Third Annual COMC Blaster

Once a year since 2011, I've splurged a Jackson on Check Out My Cards. I'd be much happier if I'd quit the wax and threw that card cash at COMC, but old habits die hard. This year thanks to the Black Friday free shipping I had a buck and change left over when all was said and done. Let's see what I got instead of a blaster.

Pretty Rickey! This is, pending a reality check, the last card needed for my 1982 Topps set. I have looked through a few hundred Rickey Henderson cards at various card shops/flea markets/card shows looking for this damn thing with no success. Especially irksome since I have a couple dozen of the 1987 Topps reprints. All mine now, along with one other card that completed a set.

Jason Heyward relic for under two bucks. Either I'm a lucky bastige or this hobby is screwed.

The first of many Ginter SP pickups. I am full steam ahead in my quest to complete the 2006-2013 run before the 2014 edition comes out. Basically the criteria for any Ginters I bought this go-around is if it was a short print and it was cheaper than I could get at the local card shop I went for it. Don't give me that look, I've already mostly cleared them out on pre-2010 cards off my wantlist.

Catfish! The good kind. Lookit that beautiful Oakland jersey/jacket/whatever. This simultaneously knocks another card off my 1972 Topps list and adds to my unofficial collection of cards so badly miscut you see the printer markings.

The 1974 Topps list is getting really small. When I tried to put this card in my basket, I got a popup stating that this card had "Problems". 569 wins, six Cy Youngs and two Hall of Famers? I see no problems.

Another Ginter SP down. Oswalt is one of those players whose cards I can never seem to pull out of packs. Unless it's a relic card, I'm a magnet for those.

I swear I have three or four or maybe five of Nasty Nate's SP mini cards, but the full size has somehow eluded me until now.

MARK LEMKE DUFEX WITH EXTRA ADDED CHARLIE O'BRIEN MOJO

I'm slowly but surely adding to the Mark Lemkepalooza collection.

Wiped out my 2010 short print needs with this order. I don't know much about this guy other than his odd name is pronounced oddly.

I love love love it when I knock any 2006 Ginter card off my list even if it is of a dooooooouche like Lackey. For some reason on my wantlist I had card #325 listed as Brad Hawpe and not LAckey, which confused me greatly.

I didn't even know this card existed until I did a COMC search and it's now one of my favorites ever.

TEAM SET COMPLETE!!! I'll show it off as soon as I can get my scanner working again. These traded cards are a real pain in the rump to find loose. Especially odd for this set as I expect a good number of them have been strip mined for Ripkens.

What's the word Thorzul uses for these kind of players? Pissant? This is a very pissanty card. Oh well. *ticks box off checklist*

The fact that this card is not a super expensive key card to the 1996 Topps set instead of something that gets thrown in 50 cent boxes if you can even find it is all that needs to be said about cards from the '90s.

BAM 2009 Ginter short prints are a wrap. Anyone got a pile of commons lying around? I only need about 5 more cards.

Look at Sid Bream smoldering on his '91 Traded card. Bonds couldn't throw him out because he was too stunned by the handsome.

My reaction when I completed the best insert set of the past 20 years:

Hey kids! If you wait long enough you can get one of the biggest card of the '80s for the price of a pack of 2013 Topps with tax! This also completes my 1985 set, probably.

This is the first time I've had one of these Online Exclusive nouveau Turkey Reds in hand. My verdict:

Completely crappy cynical cash grab.

The stuff is printed on Ginter stock for fuck's sake. Put it in a top loader and forget what once was and it's a pretty nice looking card.

This card was literally my 2013 Archives Holy Grail. I had virtually no chance of pulling it out of a pack so thank $DEITY for rippers and flippers.

Not technically a short print, but it's a Jeter which will be priced at over twice a normal short print anyway. I now only need 34 cards for my complete 2006-2011 Ginter run.

The package finished up with a Collector's Choice Gold Signature card of The Lemmer. Back in the day when parallels weren't completely obnoxious.

That was fun, maybe I should do it more often?

Joy of a Completed Team Set - 1985 Topps

I forgot to post one of these last week and I also forgot to get the card numbers so you can forget about me having a decent blog anytime soon but here's some moldy old junk wax so enjooooooooooy

Sadly, Joe Torre is the only Braves manager going to the Hall of Fame tomorrow. Please feel free to mock me if this prediction is wrong.

Joy of a Completed Team Set - 1985 Topps

I quit the blog for good for about the 78th time this morning but it's evening now and I've had beer so I'm back. My collection is a complete disaster as far as organization goes, but last week I took a little time to get some of my Braves binders in order. My main focus with my Braves collection has been Topps Team sets, but I've only really paid attention to the ones from 1979 and earlier. Anything from 1980 - forward I just sort of assumed I had all the cards from those sets already even if I didn't quite know exactly where they were located. I still don't know where they are all located, but I at least know which ones aren't in the binder now. A few sets are all present and accounted for, and I'll try to show them off on the weekends since no one ever reads then anyway. Here's the first of many - a complete team set of 1985 Topps with Traded cards.

How the hell do you go from Joe Torre to Eddie Haas

 While I didn't really like the set when it first came out, I have to say that at the very least the Braves team set looks slick with the blue borders on the '85 design.

Catching up - Package from Todd Q

The month-long posting of packages was scheduled to begin tomorrow, but I got two in the mail today so I'm getting an early start. First up, a box of Stuff from Todd.

Todd threatened to send a few hundred '85 Topps cards but fortunately kept it under 30. The pile included a Doc Gooden card I have but can't find, a downgrade to my Tiffany version of the Cory Snyder USA card and my spiritual guru here:

There was also a big hunk 'o Allen & Ginter. I'm somewhat sad to be building the set in a sensible fashion instead of uying a ton of boxes and blasters, but economic times demand frugality. Now I have some money left over to buy a whole mess 'o Topps206. There were some base cards including Escobar here:

Also a Hoax, Bamboozle, Etc. that actually doesn't involve white collar crime! This card here may have won back the goodwill this set lost when I pulled that Enron card.
The rest of the box included a hefty stack of Heritage. This is another set where I would have liked to have ripped a couple of hobby boxes and a half dozen blasters but now that High Numbers is out, it's time to move on. This Bako card struck me as being a card that would not have been out of place in the original '60 set.

Also included was THE 1960 Highlight.

I love the two kids trying to shake the hand of Maz as he rounds third. Today, they would be tazed and thrown in a cell for the weekend for illegal expression of unauthorized joy. Yay progress!

1985 Topps Wantlist

I'm pretty sure I have at least a third of these floating around somewhere, they're just not in the box with the rest of my set. True story: There was a card show at Northlake Mall back in the '80s and I bought a pack of '85 Topps and pulled the Clemens. I traded it to the seller for God knows what and he warned me that he normally doesn't take trades from customers who pull good rookies out of packs because they might regret it later. I told him no sweat, I already had that card anyway. Heh. .



181 Roger Clemens Boston Red Sox P

COMPLEEEEEEEET

* Oddly enough, I have the Tiffany version but not the base version of this card.
** I know for a fact I have this card, it's just hiding at the moment.

Have 792/792 cards from the set - 100% completed

Thanks to: Todd Querry, madding, Fuji, Scott Crawford, Other people

Blogging Perks

Last week, Mario posted a once coveted Bowman Chrome card of Kerry Wood and asked his readers what card that once topped Beckett's Hot List would we want to pick up now that the bottom has fallen out of the market for older cards. My response was the 1985 Topps Mark McGwire Olympic card. I didn't buy many packs of '85 Topps and never pulled a McGwire. I had a change to buy a rack pack with Mark showing on the front back then, but I passed it up for a rack with Oddibe McDowell on top instead. I regretted my mistake, but passed the card over again in college when a new card store opened up and offered the card for $10. Mark was kind of sucky in the early '90s so I passed again. Then he bulked up and hit almost 300 home runs in 5 years and you couldn't even find a pack of '85 Topps for $10. Now everyone hates McGwire for tainting such a pure and unblemished sport and you can probably find cards of Marky Mark on the cheap.

I posted the comment, promptly forgot about it, and then on Monday I got this note in the mail...

Reader Todd sent me a story:

It's June 1984 and the Mets have the first pick in the draft. They narrow it down to two choices:

A) Mark McGwire - a college first baseman from USC

Or

b) Shawn Abner - Multi-talented outfielder from Mechanicsburg Area Senior High*

They chose B and he goes on to do pretty much nothing. The next spring 13 year old Todd gets these cards in a 500 count vending box where they become part of the collection for 24+ years. Now I can set them free!

Behold:

FREEDOM

FREEDOM

My long national nightmare is over. I finally have a Mac! I needed the Abner card too for the set, interestingly enough. I'm two cards closer to completing a set I can probably find discarded on the side of the road! WOOOOOOO! Hey, it's the journey that's important, not the destination. Thanks Todd! (but seriously, do not send me hundreds more '85 Topps, I'm covered)

*Also from Mechanicsburg: Todd and Bret Michaels from Poison.