Completing sets and shining up PCs with COMC

I requested shipment on my COMC stuff near the end of the Black Friday sale to take advantage of free shipping. Originally estimated for an end of the year arrival, in a minor Christmas miracle, it was delivered yesterday, the 17th. God bless us, everyone!

Having checklist 265-396 in-hand, I can now claim to have completed a basic one-of-every-number set of 1974 Topps. Hey, that's something for the year-end hobby report card. Still need a dozen variations-- dang "Washington" errors. I also found Jesus in the package, with the corrected Alou card complementing the "no position listed on front" error I already had. I still can't quite boast a "complete set without variations" because of the #599 rookie pitchers card that I have the Washington variation of but neither of the San Diego variations (differing font size). I'll hope to eventually add that stuff, but I feel like that's really just "extra credit" and am happy to have more-or-less completed another vintage Topps set.

This "Shaq" was the last card I needed to complete the Sport Ball inserts from 2019 Upper Deck Marvel Deadpool. If you wanna see all of this quirky set that reimagines Deadpool starring on several notable UD/Fleer cards, the blog Nothing If Not Random recently showed them off.

Besides that pair of set killers, most of my COMC order was refractors, my collecting focus these days leaning heavy on the glory days of refractors (mid 90s through mid 00s, IMHO). About half the cards in the order were Topps All-Time Fan Favorites refractors that I won't bother showing in this post because I'm planning a fun new blog series for 2023 that's gonna feature them.

Love these refractors of retired greats in 2005 Topps Pristine. I haven't decided to try completing either these inserts-- The Legendary Years ("1965") and The College Years ("1982"), but will snap them up if the price is right.

As I look for an excuse to add more refractors to my collection, I often check what I can find cheap from some of my lesser PCs that don't have a lot of competition. Quintin Berry and Mike Jacobs are a couple San Diego guys who both went to the same junior college as me-- which is not a minicollection I hit as hard as my same-high-school dudes, but still like to get them decent representation in my collection. Nice to add some more rainbow shine to that pair of PCs.

In a post last month I mentioned going on a bit of a 2005 Finest kick recently. Guess that big circle in the center has got me hypnotized! Love the look of these. But yeah, again just seeing who caught my eye down around the cheapest available refractors and trying to get some parallel variety.

A few more miscellaneous refractors that jumped into my cart, including a couple Beers. My shtick of being a "Pre-covid Card Collector" held true with this order for the most part, with only 1 card from the current decade.. I had to score myself a logofractor to check out.

Finally, a couple glowing cards-- that's the Little Dipper in the middle-- (I already had both, but will sometimes grab dupes of glowing cards if cheap) and a Satchel Paige mini close it out. Love that Brooks Kieschnick card, the only baseball card I'm aware of where the card itself glows (not just glowing ink printed on it, but rather it's printed on glowing paper stock).

Thanks for stopping by, and best wishes to you all this holiday season!