Here's What Just Arrived In My COMC Order

Waaay back in early September I placed an order with COMC for a handful of needed cards - the ones you're about to look at - and was told upon completion and submittal of my order that they wouldn't be shipping until late December (!). I'm used to that sort of thing with COMC; by now, reading others' accounts of ordering with the site, a 3- or 4-month wait for cards is pretty normal, post-pandemic. (I think I'd placed my first order with them in January or February 2020, and it shipped pretty much within a week or so). 

Anyway, here we are in mid-November, and those late-December cards are sitting here, in my hands, and now on this blog. Thank you, COMC. Who said there's a supply chain problem, right? Anyway, let's take a look at what we've got.

Here's John aka Johnny Antonelli, in a 1983 Fritsch anniversary set commemorating the 1953 Milwaukee Braves, of whom Mr. Antonelli was a member, before he'd later go on to be a New York and San Francisco Giant. He's a key cog in my player collections, and this one was most certainly a "need". 

Another thing I've been working on are the San Francisco Giants Topps Heritage team sets. I have every base card - I think it's the collection of mine, besides all of the 1969-1982 Topps Giants team sets, that I like looking at the most. So now it's on to the much more expensive and difficult-to-acquire Chrome parallels and various rare inserts that feature Giants players on them. I have a few of these already, but knocked a ton of those sparkling chromes off the want list with this order:

Honestly, that's really what this order was about - those Giants Heritage chromes. I still don't really know who Billy Sadler is. I then topped off the thing with some Max Fried needs, all cards from when he was a Padres prospect. Now that's a team that could have used Fried this year, am I right?

Fall In Love With My New Cards

Well, Joey Bart, I hope you're ready. No pressure. With the retirement of Buster Posey this week, Mr. Bart has become the heir apparent at catcher for the San Francisco Giants, starting with the 2022 season. The team stashed him at AAA-Sacramento for most of the 2021 season, whereupon he proceeded to "rake". I think it was the right call, as he was a little lost in the big leagues in 2020 during the weird pandemic season, which Posey sat out. 

I've been collecting his cards for a couple of years now, as I'm sure regular readers are aware, and am hoping that he becomes a solid major leaguer to justify the dozens upon dozens of rookie cards created by Topps, Bowman, Panini and others for this guy. I mean, seriously - there are new cards almost every week for this guy: variations, relics, autographs, etc. I've done my best with what I have, you know?

Here are the 3 newest ones I got this past week.

I also got my first two cards from 2021 Topps Heritage Minor Leagues! I want I want I want this entire set. If you've somehow accumulated a bunch of doubles, let's make a deal! (by which I mean a trade).

Finally, three more cards from 2021 Topps Fire that I grabbed. Guys in my player collections.

2010 Salem-Keizer Volcanoes Tribute Cards

How cool is this? in 2010, right after the San Francisco Giants won their first World Series, their minor league affiliate the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes put out a 7-card tribute set that featured players who had passed through town and had been on the team. They're each pictured in their original Volcanoes uniforms, looking like baby-faces dreaming of one day becoming big-league ballplayers. All of these guys, save Schierholtz, have places in Giants postseason lore for their heroics in 2010, 2012 and/or 2014, or some combination thereof.

3 of these players - Pablo Sandoval, Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey - are guys I have personal player collections of, and therefore getting this set from an eBay seller is what you might call a "no-brainer". I did not know that these existed until last week. Take a gander!

The Fruits of Another Surprise Trade

Every now and again I'll receive an envelope or even a box of card-shaped treats from Dave in California, whom I've been trading with for the better part of a year now. The trades are probably more one-sided - in my favor - than I'd like, but I try to do my part to get him what he needs as well. Just a few days ago a full-fledged surprise BOX of cards arrived, and it was like Christmas in October, baby. I had zero clue what was in there, and that's often as good as it gets for an arrested-development card accumulator like myself. Let's take a look at what he sent!

The cards you see above were from 2013 Topps Archives, and they're based on the 1982 Topps design. Cards #51-100 in that set were based on the '82s. Very snazzy, and he sent me about a half-dozen of them.

You all remember Willie McGee, the San Francisco Giant, right? This is from 1994 Pinnacle. Honestly, I still forget that McGee spent as much time with my favorite team as he did.

How about Los Angeles Dodger Jason Schmidt, wearing his San Francisco Giants uni?

Speaking of Giants, one guy in my player collection is Jack Clark, who along with Willie McCovey was my first "favorite player" and basically my idol in 6th grade. I decided I'd only collect his Giants cards, since there are a ton of junk wax-era Cardinals, Padres and Yankees cards I just don't really want. Dave sent me 3 Clark cards - all common as hell - that I still didn't have yet. He didn't even know that.

One set that I am now intrigued by because of this surprise trade is 1984 Donruss. It's a pretty sleek design! I'll bet, aside from the # of cards I'd have to accumulate, it's not all that tough to put this thing together, right? Aren't these nice?

Then there are these prospects from the 1999 Team Best "Player of the Year" 50-card set. I love prospect cards, even the guys who never even had a whiff of the big leagues, especially when they're on teams like the "Erie Seawolves":

I'm only really scratching the surface of stuff that arrived in my home a few days ago in that box - you know you can only scan so much - but here are a few other cool things Dave was kind enough to send.

A New Trip Through the All-Star Cards Catalog

Every few months I receive a listing-packed catalog from All-Star Cards of Overland Park, KS. It's something I requested online last year and that I wrote about once before here. Every time I get one, it's a glimpse into a parallel world of card collecting - one that's pretty far away from me and my card-blogging brethren and I-don't-really-care-about-condition set and player collectors. I find it a little fascinating and a little off-putting at the same time.

If you're into paying top dollar for graded cards - and if the difference between a PSA 7 and a PSA 7.5 is super-meaningful to you, then you'll want to take a good look at this catalog. It's fun in that way. Me, I couldn't care less. The only time I get really excited about anything in here - I mean, aside from looking at images of cards I'd love to have - is when some ridiculous card that I probably have sitting in a trade box (a 1980 Tony Perez on the Expos!) is selling for something so absurd it just defies logic (in this case, a PSA 10 of that card will cost you $199.95, as opposed to the 35 cents it'll take to buy an ungraded version here).

Do people really do this? They do, don't they? I don't know anyone who does, but they seem to be making the rounds at the few card shows I've gone to, and they definitely love to bro down about baseball card values and this week's most collectable prospect on Twitter. 

The week this past summer that Shohei Otani started the All-Star Game and was the hottest thing in baseball, I went to a card show in Sacramento, and there were cases upon cases of his cards on display, many for $2,500, $1,500 and so on. Someone must be buying these, and I'm willing to bet they're also buying Bitcoin, GameStop and Truth Social stock.

It's all really gross, if you ask me. Yet All-Star Cards aren't gross. They're just a business who are amalgamating many valuable cards that they are hoping to sell for what the market will bear. It's as American as apple pie and Truth Social. Their catalog gives me a sense of what people are interested in this month, just as prices in a grocery aisle are pretty good clues to what's being valued in food consumption at any given time. 

Request a catalog if you want to. Operators are standing by.

Some 2021 Topps Fire Inserts To Check Out

I picked up three inserts from the relatively recent 2021 Topps Fire baseball release, and they arrived in yesterday's mail. All dudes I collect. What will become of this series - and all series we've come to enjoy - when "Fanatics" takes over? I suspect this is a question that is being asked in many quarters.

The two "Rookie Ignition" cards are for guys - Joey Bart and Jo Adell - who didn't exactly ignite last year, unless you count their activity in AAA. 2022 will be very telling years for these young men's careers, and whether or not they truly ignite. It also may have something to say about the ultimate value of the many cards of theirs I've collected over the past two years - not that my collecting has anything to do with value and resale and all of that, right??

I also grabbed a Tim Lincecum "Smoke and Mirrors" insert from the same Topps Fire set that you can take a look at below.

The Goldschmidt Variations

After a few months of focusing on pulling together a Paul Goldschmidt player collection, I've already gotten to the point where I have more cards from Goldy than any other player not named Pablo Sandoval or Tim Lincecum. This is likely due to an age in which a given player, especially a star, is going to have 30+ different cards come out with his likeness in any given year. 

What I like about that is the sheer amount of randomness you'll see in various designs for a given player, and the potential surprises therein. Note that for Goldschmidt cards, there are very few surprises - he's almost always shown batting, in a cut-out, looking like a Sultan of Swat who's just parked one over the wall, probably just hit off a pitch from Lincecum, as he was so fond of doing early in his career.

I still have hundreds of Goldschmidt cards to go before I'd ever get anywhere near a "complete" player collection, but here are 10 very colorful ones from his Diamondbacks days that I thought you'd probably want to check out.

The Offer Still Stands: Multi-Card, Full-Team Giveaway

I still have some cards I would like to send to those of you who happen to collect a team, or who might like some cards of that team. I've posted about this a few times and a few of you have taken me up on it - and those that have typically get anywhere from 50-75 cards in exchange for whatever they send me, which can be as low as 1 or 2...!

Here is how it works. You send me 1 or more cards from my want list - it can even be something I need from 2021 Heritage, I'm cool with that! - and in return you'll get a batch of 25 or more cards from your chosen team below (you'll tell me which one you want, of course, so I can set it aside for you). There are still quite a few quality teams remaining that I haven't cleaned out yet.

It'll work this way:

1. You'll let me know that you want 25-30 of your team's cards by emailing me. That part's a must, because I'll need your mailing address and commitment you want to do this.

2. I'll set them aside for you.

3. You'll send me something - anything - from my want list.

4. When it arrives, I shall send your cards, posthaste. Depending on the response, you might get a lot more than 25-30.

You can get a sense of what sorts of cards are in there from the cards pictured above. Definitely some junk wax, along with 2010s Topps, Upper Deck and lots of other stuff. The teams I have to choose from are:

• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Baltimore Orioles
• California / Anaheim Angels
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cleveland Indians
• Colorado Rockies
• Florida / Miami Marlins
• Houston Astros
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Milwaukee Brewers
• New York Mets
• Philadelphia Phillies
• San Francisco Giants
• San Diego Padres
• Texas Rangers