Connecticut Cards From COMC

I've got something special planned for my next post, which will be the 200th* on this blog. 

*This does not count posts I deleted during severe bouts of depression. I really should stop doing that. I'd probably have passed 220 posts by now.

Hopefully I'll be able to hit the Milford card show when I'm visiting my family in Connecticut next weekend, though I won't be able to recap it (if it happens) until after Christmas. One of the posts I deleted was a recap of the show I attended in March. I had a good reason for deleting that one though - it was getting spammed like crazy.

In the meantime I've got 32 new cards to discuss, courtesy of my second COMC Black Friday order. Let's start with the five newest additions to my Connecticut Collection:

This Hartford Whalers team schedule thing is strange and fascinating. It's not a foldable paper schedule like we're used to seeing and, as such, it makes no mention of who the Whale were playing on any given night. It's really more of a calendar than a schedule. But it's got Ron Francis on the front, it's in near-perfect condition, and it's not something I'll find anywhere else.

 

Here's another Whalers non-card item I couldn't pass up. This Civic Center sticker from 1989-90 Panini was one of the first things I purchased on Black Friday. I was happy to send 98 cents worth of COMC credit to Dollar Store Doug - the first time I've (knowingly) bought from a blogger.

The rest of these items were under a buck apiece.

I was expecting this Jeff Bagwell Best card to have a dinged corner. I was not expecting it to be glossy. This one had the most eye appeal of his New Britain issues, which are otherwise fairly bland.

Before making his big league debut with the Giants in 2009, Madison Bumgarner posted a 9-1 record in 19 starts for the AA Connecticut Defenders. The Giants moved their AA affiliate to Richmond, VA after the '09 season. This (and the mini-version) is the only MadBum Conn-card available on COMC.

Here's a bonus card that did not come from Redmond, WA but Burbank, CA:

I bought this Art Ceccarelli Orioles card from Burbank Sportscards (along with some set fillers and Supergirl cards) but COMC gets an assist on it. I was working on Challenges when the back of one of his cards caught my eye:

I had no idea there was a major league baseball player from my hometown!

"Chic" didn't have much success with the Athletics, Orioles, or Cubs (his career WAR over five seasons was a -3.2) and his Topps cards are equally forgettable. In fact, according to TCDB he's only got thirteen cards*. Let's take a look at them:

This Rodeo Meats card from 1955 is such a tough oddball issue I immediately dropped any notion of completing a Ceccarelli PC. Here's an eBay auction for a PSA-graded copy. Yikes!

The card on the left is also a Rodeo issue. The card on the right is apparently a 1976 reprint of the Rodeo card - though there are some notable differences.

Here are all three of Art's Topps cards, from 1958-60:

 Looks like the same photo, with a 'C' airbrushed onto his cap for '59.

  
These appear to be actual Cubs photos. Not sure why Topps didn't center the close-up.

All of Art's other cards are variations of these: buybacks of his 1959* and 1960 Topps cards, autographed versions of the 1960 card, and a Venezuelan edition. That's it. 

*TCDB has his '59 buyback listed twice. I'm not sure these are two separate cards.


If anyone happens to come across one of Art's Topps issues please keep me in mind for a trade. I'll be adding him to a list of Connecticut connections I plan to PC in the new year.


Hope to see you back here on Sunday for my 200th post celebration! Until then, have a great weekend! 


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