My Latest COMC order

    It seems to be pretty popular here in the blogosphere to do Black Friday COMC shopping and show off the spoils.  I've done COMC show and tell in the past, and so I'll throw my hat in the ring and show some of my favorites from this batch. I usually only ship cards that I buy on COMC once a year so this shipment of 266 cards was even larger than normal.  I rarely ever load money into my account and just spend what I am able to sell on my own.  This year I actually put sixty extra dollars into my account for the Black Friday sales.  In total, I spent $368.13 and got 266 cards.  I spent $1.38 per card.  I'm a value shopper to the extreme.

    Here's a shot of my invoice.  I was targeted to ship in early January but I actually got it right before Christmas.  I'm just late posting....
 

    These three fill some sets. The Gorman Thomas was the last Diamond King I needed from 1983, Harper was the last of the 15 Chase it Down I needed to complete that insert set. The Pro-Vision Sheffield is from 1993 and the price was right.  1993 Pro-Visions are actually much rarer than other years.

    I added the Post cereal box cards from the early 60's to my Orioles team set lists and binders.  These three are in pretty good shape and exceptionally cool

    Trey Mancini has been a favorite of mine since he carried the O's through a dark period.  I read he's trying to make a comeback this coming season, so I wish him well.  Since he left Baltimore, his stats have declined severely so we'll see if a team gives him a shot to see if he has something left in the tank.

    More Mancini hits.  His cards are really cheap right now.  I'm happy to take them off of the hands of the sellers.

    Austin Hays is another former Oriole (although more recent) that I have a PC of.  His cards are also cheap and I'm more than happy to grab a few nice hits at a low price.

    Jordan Westburg is a player I've really taken a liking to.  He reminds me a lot of JJ Hardy and Cal Ripken with their steady play, are all business between the lines but have easygoing, soft-spoken demeanor off the field.  It also doesn't hurt that I ended up talking to his parents the whole game when he was in the minors.  When he was with Double-A Bowie, they were in town to play the Flying Squirrels, I ended up striking up a conversation with a couple during the game.  I didn't know it until after the game was over that I had been talking to Jordan's parents the whole game!

    Of course, I had to indulge in Cal Ripken cards.  This Cal to Greatness is #11 of the 15 card set and finishes off the insert set for me.  Cards 11 thru 15 of the Cal to Greatness set are actually much tougher to find than cards 1 through 10.

Its not often I'm able to find numbered Cal cards for less than ten dollars.  I was ecstatic to get this Big Boppers from 1998 Upper Deck Retro for a great price!

Diamond Producers was quite rare (case hits) back in 1997.  It took me a while to find a Ripken at a price I could stomach.  It was a near instant buy when I saw it pop up.

I bought this card the night Corbin Burnes was traded to the Orioles.  He was great for the Orioles this year.  I'll miss him every 5th day but I understand why he wanted to play for the Diamonbacks.  Good for him and good for D-backs fans.

It's not often you run into Albert Belle relic cards.  ESPECIALLY ones where he is pictured as an Oriole.  Old school Pacific is just the best.  

I'm not going to bore you with all the team set fillers and such that I got in this shipment.  This was just the highlights that I wanted to show off.  Hopefully, you've all enjoyed the cards as much as I have.

January 4th Colonial Heights Card Show: A Return to Form

    I started off the new year heading to one of my local card shows.  Originally, I hadn't really planned on going, but at the behest of a few friends who were attending and Blake setting up shop there, I made the game time decision to go.  The last couple of Colonial Heights shows have been sparsely attended by sellers and buyers so that was why I was going to skip it and just spend a Saturday at home.  I'm glad I went because it exceeded my expectations.

    I didn't end up spending a ton of money (never really do) but I did find some quality.  I can't complain about adding a Stadium Club Chrome Cal Ripken for a buck. No, hats off to you, Cal.

    I've started paying closer hobby attention to buying cards of Japanese players and placing them in a dedicated binder.  Each player will end up having a page or two of cards, though Nomo, Ichiro, Ohtani, and Koji may end up with more than that. These two cards will look great in that album.

    I've sort of stopped buying base cards at shows unless they are in the quarter and dime boxes.  The value just isn't there and they are printed to the moon and back.  Parallels are where its at for me these days.  Red Stadium Club Heston? Check, Ginter Chrome Cowser? Check. Raywave Eflin and Mullins? Check and Check.  A buck a piece? Check.

    Raywave parallels of good young players? Check x4.  I play close attention to Andrew Abbott since he's from Virginia, and played for perennial ACC contender UVA.  Can't beat these for a dollar a piece.

    I did a bit of dime box diving and was able to find a few Orioles I liked but also these rookies from 2022 Topps Heritage High Numbers. They may seem random to you but I can explain.  Winder and Overton are from the Richmond area so you never know who you might run into around town for autograph signings.  Not that I carry these cards around all the time, lol.  Ethan Roberts has ridden the shuttle back and forth between Triple-A Iowa and Chicago the last few years.  He's a big card collector and is pretty active on Whatnot.  He often hangs out in Blake's stream as well as a few others and is an overall cool dude.  When the Cubs came to Baltimore last summer,  Ethan was nice enough to give us tickets to one of the games.  Five of us made the trip up there and we got to sit in the Cubs player's family and friends section.  It was the only place at Camden Yards where I stuck out like a sore thumb since I was wearing all of my Orioles gear.  Here's a view from our seats:

    Unfortunately, right before the game, Ethan was optioned to Triple-A, so we didn't get to see him in person but hopefully when the Cubs play the Nationals this year, we'll be able to meet up.

    Overall, the Colonial Heights show was a return to form. It was great seeing friends again after the holiday season and to look through some cards. I can't wait til the next show.

Trade with gcrl of cards as i see them

 its never too late to say thank you. i completed this trade with jim (gcrl) back last summer and somehow never posted the spoils.  i think i scanned the cards and got caught up in going on vacation, kids birthdays, back to school, etc... you're not here for excuses but for the cards.

i have never traded with jim before even though my blogging career stretches back to 2009 and him predating that.  ive been a follower of his various blogs over the years but never reached out to see if we could swap some cards.  i'm glad we were able to help each other out with our respective collections.

back when the conlon collection came out ('91-'95), i was between 8 and 13 years old and i was definitely not interested in collecting cards of "old guys". even vintage from the 50's, 60s, and 70s i shunned in favor of '91 donruss, '92 fleer, '93 upper deck....  obviously, my appreciation of players from the pre-war era had grown over the years.  what's old is new to me.  i decided to complete the entire run of conlon collection and binder-ize it. the whole 1430 card run fits snuggly into a 5 inch binder, even though i'm missing a few cards from the 92, 93, 94 sets and all of '95.  '95 is especially tough to find for a good price. i'm guessing they didn't print much of it. either way, jim was able to send a couple needs from the set including the zach wheat i scanned below.

another 2 sets i'm working on completing (again) are the '07 and '08 upper deck masterpieces.  i purged pretty much all of my complete sets probably about 7 or 8 years ago and both masterpieces sets were part of the liquidation.  i missed this classic set so i started working on them again as i found random singles in dime and quarter boxes. i don't think i'll find the '08 sp's in the dime boxes, but you never know, ive found some real gems value shopping. this koufax would look great signed and I think that lance berkman is a criminally underrated player.

gypsy queen had some great insert sets over the years and i think one of the most memorable is the 2 year run of dealing aces was probably my favorite.  can't complain with getting a insert of kid k.  i'm also working on several other gq inserts sets. check my lists.

the revival of the black gold inserts by topps really caught by my nostalgia bone.  since i was a child of the 90's seeing black gold cards really brings me back.  i'm working on that original run of black gold sets as well as the current run out of tipps update.  out of this current run of sets, i think that 2023 is my favorite design: 

jim also included a few random o's cards from various years that ended up in my team set binders.  i have separate pc binders of certain o's players including cal and mike so i end up doubling up on the hofers when it comes to my whole collection.

sorry jim, that it took so long to publicly say thanks for the great additions to my collection!