A new March tradition - cleaning out my COMC inventory

We interrupt the Sports Card Tour to bring you ..a mailday. Two, actually.

In December I received a huge box of 500* cards from COMC, which accounted for every card I had bought on the site all the way back to March 7 of last year. The bonus credit I received from that order (plus a ton of challenge credit) led to more purchases, which reached 100 cards on Feb. 24. 

 *I'm still mad about the Bert Olmstead

Those 100 cards arrived yesterday - nearly one year to the day that a similar order had arrived. It's become a COMC cycle 'round here: buy stuff, have it shipped during the Black Friday promotion, earn credit, buy more stuff, have that stuff shipped at the end of February. Rinse and repeat.

I'm going to hold back some of the cards in this order for future Sports Card Tour posts, but here are some from cities we've already visited.

Did you know George Sisler was a Boston Brave? I had always thought of him as a St. Louis Brown until I saw this card. This is my second Sisler card from the sixties, and the first 1960 Fleer card I've ever owned. I'm not sure how much HOFers from this set usually sell for, but I made a $2 offer and it was accepted. I think I got a decent deal.

I showed the Jones and Billups before, but here they are without wordmarks. The Sanders ($0.30), Eichel ($0.28), and Gaudreau ($0.27) helped me get that card count up.

Only a few Red Sox additions this winter. The Ortiz gold ($1.06) actually cost more than the Pedroia Sapphire ($1.00) Couldn't pass up the Papi relic for $2.25, the Topps Unique base set is ugly but the jersey cards are nice. I finally coughed up 60 cents for the Sandoval SP; adding these three to my binder leaves me just 14 shy of the full set.

More ePack junk. I had about two dozen Compendium cards sitting in my inventory all year because I didn't want to pay the additional shipping charge during Black Friday. But there's no sales to save for, so this seemed like a good time to bring everything home.

 

The Devils are playing like crap lately, but Taylor Hall is on fire. I think that Shining Stars card suits him right about now. I'm really starting to hate The Cup but I still pick up Devils base cards now and then. Both Halls together ($4.10 for The Cup, $0.30 for the SS red) cost less than the cup celebration card ($4.45) but I don't mind, I've wanted that one forever.

I picked up a bunch of O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels, including these three:

Want to see the rest of the rainbow? It's now on full display here on my frankenset tab.

It's getting really hard to find singles I need for my 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee graded set. This was actually an upgrade; $7 is about the low end for PSA 10 singles. Honestly, I feel like this whole project is one big money pit - I'm still about 90 cards away from completion and I've spent sooo much on high-grade commons. Now I see why so many of you dislike graded cards.

Somehow I'm already upgrading '56 Topps singles, even though I only have 35% of the set.

Here are some I didn't have before...

And for those of you who like your cards outside that plastic prison, here are some (much cheaper) singles for my set build:

COMC shipped these in top loaders - I didn't ask for them or pay for them. And my cards arrived four days earlier than expected. That almost makes up for the Olmstead. Almost.

Kim Zmeskal was my first athlete crush (and maybe my first crush, period) When I got this card in my SI for Kids issue 25+ years ago I was overjoyed. I put it in a card saver holder and cherished it like gold. And then somehow I lost it. I checked under the couch cushions, under the rugs, in the closets... never found it. 


I didn't need this card in my collection, but I kinda wanted it back - for 12 year old me. It was only $1.27...why not, right? (I tried to get a Tony Hawk card from this set but the one I was watching sold for $7.50 or something)


Which leads me to my second mailday package.....

Ray, author of the blog All Cardinals All The Time offered up sheets of SI for Kids cards. I gave him a list of cards I'd like and they arrived in today's mail. I didn't realize this until they were in hand, but I picked out enough to make my own super-sheet:

Five men and four women - how's that for equality? I was pretty excited to add a Christian Pulisic card to my collection, despite the fact that I don't follow soccer at all - unless it's the World Cup. I actually think this is my first Auston Matthews card as well. But the one I'm really excited about is Mikaela Shiffrin (I've mentioned her before on this blog, but I don't think anyone noticed.) Unfortunately it's the only card in the super-sheet where you can't see the athlete's face.

That's better.


Ray, thanks so much for these! I'll have some Cards cards headed your way after the snowstorm passes through. 

Thanks for reading!

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