Baseballcardstore.ca Blaster #2

For the second time in as many months, I placed an order at Baseballcardstore.ca. There were some low-end cards sitting on my COMC watch list that were priced well over 50 cents apiece and since there's no way of knowing when I'll ever get my cards I thought I'd check my new favorite sports card site to see if they had any of these singles. 

I ended up ordering 180 cards for $22.99. Combined with my first order that's over 300 cards for under $40 shipped. I may have to take advantage of their new combined shipping offer next time.

Sometimes I search for local players like Jersey Jeff Hammonds here. My wife and father-in-law saw him play in high school; she said he was known as Jeff back then.  

Most of the baseball cards I picked up were either set fillers or All-Time Teams players. Langston and "El Presidente" go in the latter category, along with Barnstormer bench warmer Will Clark. I stumbled onto the Red Rodon parallel while searching for Opening Day set needs. He's on the verge of becoming a bust but a parallel or insert for a dime is too good to pass up - especially the "Planet Baseball" Guzman. As for Steve Finley.. I never knew he played for the Angels and I like Topps Chrome singles so I tossed it in the cart. 

More All-Time Teams stars, including a couple Chrome cards. Cromartie is an upgrade, the others are all new to my collection. Just about every Ed Delahanty card you'll find has a photo like this. 

 

Refractors for a dime? Yes, please. Especially when they're All-Time Team eligible. Frank Francisco leaves me one player (and one manager) shy of completing my first team set. The ballpark card is Marlins Park, not Pro Player Stadium. It was listed as "Ballpark Marlins" and I probably should have checked TCDB first. Oh well.

I only picked up two Red Sox cards in this order - a Chrome Kevin Millar and a 40-Man Brandon Lyon. Cam Newton is somehow still unemployed (why aren't the Chargers or Broncos going after this guy?) and I've always like NFL helmets and team logos. 

Of course I go right for the Green and Gold on baseballcardstore.ca. I don't think this 1993 Topps Favre was available in my last order - unless I passed it over assuming I already had it. The Robert Brooks GameDay RC was a surprise freebie.

More Packers - and more than a pack's worth of 2015 Panini Prizm. Blowout cards has had 15-card Fat Packs of this set on clearance for well over a year. I bought a bunch for about $7 in at least two separate orders. They're still in stock but for some reason they doubled the price. Even though I have no intention to build this set, Blowout's price gouging enticed me to pick up all the singles I didn't have on BBCS.ca. Ten cents per card sure beats a dollar per card.

Some 1980s singles here, and a Swell Ray Nitschke from 1990. The site has been all but cleaned out of '80s stars, but you can still find some nice cards of well-known players like Jaworski and Clark.

We'll finish the football portion of this order with some 1991 Upper Deck high numbers and 1992 Collector's Edge. I remember buying a pack or two of these at the time but they weren't cheap, especially on a 12 year-old's budget. 

This order had a near-even amount of cards in each of the four major sports. I didn't scan up most of the Opening Day and Bunt baseball set fillers I bought, and I wont bother showing you the 1993-94 Fleer Ultra basketball singles I picked up since half of them are checklists and the other half are guys like Josh Grant and Eric Riley. I'm down to just 35 needs in the set - though I might crack open the graded Michael Jordan card I received unexpectedly in a TCDB trade.

Thanks to MJ, my 1988-89 Fleer set build is no more. That's okay, I like 1989-90 Fleer better anyway.

I was able to snag some superstars last time but Mo Cheeks is the only HOFer I found this time around.

The Kyle Lowry Prizm was an impulse buy. Prizm stars sell for well over a dime and I don't have a lot of Raptors. Unfortunately this is a pretty bland All-Star card (again, I should have consulted TCDB or COMC for a scan first.)

I don't have many Grizzlies either so I picked up a bunch from 1999-00 Hoops Decade, another set I'm passively collecting. 

The rest of my b-ball buys were from the early 1990s, including a handful of Finest.

Tom Chambers doesn't look so good. Luckily his was the only card that yellowed. Upon closer inspection the Wayman Tisdale is starting to turn :/ This is why I'm very reluctant to buy or trade for early Finest singles, but for ten cents a pop I took a shot. No regrets here, especially with names like Richmond, Horry, Grant, and 'Zo.

Upper Deck's All-Division Team was one of my favorite insert sets back in the day. I've never liked the Knicks but I couldn't pass up a John Starks Ultra insert. Any Hakeem card for a dime is a no-brainer for me, though this 1995-96 SP single was pretty much the only "Dream" card available.

How 'bout some hockey? These Allure singles were the main reason I revisited BBCS.ca. All eight of these cards cost as much as the Ovechkin alone set me back on COMC.

I doubt I'll be able to sell the COMC copy unless I take a 30-cent loss. Still, I couldn't pass up ten cent Ovechkin cards - or any of these great goalies. I tried finding a Taylor Hall card and settled for Phil Kessel. 

Found Hallsy in O-Pee-Chee Platinum though. I was thrilled to pick up some Vezina-winning goalies in '13-14 Prizm - especially Martin Brodeur, of course. 

Here's another Brodeur base card, and a bunch of Devils from 2019-20 Upper Deck (plus Charlie McAvoy.)

I shouldn't be surprised to find this much star power from a card shop/site in Canada - but I'm always impressed. Connor McDavid and Alex Ovechkin are automatic adds to the cart. Patrick Kane, Carey Price, and Jack Eichel aren't far behind. (The bottom three cards are not miscut, the scanner couldn't quite fit them all.)

Tim Hortons' singles including McDavid, goal-scoring co-champ David Pastrnak, and my first Carter Hart card. I've mentioned this before, but my nephew played against Cam Atkinson in high school. Braden Holtby is a free agent at the end of the year and I would love to see the Devils to throw a bunch of money his way. Then again it might be better to let Mackenzie Blackwood develop and get some help in front of him. 

I've got just about all the hockey cards I could ever want from 1990 to about 2016. It's still exciting for me to add 1980s issues like the Morrow, and 1988-89 Topps was the first hockey set I ever saw. On the newer side, I picked up a pair of O-Pee-Chee/Canadian Tire 'Coast To Coast' cards including a second helping of Pasta and noted Anna Kendrick fan Anthony Beauvillier.

We'll wrap this up with a gone but not forgotten franchise. 

No, I didn't get any Hartford Whalers cards (didn't see anything I needed this time.) For some reason I like the Atlanta Thrashers more now that they're gone than I did when they stunk up the Southeast divison. 

This team logo sticker from 2009-10 Panini was one of my favorite finds. Searching for Thrashers cards led me to a numbered relic of current Lightning blueliner Zach Bogosian. It's the second time I've found a relic card of a current NHL player on BBCS.ca for a dime.

Some bloggers have mentioned that the site isn't very user friendly - most cards are not scanned, and the search makes finding specific cards difficult. Personally I find it easier to use than the Beckett Marketplace, cheaper than Beckett and COMC, and better than Cardbarrel because Baseballcardstore is much more than just a baseball card store. The extra time spent on the site is well worth it considering the selection of ten cent gems to be found.

I'm currently agonizing over whether to spend that Mike Trout money on one high-end vintage card or spread it around for a 'virtual card show' haul. And I still haven't decided what to do about those Pinnacle cans.

Also I'll be in Connecticut this weekend, and traditionally there is a card show nearby on the last Sunday of the month. I'm not sure if the Covid has cancelled the card shows indefinitely and even if they're back on I'm not certain I should attend. 

Hopefully I'll have answered at least one of these questions in time for next week's post.

Thanks for reading!

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