Another year in the books... 2014 marks the 10th Phillies Holiday Sale I've attended - some good, some not so good. This year's sale fell somewhere in the lower-middle.

The best way to describe the Holiday Sale is to use these three words/phrases: Game-Used, Autographs and Dead Stock. With so much variety, I have established an approach for the sale: Find one "nice" addition to my collection. This methodology has kept me from buying second-tier player jerseys or stretching for autographs several times. Here are a few highlights...

Game Used

Last year I finally found a alternate home batting helmet, and this year I was lucky to come across a small group of 2009 game-used hats. Most were no-names, but one home-alternate hat was inscribed "46" - linking it to Ryan Madson. For $20, this was a no-brainer...

Like a lot of what I saw, the game-used base I bought base was likely pulled from deep in storage - dating to the mid-2000s before the Phillies starting using the MLB Authentication Program. There are four script logo jewels (one on each side) on it, and writing on the bottom to instruct groundskeepers how to position it in relation to the other bases. It's the first base in my collection...

Autographs

As usual, the team rolled out an assortment of autographed balls, hats, bats and cards for sale. I picked up a "starter-ball" with Roy Halladay, Ryan Madson and Joe Blanton for $40... Just need to go back and start filling in the rest. I also bought a red hat autographed by Charlie Manuel and a couple packs of signed team photo cards for my son. The photo cards are a great deal - $2 for five autographed cards, one of which is a "name" player. The top-guys in my packs included Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth and Billy Wagner.

Dead Stock

There are also a lot of things that they just want to get rid of - turning into deals for fans. $5 t-shirts and hats; $1 Media Publications (yearbooks, programs, media guides; photo card sets); and $10 bobble heads were just some of the good buys available this year.

For $10 collectors could get either the 2013 or 2014 Group Leader bobble head. They also had the 2014 Stitch N' Pitch bobble head available for $10. I only bought enough to cover my personal needs, but got a laugh seeing dealers wheel out cases of each for sale on eBay. However, I got my glutton on with a pile of old programs, DVDs and photo cards...