me again. I don't want her to stop picking things up because she has found some incredible things while at the same time I don't want to break her heart since she was so excited about this.

If instead she had given me the $30, I would have found so much to get. Key Rodney Hampton cards, some celebrity autograph and relics I am chasing, Saquon Barkley cards, I mean anything else but this.

She has made a couple other purchases like this before, but nothing this bad. Just like the other ones, I expect to tell her what I usually tell her. "I found some good stuff, key rookie cards I needed and some stars." I can't tell her what my real thoughts were. I just don't have the heart.

So how about you, if someone bought you this stuff, would you have the heart to tell them or would you sweep it under the rug like I will?