some COMC highlights

Showing off some various pickups from my latest COMC order.

I was happy to hear Dick Allen and Dave Parker got the "Call to the Hall" the other day, though in Allen's case, it was bittersweet since they jacked him around so much when he was still with us. But being honored posthumously is better than not being honored at all, I suppose.

It's kinda surprising to me, but I'm still the #1 ranked Dick Allen collector on TCDB. I'm also ranked #1 for a couple obscure guys who most people don't remember, but to be ranked #1 for a HOFer isn't so easy. The rankings can change quickly, but whatever happens in the future, it's neat to have been the top-rated Dick Allen collector per TCDB on the day he made the Hall of Fame.

Thanks to the above modern parallels (btw, screw Topps for waiting until the moment he died to start putting him in new releases again), I'm up to 91 unique Dick Allen cards (2nd place collector is at 84). Call it an unofficial New Years resolution to break triple digits by the end of 2025.

Some vintage pickups. Mike Reinbach has a whopping 13 cards in the 1975-76 Calbee set, which as I understand it were distributed via packs of chips in Japan. And this one with the fielding shot was the last one of the 13 that I needed. So that makes for a nice little accomplishment. But he has several later Calbee cards from 1977-1980 still out there, so the search for Reinbach will continue unabated.

Nolan Ryan takes me to the cusp of completing my first Kellogg's set, now down to only Yaz and Garvey to wrap up the set from 1980. Back in 2020, I wanted to expand my wantlist to facilitate more trading, and I decided to take a run at all the vintage Kellogg's baseball sets (1970-1983). These few years later, trading has slowed for me and my collecting mindset is more on wrapping things up than finding new things to chase. Most of those Kellogg's sets are out of my reach unless I really prioritize them at some point, but I sure would love to at least knock out one or two years. Besides '80, the only other set I'm anywhere close with is '81 Kellogg's, with 16 cards remaining.

As for the 1974 Rookie Pitchers, thanks to this card I can claim to have a complete base set of 1974 Topps. See, my previous copy of this card erroneously assigned Dave Freisleben to Washington, and so it was technically an error variation taking the slot in my set. So with a correct San Diego designation on this card, my set is now a complete base set including some variations. For a master set, I'm lacking 9 Washington variations, the "Apodaco" typo of #608, and another version of the above #599 (I still need the small print variation, where the "S" in Padres aligns with "B" in Freisleben).

Bobby Richardson is a new refractor for my 2005 Retired auto set. That's at over 71% complete as a mix of base and refractors. That's just behind my 2003 Retired auto set that's at 79%. And of course 2004 Retired is still just waiting for a Trammell refractor. (*sigh* Will 2025 be the year I finally land that whale?)

My 1975 Topps needs are the same as they were last time I posted them on the blog, but now I've got these in-hand that had been "pending". Looks like my half-assed goal of completing the set during its Heritage Year won't come to pass, but luckily for me that doesn't really mean shit to anyone anyway so I'll just complete it next year instead. I spent like an hour trying to come up with a trade return for fellow blogger S.A. 75, but it was one of those frustrating experiences where like you go through a stack of cards checking numbers, and after a while of misses you get excited when you find a card that's one number off-- oh, so close!-- lol, and at the end of the stack you're lucky to have one need for the guy. But hopefully we're able to swing a trade one of these days if I can scrounge up more needs of his.

[In better news, I did complete a couple sets thanks to this COMC order, but I'll do separate "Joy of a Completed Set" posts for them soon rather than cover them here.]

Another set knocking at the door of completion. Just 38 cards left to go with 1972 Topps.

Shiny Bips.

Just one Christmas Card in the order, a rookie auto of a guy named Xavier Grimble. Sometimes I just browse looking for 12/25 cards that catch my eye. It was cheap and "Xavier Grimble" is a fun name. He had a decent little NFL career, seeing action in 47 games with the Steelers in the latter part of the previous decade.

Here's a Kevin Mitchell minor league card. I don't have much to say about it, but it's a Mets card, or close enough, so I wanted to take a moment to pay my respects to bloggin' buddy "Warren Zvon" of the blog Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be (a.k.a. Mets Fantasy Cards). Turns out he was one of the many people globally who didn't make it through 2020 alive, though I only recently found out about his passing thanks to Blogger being weird and bumping up some old posts in the reading list. But yeah, I loved his blog. His outside-the-box thinking with his digital customs helped inspire creativity with my own customs and cardart stuff. Lots of really cool ideas and animated gifs among the hundreds of Mets customs he featured on his blog. Good guy. Sad he's gone. RIP Warren.

Also sad to see Chris The Collector not just stop blogging but delete his blog too. Hopefully he comes out the other side of what he's going through and eventually returns to the cardsphere. We're rooting for you, Chris!

And sad that Nick at Dimeboxes is taking another leave of blogging duty. Him and Night Owl and Fuji have always been the "big 3" that I looked up to as a card blogger. It's a bummer when he goes quiet.

Best of luck out there, Nick! Hope to see you back to blogging before long.

As for me, my post total for the year will shake out around 30-something posts, vying with last year as my least-ever number of blog posts. But don't worry, guys, I'm not planning on closing up Baseball Card Breakdown any time soon. I don't get around to typing up posts as often as I'd like-- other things distract me from typing away for the hour or two or more it takes me for a typical post-- but I do have plenty left I want to blog about, in addition to the usual "check out these cards I got from Check Out My Cards" and trade recaps, etc. As the world accelerates its burning, I've been trying to wean myself off social media for my mental health's benefit. I'd rather just hang out on my little chunk of the cardsphere with my head in the sand than stress out over all the bullshit and injustice going on, you know? Easier said than done. But yeah, expect more blogging from me in 2025, not less.

Closing out with a Jose Canseco 1986 Donruss Rated Rookie. Just an iconic junk wax era card I've never owned but always kinda wanted. And now I have one. Had hoped to find someone to trade me one for the past few years, but finally gave in and bought the cheapest one on COMC.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading!