It’s a COMC X-Mas (2013, Part 1 of 5)

I’m not much of a supporter of COMC.  I don’t intend to ever sell on their website, because I find the fee structure to be insanely difficult to rationalize.  I understand the reason for it, considering their vast infrastructure, but when a 1990 Topps common has to be sold for $0.35 (.25 of which going to COMC), things have gotten out of hand.

Still, there are deals to be had, and the fact that they transitioned to hiding the crazy shipping price into the built-in card price made it more accessible as a buyer.

So, this is an extended look at my first foray into COMC.  I bought a total of 85 cards (all serially numbered) as a Christmas present to myself in 2013, which will be split into 5 parts for sanity reasons.  I don’t know if what follows will be a “worst to best,” but I’ve sorted them all from cheapest to most expensive and then highest numbered to lowest.

I hit on all 7 of my player collections except for Carlos Marmol, because I didn’t find any of his at a price point I was comfortable with considering the numbering.

#85

$0.50 – #/799 – 2011 Topps Tier One – The first on the list is one of only three Frank Thomas cards and a good example of how the scans on COMC still don’t tell the whole story. I tried to look for defects and if they looked iffy, I would not put them in my cart.  This is one that looked okay, but still didn’t meet my standards once it arrived so I’ll want to upgrade eventually.  Luckily out of the 85 cards, I think maybe 5 ended up gray on my spreadsheet.

#84

$0.50 – #/520 – 2010 Bowman Blue – Here’s one of 8 Ryan Dempster cards.  I may have touched on this before, but I find it interesting that the paper Bowman cards have a different pictures than the chrome ones from the same year.

#83

$0.63 – #/799 – 2011 Topps Tier One – The first of 11 Gwynns that will eventually show up. I’m intrigued by the sets with numbered base cards.  I would like to get to a point, financially, where I can take a flyer on a box like that.  For now, I’ll pick up the scraps for pennies on the dollar.

#82

$0.65 – #/500 – 2013 Bowman Blue – I only grabbed 4 Starlin Castro cards, because people tend to overvalue the younger players on that site.  You may also see a little bit of a trend where certain sets or parallels are given less clout than others.

#81

$0.68 – #/1350 – 2007 Topps Triple Threads – I already have the gold version of this card (#/99), so I figured it was worth paying a few cents to grab the most basic version as well.

#80

$0.68 – #/424 – 2013 Topps Museum Collection Copper – Aside from the non-numbered version, this is the most common of the non-relic/auto rainbows.  Two theories on why 424 is our baseline here.  1) It was printed to order, and pre-orders only dictated that many or 2) They were hoping for 450 or 500 but a production error wiped it out and they didn’t want to go down to 400 and have 24 extra copies of each laying around.

#79

$0.70 – #/2000 – 1999 Upper Deck Forte Double – The bulk of my purchase was Kerry Wood.  Get used to seeing this guy, because he accounts for 58 of the 85.  Die cuts are pretty cool.  Parallels of insert sets can also be cool, albeit annoying to chase.

#78

$0.70 – #/599 – 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Blue – Not even 10 cards in, and we have 75% of our Castros accounted for.  I really like the GQ framed parallels, so for less than three quarters, it wasn’t hard to add this to the cart.

#77

$0.74 – #/5000 – 1998 Leaf Rookies and Stars Standing Ovations – I may have overpaid for some of these cards.  In some instances, I can see myself finding these in a quarter box at a card show if I have enough patience.  Then again, it’s not like I price out every single card on my list, so I probably would have bought this from a dollar box as well, which would be more than I paid.

#76

$0.74 – #/500 – 2011 Bowman Blue – Oh look, another Bowman baby blue.  I like this tone and it works well with my Cubs.

#75

$0.74 – #/500 – 2012 Bowman Blue – The 4th and last Starlin Castro is yet another Bowman blue.  I don’t know why these are so relatively cheap.  The numbering isn’t that high and I think you maybe get one blue per box.  I don’t know, collecting is weird.

#74

$0.75 – #/1000 – 2003 Donruss Elite Back to the Future – I have no idea why this set is called that.  The back of this version talks about his stats and prowess.  Nothing about projections or time or Jaws 13 or anything.  The front doesn’t show a timeline or years or dates.  Just a Cubs bullseye for an off-camera dunk tank.

#73

$0.75 – #/999 – 2004 Studio Rally Caps –  Wow is this card bad.  The logo reminds me of some crappy budget Windows 95 software you would see in a Walmart bin.  And that forced photo with the rally cap?  Good God, no wonder you never see Kerry Wood smile on his cards.

#72

$0.75 – #/900 – 2005 Playoff Prestige Prestigious Pros Blue – Foil cards do not scan well.  This blue bordered card is one of four parallels I snagged from this set.  The sad thing is, I still have 4 more left in the Prestigious Pros line (#/50 or higher) to find some day.

#71

$0.75 – #/699 – 2005 Leaf Limited – Away -Wow, you really can’t see anything here.  Just know that this is the away version – hence the gray uniform – and that there is a home version yet unclaimed by me.

#70

$0.75 – #/500 – 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Draft Class – Todd Helton is on the other side of this kinda-low numbered insert.  Luckily, I won’t have to battle any Helton fans for ten different versions of this card.  The only parallel is a dual signature #/5, which is well out of my scope.

#69

$0.75 – #/150 – 2006 Topps Co-Signers Changing Faces Bronze #9B – To end this round, I leave you with a very convoluted set.  Derrek Lee takes center stage on this card, but there is a #9A with Kerry Wood in full color and D. Lee in bronze.  And a few more player combinations in bronze to chase.  And again in other colors for a total of 54 different “Changing Faces” cards, of which this is only one.  Awesome…  You’ll see more Co-Signers later.  You’ll also see that even at #/150 this is not the lowest number card I got for 75 cents, but that must wait until next time.