Yesterday was the first day of the annual Phillies Holiday sale, organized by and for the benefit of Phillies Charities. While the sales dates back to the team's days at Veterans Stadium, I only started attending after they moved to Citizens Bank Park. Through the years, the size of both the event and crowds attending them have grown. Originally, it was contained within the CBP Tour Room with a few jerseys and game-used or signed bats. Those first couple seasons I was able to pick some nice pieces - by just stopping by mid-afternoon, the second day. Saturday, a line of several hundred people filed into two locations (the Tour Room, and the HOF Club) at 10:00AM.

For anyone who has not attended the sale, it is essentially the way the Phillies purge old memorabilia inventory. For the most part, Phillies Charities try to make a varied number of items available for (somewhat) reasonable prices. They have a lot of low price options (programs, autos, cards, etc) and some upper-tier ones too (this year there was a Thome signed bat for $300). As I wrote after last season's sale, my annual adventure is all about getting "one unique item." This year, I was focused on a game-used helmet. I have had some luck in the past with helmets, picking up Carlos Ruiz's 2008 gamer two years ago. Grabbing a well-used right-handed helmet made my morning.

Here is a quick rundown of the things I bought yesterday:

Game-used helmet

Game-used Phillies helmet

While it's cool to get one with the number stickers still affixed, those tend to be more rare and therefore more pricey. This one, without the number came with a cost-efficient $30 price tag.

Game-used jerseys

Raul Ibanez - 2011 red BP jersey

JC Romero - GU '11 Away Jersey

It was slim-pickings with jerseys this year. There were very few "name" players, with most of the inventory being made up of non-roster Spring Training invitees, coaches and guys who had very limited time with the big club. Missing were named players who had left within the past two years, and highly ranked minor league prospects.

Publications

Assorted Phillies publications

Going to the Tour Room for out of print publications is one of my favorite parts of the day. I like to stock up on programs I missed, player postcards and whatever random things they find. This year I got the 2012 Yearbook, the final version of the 2012 postcard set, and a number of old programs for $1 each. Not too exciting, but cost efficient and very valuable for autograph seeking next year!

Signed Jim Thome hat

Jim Thome signed hat

Don't normally buy the autographed hats, but I wanted to add something Thome to my collection. At $30 this fit the bill.

It was also cool to randomly run into a few readers in the Majestic Store. Thanks for the article idea...should see it out sometime this week!