Suddenly COMC

My previous COMC order took about half a year to arrive, and so I stayed away from the site for a while after that. But as other collectors had been sharing stories of quicker turnaround times in recent weeks, I figured I'd make a return. I spent a few days picking up cards, then requested shipment on 11/7, and the cards were shipped by the end of the month (11/29). I figured I'd get ahead of the Black Friday orders, and from what I heard, the sale was disappointing this year so I didn't miss out on much.

I've got 3 or 4 posts to write covering the package from COMC, but for today, just a few cards featuring strong women. Most of these I picked up for my problematically-named "girlie card" minicollection. Maybe I should rechristen this minicollection of mine "Women on Cardboard"? In fact, yeah, I think with this post I'll retire the "girlie card" label I've used on the blog since 2013 (a vague Married With Children reference) and start using the label "Women on Cardboard" from here on out. You know, gotta get with the times. Like the Cleveland Guardians and whatnot. lol

Leading off is the most expensive card of the COMC shipment..

There are a few pro wrestlers I like to collect despite not actually watching any wrestling beyond a short clip online once in a blue moon. Toni Storm is the latest addition to the short list of wrestlers I collect. After a frustrating experience attempting to trade for an auto of hers, I said screw it and bought one. Turned out the best deal at the time on eBay was a COMC listing, which along with a couple other cards in the same boat inspired me to do an order on the COMC site again to save a little money. But yeah, I thought this one looked pretty cool and I liked that the signature was on-card. And it's an earlier "1st Bowman"-equivalent one; she doesn't look much like that anymore these days.

Toni Storm 💥#WWE #Smackdown #RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/dcRTh5bWmF

— WWEPPorn™ (@WWEPPorn) December 2, 2021

My interest in soccer doesn't move the needle at all, but Alex Morgan always seemed pretty cool. Figured I'd pick up some representative cards of hers for my collection.

Daenerys Targaryen there is my first Game of Thrones card, I'm pretty sure, despite loving the show (hell, I'm even in the minority who really liked the last season and final episode). Emilia Clarke autos are still pretty pricey, but this cheap base card will do for now.

The other 2 cards were picked up for my glow-in-the-dark minicollection. Welp, I took a chance on the card labeled "1999 Skybox Star Trek Voyager: Closer to Home - Interstellar Species Glow - Green"... but, sad trombone, it doesn't glow in the dark. Still kinda neat; purposely askew here to show its translucence. Denied entry into my Girlie Card Women on Cardboard collection, so it's available for trade. (Jeri Ryan without all the crap glued to her face? Then it'd be a keeper.)

The other card is a glowing insert from a set for an Image comic book called Avengelyne. I try to at least be a "type collector" when it comes to glow-in-the-dark cards, rather than super-collect them. I know I'll never be able to get every glowing card, but at least one card from each particular release of glowing cards is a more reasonable goal. And I didn't have any of those Avengelyne cards yet. This was the coolest looking of the 2 or 3 that COMC had available.

That'll wrap up this post. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Rod Rams Cool Cards into my Collection

A few days ago I posted about at a ton of great cards Zippy dropped on me, now it's time to tackle the other big card gifting I was on the receiving end of in January, this one handed to me in person by Padrographs Rod at the latest card show. February's card show is coming up this weekend, so I'd better get this post finished now before I fall further behind!

Plus I've got a motherload of (MST3K) cards scheduled to be delivered to the office on today that I'm very excited about. (Like "the pinnacle of my collecting life is nigh" levels of excited.) Update: it's in-hand! Will wait until tonight to bust it open.

Though my posting frequency has been down so far this year, between the monthly card show, Kenny, Rod, and online purchases, it's already been a very plentiful year for cards. They've been coming in faster than I can get them sorted and filed away, as often is the case, making me feel like I'm barely keeping afloat in a flood of cardboard. But I love cards so I suppose it's a good problem to have. Reminds me of that one simpsons gag...

Yes, I have too many cards, and yes, I want more.

[I'm not buying any 2020 Topps Series 1, at least, but keep me in mind if you pull any Lux, Tatis, Soto, or photo variations with powder blue Expos unis.]

But onto the cards from Rod! Again, there are a lot of them, so this post is going to be mostly like this.. photos of stacks of cards with some highlights on top and maybe some quick commentary from me. I believe most of these cards are from teams Rod was looking to clear out of his trade box (that went unclaimed in his pleas to find takers). So, as I would be digging through the cards, there'd be a cache of a hundred or so Orioles cards, for example, followed by maybe a hundred Rangers, etc. Maybe a third of the cards were "keepers" for me, with the other two-thirds headed toward my trade box.. perhaps to be one day thinned out on someone else, repeating the cycle.

Oh man, there were a lot of Astros cards in there, presenting me with a dilemma. I (used to?) collect several current Astros, but after all the cheating ugliness, they've quietly been removed from my wantlist. I guess I'll wait and see how the season plays out before I decide to officially break up these PCs or perhaps forgive-n-forget. I guess they're sorta paused for now. If cards fall into my lap like this, I'll sort them into PCs, but I'm not going to actively work to build them. (Hey JediJeff, that doesn't mean you're off the hook for that Correa relic you've owed me since 2018.. lol)

AL ROY Yordan Alvarez seems to have gotten through the scandal relatively unscathed since he wasn't around until his call-up last June. But if he falters to start the season, expect to see his card prices nosedive. Still though, excited to find these two.

And howbout the Polar Bear himself? I previously only had a card or two of Pete Alonso in my collection, so I'm very happy to score this RC lot of the reigning NL ROY. Seems like a good dude.. I should probably officially add his name to my list of guys I collect.

The Young Stud train keeps rolling with this terrific bunch of Juan Soto cards. This probably doubles my Childish Bambino PC. Love it!

Some unopened packs! I'll probably leave that 1987 cello hanger as-is and file it away with my Hendu PC.

Nick Margevicius is a guy Rod specifically collects, so I've got to give even extra thanks to him for gifting me this one. He knew this particular auto would be a hit with me...

Christmas Card!

Some great misc. stuff here. A few old cards that I'll need to check against my vintage wantlists.
That 1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown Card (Dwight Gooden) appears to be a new set I need to add to my umbrella collecting goal of early 90s black gold. Seems to be a 30-card box set that also has Dufex and promo variations of all 30 cards (rare/expensive).
The Garbage Pail Kids are from a set focusing on musicians, so that's kinda cool. Maybe I can work them into my music blog at some point.
The Sandlot sneaks into the action with a still-sealed set anniversary cards plus a few Archives inserts. Sweet!

Many autographs!

Many Hall of Famers.

Bunches of Beltre plus some other fan favorites.

There was a decent chunk of wrestling cards, mostly of the female variety. Lots of lovely ladies here, with my Alexa Bliss PC in particular getting several nice additions.

And some more cards I found interesting.

Wow, some more Juan Soto cards I missed before. Very cool.

And we'll close it out with this. Any old Beavers baseball would be kinda neat to get, but what makes this one even better...

It glows in the dark!! Awesome.
Now I've got both a glowing bat and ball.. just need a glowing glove and I'll be all set for some midnight baseball! :)

Rod, you're the best! I'm forever in your debt. As always please let me know if I can ever help you out with any cards, customs, or photoshop work. Thanks again!

A John Cena Christmas (card)

I've got a handful of new Christmas Cards to feature on the blog here if I can find the time as we ramp up to 12/25.

The first one is probably the biggest of the bunch.

For someone who never really watches wrestling, I've got a respectable little collection of wrestling cards. It mostly consists of pretty ladies such as AJ Lee and Alexa Bliss (though if you want to split hairs, those are more like a subcollection of my Girlie Cards minicollection, not stored with my other wrestling cards). But I have a few cards of male wrestlers too.

This John Cena 2016 Topps WWE Heritage autograph I recently picked up becomes my top wrestling card, at least as far as the men go.

He doesn't have the most visually pleasing signature, but at least it's big and bold (and on-card here).

My feelings towards the 1986 Topps Baseball design are a little conflicted. I've always thought it was one of the uglier flagship designs of the era, though not without its sentimental charm. For some reason, I really like modern parallels of the '86 design with colored borders, and I've got at least a couple other '86-style blue borders in my collection. The blue goes nicely with the signature, though the red from the top text and the orange and green from John's shirt clash a bit with the blue and make this card kind of ugly in an endearing way. I bet it would have looked better with "SUPERSTAR" in white.

But yeah, it looked good to me and the price was fair, so I was thinking of maybe buying it. Then when I saw the serial number on the back, I knew it was the right fit for my collection..

12/25!

As I say, I don't really watch wrestling, but I've seen John Cena enough in movies and on talk shows that I've become a fan of his. Seems like a good dude. Smart, down to earth, good sense of humor, does a lot of great charity work (His 600+ wishes granted ranks first all-time in Make-A-Wish Foundation history).

But what really won me over was when I saw this YouTube video a couple years back of a beautiful piano recital of "Where Is My Mind?", a song by the Pixies, one of my favorite bands. Being able to play piano like that on top of everything else he does damn near makes him a renaissance man. I don't know if I'd go as far as to use the term "man crush", but I'm impressed enough to start a little PC of the guy, the first active/modern male wrestler ever added to my wantlist. This is my first card of him, so if any of you have John Cena cards for trade, I'd likely be up for them.

Currently the top male wrestler in my collection by quantity is Sgt. Slaughter, PC pictured above. I've been a fan of his since a kid in the 80s when I was all about G.I. Joe and he was one of the very few "real people" to get his own GI Joe action figure. I recently followed a Classic GI Joe Twitter account, and it's been a blast from the past to see pictures of those old toys and comic books. The other day I "liked" a tweet from them regarding Sgt. Slaughter and a short while later I had a nice surprise...

Woo! Always a thrill to be followed by a celebrity you grew up admiring (see also Bill Madlock for me). With around 6k people he's following, it's not exactly an elite group, but still very cool.

Other than what's pictured in this post, I've got 3 or 4 cards of Andre The Giant and a couple Hulk Hogan, but I think that's about the extent of my card collection of male wrestlers. I wouldn't mind adding some Roddy Piper and Randy Savage cards at some point, too.
Thanks for stopping by.

card show bonus box from Rod

Always nice to bump into Rod at the monthly card show; And when he surprises me with a box of cards.. even better! Let's check out what this one's got in store.

I love shiny, numbered cards. That orange Wil Myers is #'d a scant 7/25... wow!

Hot rookies representing!

Some hits and inserts. Tanaka relic, pink Giancarlo, Big Hurt rookie reprint, and a couple Twins. That /25 Sano may come in handy if I ever attempt hammering out another trade with his Twitter supercollector.

More 2018 stuff. This is my first look at '18 Gallery in-hand. Although in my eyes this product is just a step above Panini Triple Play-- unless they're vintage or 1/1 sketchcards, I have very little interest in drawn/painted baseball cards-- I will give Topps credit on the solid design this year.

More good stuff from the box I can use.

Half dozen certified autos! Some familiar Padres From The Past for me here. Rymer Liriano didn't make it out of AAA this past season (Angles and Brewers systems), but did crank 20 homers, so maybe he'll stick around a while longer. Dane Phillips was a 2nd round pick in 2012 that didn't pan out and seems to have been out of baseball this year. Ben Davis was another highly touted Padres catcher who didn't live up to expectations, but at least he made the show and saw action in 7 MLB seasons.

A trio of signed customs! Always nice when there are extra Padrographs that Rod can share with me.

The backs look good too. I know firsthand that making custom backs can be a pain (they usually take like twice as long as the fronts if you include stats n' such), so I appreciate it when anyone takes the time to not just leave a custom as a blank-back.

I'm sure there are a few needs for me here in this nice Gwynn lot.

Rounding out the surprise box from Rod was a big stack of WWE divas. Some keepers for my "girlie card" minicollection here, including a pair of Alexa Blisses and rookie cards of Liv Morgan and Ronda Rousey.

Huge thanks, Rod! I'm in your debt, per usual, so please don't hesitate to let me know if I can help you out with anything.. cards, customs, photoshop work, whatever!

A lovely pair

After several months on the lookout, I finally landed a Billie Lourd auto for my collection. I became smitten with her as the "slightly odd-looking but still super cute" young woman who had a minor role in the recent Star Wars movies, and then I came to learn she's the daughter of Carrie Fisher, which is a cool bonus, but seems to make her autos a bit more expensive than you'd otherwise expect.

I've also been watching through the TV show from a little while back she was on called Scream Queens, which while not exactly up my alley is still worth checking out. Another thing I learned about Billie recently is that she auditioned for the lead role of Rey, ultimately portrayed by English actress Daisy Ridley. That would have been crazy! But no, Billie ended up as Kaydel Ko Connix, a key member of the Resistance, which is a character created specifically for her by director J. J. Abrams for The Force Awakens. Lourd reprised the character with a larger part in The Last Jedi, and is slated to return once more in the forthcoming Episode IX.

While Topps doesn't bother with "RC" designations on their Star Wars cards, this 2016 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Series 2 card is effectively a "rookie autograph" card, as it was her first certified auto on the market. She's got a nice, legible signature, which is always appreciated more than a lazy squiggle or two. So yeah, this card is a sweet addition to my Star Wars and/or Girlie Card minicollection.

And while on the subject of attractive ladies on cardboard, here's another recent pickup...

I don't watch wrestling other than maybe once in a blue moon catching a short clip or two online, but sometimes a "diva" calls to me and I want to get her represented in my card collection. First was AJ Lee a few years back, followed by Alexa Bliss, and now here's Liv Morgan. She caught my eye with her fresh look-- well, ok, being honest she doesn't appear to be a whole lot different than Alexa Bliss.. short, pretty blonde girl-- and from what I can tell, she seems kooky and fun. I hear her trademark shtick is entering the ring with a blue tongue from eating candy. Sure, why not.

It's a rookie auto /199, so that's cool. I doubt I'll go out of my way picking up more of her cards, but if any of my trader buds who collect wrestling have available Liv Morgan cards, feel free to toss them in for me.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!