COM-See ya

I've resisted shopping on the COMC site since my latest shipment, but I wouldn't feel confident stating definitively that it was my final COMC order because once in a blue moon they end up with a card significantly cheaper than you can find elsewhere, even with the jacked up shipping considered, and I have in fact bought a couple cards via the COMC eBay account since. But I try to avoid them. (If they're reading and want to offer me a "free shipping" voucher or something to win me back... lol)

That last (for now?) order of mine included some cards to help complete the We Didn't Start The Fire binder, as well as some needs for refractor sets I'm working on which I'll likely show off in separate posts, but for today, here are some other various cool cards I got in that big shipment.

These are probably the result of searching Tony Gwynn refractors and grabbing low-cost options that caught my eye. The 3000 hits card reminds me I wanted to make a display with the ticket from the game I got from Rod with a few cards documenting the moment, such as that one.

Seems like I'm pandering to Fuji by kicking off the post with Gwynn and Rickey, but hey, I like those guys too! That 2022 Topps Chrome Update Series - Diamond Greats Chrome in the middle there sure is attractive, in particular.

Heritage parallels that caught my eye at a good price. The Vogelmoster appearance serendipitously gives me the opportunity to tease an upcoming post of mine in the works wherein we catch up with an old friend from the cardsphere.

A pair of "Retrofractors" up top. Topps has used the term various time for different cardstock combinations. The retrofractors in 2001 Topps Traded (one of the aforementioned refractor projects I'm working on) have Chrome fronts and heritage stock backs. The retrofractors in 2002 Topps Super Teams, however, feature bumpy foilboard fronts with the heritage type backs.. not quite as cool-- I'm not chasing the set-- but I still grabbed a Kevin Mitchell and Don Hoak. (Figured I might put together a mini Hoak PC since I've got a partial autograph on a Clemente cut-auto, arguably my best card.)

The Hank Aaron kinda works as a card-that-never-was that I can sneak into my Refracting the Past collecting project of refractor reprints (and reimaginings that make chronological sense) sorted by year of original Topps design (so this "pre-rookie" gets sorted under 1953).

Akili Smith was the 3rd overall pick in '99 and made some starts for the Bengals but never had much of an impact in the NFL. But he was a local legend when I was growing up, probably the top high school quarterback in San Diego back when I was a high school athlete, so he was like a known dude. I'd love to say I competed at the same invitational track meet as him once or twice, but I wouldn't trust my foggy memory now. Turns out he played some minor league ball in the Pirates organization too (but doesn't seem to have gotten cards documenting it). And he had a nice senior year with the Oregon Ducks in 1998, so I bet Kerry has a decent Akili Smith PC. But yeah, he was a familiar name to snag while browsing cheap old-style xfractors like that.. love the pixelated movement on 'em.

I grabbed some refractors of active guys too. Solid names all around.

A little ink. Stickergraphs of MLB's current top Gavins.

As for older cards, the Roger Craig '64 need was the last card of the order, taking my store credit to just-above the required shipping cost. Still hoping to get around to completing 1964 Topps eventually, now just inching over 4/5's of the way there.

I've already got the complete set of 1988 San Diego State Aztecs 50th Anniversary All-Time Great Aztecs, but the cards damn near never surface (still have my old saved search saved out of curiosity [and because I know the Gwynn and Grace are highly sought after by supercollectors.. because they politely bug me to sell them mine!]), so I ended up grabbing "back up" copies of a couple PC guys when somebody was breaking up a partial set via COMC.

Closing out the post with a few pics of the biggest card of the order (in both size and money):

 1996 Topps Stadium Club - Extreme Players Winners - Gold #EW5 - Ken Caminiti 

I forget where I saw another collector talking about how incredibly cool these things are, but their words must have moved me, and so I took a chance on kicking up my Ken Caminiti PC with this chonker at an "over a blaster" price point. As a refractor enthusiast looking to get his socks knocked off, this does not disappoint. Topps was using their whole asses back then, delivering an impressive (and slightly oversized) special redemption prize exchanged for lucky winning pulls.

The "glass-coated" refractor is a thing of beauty and you're going to want to take it out of any packaging to enjoy the feel of it in your bare hands as often as reasonable without getting it all smudged up.

You don't need to try to make sense of the back's text, but it's cool how the card is like glass on the front and then metallic when you flip it over.

And there you have some highlights from that shipment. I might eventually have a follow-up with stuff I didn't get around to covering here, and I think I've still got a stack of cards from my previous COMC order that I haven't posted about because I was going to do it via handwritten post, but then I ended up doing the handwritten post idea on peeling protective films on other cards. But enough time has probably passed where I could get away with doing another one soon. Anyways, yeah, thanks for reading!

COMC haul misc

Happy Opening Day, everybody. I recently got another shipment from COMC and I've been meaning to show off some highlights.

Some refractors that caught my eye. I sorted Juan Soto refractors cheapest-first and grabbed that Béisbol one. I wanted an All-Etch logofractor, and ended up with Austin Riley, whom I've kinda fell into PCing, I guess. The blue 2008 Adrian Gonzalez pickup was inspired by a gcrl post. I haven't logged my Brian Giles PC yet, but I probably needed at least most of this trio of Bowman refractors.

Grabbed a few parallel Gavins. (Not pictured, but I'm happy to see that Gavin Sheets secured a spot on the Padres' OD roster! The first Padre named Gavin!) Gavin Sawchuk, a gridiron Gavin, is a new name for my collection. I don't have much use for modern football cards these days, having detached myself from the NFL over the past 15 years (and never really getting into college sports), but I guess I don't mind an excuse to sample some of the new designs and parallels Fanatics uses for football products, but I won't go trying to "rainbow" any of his cards or go nuts with building a PC (The previous notable Gavin football player, Gavin Escobar, I collected a lot, but he had the added connection of being a fellow SDSU alum). Sawchuk is still a running back for the Oklahoma Sooners-- oh yeah, Bowman U is for college kids; kind of a weird thing to get used to-- so we'll see if he eventually goes pro.

I'm not feeling too optimistic about my Padres this season, but hoping Jackson Merrill continues developing into a star.

Dick Allen PC got kicked up with this four. The Kmart card is a blank-front, so it's an oddity that doesn't count in my quest to hit 100 cards in the TCDb-leading PC.

Unrelated to my latest COMC haul, but here's a photo from the other day when I rounded up all my Dick Allen cards that featured the 1972 Topps design.. including Topps, OPC, customs, and a couple Topps Vault pieces. Dick's card seems to have usually been the last one packaged into the '82 Kmart box set, touching the gum, so it's very common to find with a gum stain on the back. If the stain is raunchy enough, I consider it somewhat of an unofficial variation and add it to the keepers.

Also grabbed some additions for my glowing card collection.

The Harry Potter one and all the Upper Deck Space Patches were new sets to me, and I've since updated my Glow-In-The-Dark Cards page to include them.

Found a couple cheap Project 2020 cards for the Big Hurt PC. This is where COMC's flat shipping comes in handy, since those bulky plastic cases otherwise ratchet up postage. Flippers went nuts back then, so now some of those cards with high print runs can be snagged on COMC for less than they'd cost to ship alone. The artists are Naturel (left) and Matt Taylor (right). Matt Taylor's version of the Rickey rookie is the only Project 2020 card I actually bought "live". I also ended up with his Gwynn thanks to Rod a couple years later. So it seems I've got myself a little Matt Taylor art collection going. But as far as 1990 Topps Frank Thomas, I think I prefer Naturel's colorful rendition here.

I'm embarrassed to admit but when I first saw 1992 Leaf black gold cards come out of the package, I was like, "WTF, I thought I already completed this set last year!?" But duh, I momentarily forgot I'm now trying to complement that set with the tougher "of 33" preview cards. This lot helps get me to 21 of 33.

1964 and 1972 needs, including some notable names and a pair of '72 Cubs variations (green under the "C" and "S" instead of yellow).

And I've now completed 1980 Kellogg's thanks to Garv and Yaz here. Probably. I still need to sort through my set to confirm, but it's tricky because I sort my Kellogg's cards by curvaceousness, not card number. lol

Thanks for reading and best of luck to your favorite team this MLB season.

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!

more moldy oldies

Geena Davis here is taken out of context from an old SNL skit I saw the other day, but I figured it'd make for a quirky intro to another post documenting my quest to build a run of Topps flagship from the 70s.

GCA kindly thought of me while at a recent card show and sent more help with the back end of 1972 Topps, still considered my top priority as far as trading goes. Now that's the kind of PWE I like to see. Much appreciated, my friend! I was already in his debt before this, but I've got a solid return shaping up to square things shortly.

-   -  - --o

Next up is a package from another long-time blogger bud, Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life. He's one of the most solid traders I've had the pleasure to deal with, and it's so refreshing that condition means nothing to him. Sadly after so many swaps with him over the years, since I don't rip product or hit the card show anymore, I really have to scrape around my collection a while to find anything else to trade him. But luckily this time I was able to sort out some dupes for him from my old Kellogg's setbuilds, plus I had a few vintage Japanese cards in my Mike Reinbach PC that I ended up with dupes of, so that all added up to a respectable return for a healthy stack of vintage needs Bo was anxious to pull for me, with the understanding that my standards for condition have lowered considerably. Yeah, really at this point in my life, I'm just looking for the satisfying closure of completing some sets. I'm not concerned about their value and I don't plan to ever sell them, and honestly I'm at the age where I could drop dead of a heart attack or whatever any day, so time's a-waistin'! That Johnny Bench card seems like it spent at least one recess period in some kid's pocket, but yeah, if that's the Johnny Bench card in my '77 Topps set, so be it. My set was at 46% complete, but thanks to this fat stack from Bo (with some of the bigger names on top), I'm now up to 65%. Not bad. Thanks again, Bo!

-  - - --o

Just got in my latest COMC order yesterday in that I placed near the end of January, so I'm excited to finally get that stuff in. Really shows you how I rely mostly on trades for setbuilding because there were zero vintage setbuilders in the order. I probably should start shopping around more to get serious about finishing off more sets, but seems I'm always busy searching for other cards online. I'll try to post about more from that order soon, but here's a couple vintage PC needs I picked up..

A couple more mid-70s Mike Reinbach cards from Japan, both featuring a powerful swing. I still need a bunch his Calbee cards, but they seem to pop up a lot more often these days. Back when I first started collecting him, they were few and far between, but now there's always an assortment on COMC. I've been known to upgrade cards I already own if the price is right (and that's how I ended up with the dupes to send Bo). These were needs, not upgrades, though, and this pair is in really nice condition. Like, I thought these cards were originally distributed in bags of chips? Somebody took good care of them.

Anyways, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by.

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!

COMC stuff (complemented by non-COMC stuff)

My latest COMC order to arrive-- first shipment requested since last November-- wasn't too huge, 54 cards, but included some good stuff. Let's check out a few highlights.

Let's start with a pair of Vault Metals inserts from 2016 Topps Legacies of Baseball. These metal cards ingots got on my radar when I pulled the Mike Trout 1/1 (black logo) from a birthday box which would stand my best pull ever if not for the 1/1 Griffey auto I pulled from a box of Archives once. But yeah, these things are kinda neat and I'll sometimes pick up dudes I collect if the price is right, but even the base (white logo) are numbered /135. Both photos flashback to flagship cards of the past. In fact, let me take a moment to go dig up the original offerings out of the PCs for a side-by-side comparison...

The "Legacies of Metal" cards are a bit blurry (text too), with the originals being clearer images, perhaps due to the process of printing on metal? They're fun to have in-hand if for nothing else than the novelty of a material not very plentiful in a typical card collection.

..Of course that tactile aspect is pretty much lost when these cards get slabbed, but I did snag one that happened to be graded..

This was from eBay, not COMC, but as long as I'm talking about these metal card, figured I'd feature this Trout. It's the base version I picked up a while back, with the thinking I should try for the rainbow since I already got the 1/1. Turns out there are 4 varieties total, now missing just the purple (/50) and red (/5). Those five-in-existence red parallels Topps likes to put out are usually pretty tough to find, much less find reasonably priced (and I'm a little late to the search at this point), so this goal might not ever come to fruition, but it would be cool for me to be able to say I've completed a Mike Trout rainbow. And throw in the fact that'd it'd be a metal rainbow, and that just adds to the uniqueness. Like, there are a ton of Mike Trout collectors out there, and I'm sure several have completed a rainbow of his... but a metal rainbow? That'd be quite the niche accomplishment. Maybe someday.

Moving on, here are 3 more random cards I bought on COMC:

I had been wanting Dave Stieb's O-Pee-Chee rookie card since that YouTube doc a few months back raised my appreciation of him and his career. This one is a bit off-center and has extra rough edges, though still proved to be the most expensive card in this order. But oh well, good enough for me to check off my list and takes the PC to a satisfactory "good enough" state in my mind, though I'm sure I'll continue to add to it here and there, but now I'll probably stick to his "dimebox" type cards.

I don't really search out Jake Peavy cards these days despite having a soft-spot for the Cy-winning Friar, but I just kinda dig those vintage stock parallels, particularly from 2010 ("Target Retro" COMC calls 'em) and was searching by cheapest to check if any PC guys of mine were slumming it with the nobodies and came away with Peavy. These cards first got on my radar when I snagged a Madison Bumgarner RC cheap at a card show and it turned out to be one for the ol' "my savviest card show acquisitions" list.

I also grabbed the similar Mantle off eBay a few months ago for a few bucks. They're not serial numbered, but the print run was likely around 100-200 per card.

Excuse the orange hue on the above photo-- it's wildfire season and it's bad out today. :(
Most of the other pics in this post were taken yesterday.

I really like the Legendary Years design's take on 1965 Topps (as well as the College Years harkening back to 1982) from 2005 Pristine.. especially the refractor parallels. Topps recently brought Pristine back from the dead and my first new-school Pristine card is currently en route from an eBay seller so maybe I'll have thoughts to share later.

Anyways, the Madlock was the card that kicked off this order, pulling the trigger on it back in April. It's a gold "die-cut" (bumpy edges, on purpose unlike the OPC Stieb) numbered out of 65, while the encased Kong is a base refractor out of 549. I don't go after his cards too hard, but couldn't pass it up for just a couple bucks, a deal you wouldn't be likely to find on eBay considering the hard case means you're looking at ~$4 in postage alone. 

Let's wrap up the post with a couple cards that might not seem like a fit for my collection at first glance. 

But flip the lightswitch..

Yep, I love me some glow-in-the-dark magic, and a couple such cards found their way into the COMC shipment. Dale Jarrett must be a "common" in the racing world, because it's rare to find these glowing 1997 Pinnacle Racers Choice cards for less than $5-10 (and he only ran me $1.55). There are a bunch out there (different drivers and different sponsor parallels), but this is only my 2nd example. As for the Beanie Baby sticker.. Like the racing cards, there are many still out there I wouldn't mind eventually tracking down for the GITD side-collection, but unlike the racing cards, they tend to be cheap.

So yeah, there are some COMC pickups of mine. I'll likely get another post or two out of the rest of the shipment soon. Thanks for stopping by.