Imagined cards that don't exist and ignoring cards that do

More cards from my recent COMC shipment.

I love these "What If?" cards-that-never-were from 2002 Donruss Originals. They imagine if Donruss was putting out current baseball cards in the years prior to their debut in 1981. You can see Reggie is in the dreamt up '80 Donruss design, while Brock and McCovey give you an idea of what '78 Donruss might've looked like. The Lou Brock photo is particularly awesome.

They even have imagineered backs with stats that would have been current for those years' cards. Too bad these things were tough pulls and often run a few buck each, as I would love to put this insert set together someday. If anyone happens to have any of these available, I'd be interested in talking trade. Looks like there are 27 cards in the '78 design, 25 cards in the '80 design, and 23 "What If?" "The Rookies" cards using all even-year designs from Donruss cards of the 80s. Typing up this post made me want to go look for more, and yep, my next COMC order has been started now.

I bought a complete 1976 SSPC set a few months back, but it had a couple cards with creased corners in it. These upgrades take care of that. The dudes are Buzz Capra and Dick Sisler, if you're wondering.

I also picked up a few cards for my '57 Topps setbuild. I'm now scratching at nearly 3/4 complete (74.1%).. and if I give up going after the unnumbered checklists and contest card inserts (all far more expensive than my desire for them would justify-- seriously like $200 for an unmarked checklist!) and only go after the 407-card base set-- as I'm leaning toward doing-- then I suppose I'm over 75% complete now.
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Ok, I've made it official and adjusted my wantlist removing the checklists and contest cards from my completion formula (plus one minor printing error card I had on the list). Woo! Thanks to the new math, I'm now up to 75.68% complete (308 out of 407 cards).. That's good for 2 milestones: 3⁄4 complete, and down into double-digits with cards-remaining (99). I'll just treat those other cards as extraneous inserts, much like I did with the creepy embossed inserts when I was building my 1965 Topps set, and ignore them. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments, as I'd be curious what other collector's think. I suppose it's the difference between a "base set" and a "master set".

Jumping to the 90s now, I realized I didn't have many '92 Bowman cards in my collection, and so I snagged a couple cheap guys I collect.

And another Julio Franco need... 1990 Topps Top Active Career Batting Leaders. Last month I got a Rickey from this this neat set from SCC, and ended up looking for others I could use from COMC at a good price, pulling the trigger on Julio here. And the shiny 1992 Panini sticker is an addition for my Dave Henderson PC.

Let's close with this old thing. 1963 Topps Bazooka - All-Time Greats #23 Jimmy Collins. Last year, I pulled a Willie McCovey Bazooka All-Time Greats insert out of Heritage, and since then I was curious about landing an original one of these things. Looks like Bazooka put out All-Time Greats in '63 (like the above) and '69 (like the McCovey I pulled), so not quite the same, but close enough for me.

I don't collect Jimmy Collins or anything, but this was the cheapest Bazooka All-Time Great I could find on COMC ($3), no doubt discounted due to being miscut. But hey, works for me.

More from this order left to show off another day. Thanks for stopping by.