COMC Keepers: Basketball y Football
Hi! Wow, we’re gonna be posting two days in a row! If I may be so bold as to promote an internet buddy of mine’s podcast for my nerdier readers out there before we get to it, I’m listening to the latest Nerd Nation Podcast (with guest Savage Hawkman’s Mark Poulton) as I type this. Lots of technical difficulties this week, but the interview is aces. Check the archives too, they tend to get some pretty outstanding guests.
With the unsolicited promotion out of the way, let’s get right into this here recent COMC order then. We’ll start with the basketball & football keepers I guess, since that’s what I typed in the title section.
First up, new Steven Jackson!
Early 2000s Upper Deck multisport Moss/KG and an LT /799..
Shakespearean Actor Eddie George!
It’s true. He’s Julius Caesar! I can’t find the review, but he’s apparently pretty good.
Sweet Spot Warrick Dunn, Prestige & BowSter Jamaal Charles..
Upper Deck & Philadelphia Marques Colston jerseys..
Flashback Fabrics and Blue Inception /209 MJDs. Two of the swankier cards in the whole lot. Good stuff..
Kareem Sticker, embossified AI, Jersey AI, LeClair, Granger, Love, and Pierce..
I guess LeClair isn’t strictly a keeper, but I’d need a Byfuglien or Marian Hossa relic for it, so the window is pretty narrow. That’s also my first hockey swatch card. My only other Hockey hits are Doug Gilmour and (I think) Tim Taylor autos. I guess Kareem and Kevin Love could be had too, if you have something similar of someone I might like more.
Reflections football was one of my faves from the past decade, so being able to get the jersey third of my impending Paul Pierce trifecta from the basketball version was nice.
Studio Deron Williams powder blues & a Luther Head auto that's all kinds of classy. The ink is even silver. Freakin' sweet..
Finally, Luol Deng Bowman sticker auto, Trilo3y jersey, & Sterling jerseyfractor /199..
And that’s all for this one. Baseball keepers are on deck (also Bears, I’m not going back and adding more to this post), random keepers in the hole. All I need to do is hunt up my Deng & Head rookies or upgrade to cooler ones (all I have of either is plane ol’ Topps I think), and kapow, Trifecta complete! Thanks for reading, folks. 
Until our next…
COMC Order #6: Mini Hamburger Edition
Yes, that’s right, the final mini from my order is one I’ve been wanted to get my saucy lil mitts on ever since I heard about it:
Mayo Hamburger
From the 2009 Mayo World’s Fair insert set comes this delicious card, which is where this dumbfoundingly delicious delicacy of dubious health content dramatically debuted (alliteration, f*** yeah!) . Oh how I wish this card was scratch & sniff. Don’t you wish your computer monitors were? Yummy.
It’s a card. Of a hamburger.
COMC Order #5: National Heroes Edition
Time for one of my buffer posts! The next in line for the COMC order from late last year. More minis from another set I’m collecting, 2009 Allen & Ginter National Heroes. I think I’m in double digits now, but still tons left to go. Take a look at what came in this order:
Sadly I didn't remember to scan the backs of these, because they are super interesting for a history geek like me.
I wonder if my wantlist for these (or anything, for that matter) is updated. (Yes, yes they mostly are…) Anyone still have any of these they’d like to move? Let’s make a deal!
.::~Outtro~::.
COMC Order #4
We’ve officially come to the mini portion of the show. First up, a little something from the excellent 2008 Upper Deck Goudey. Heh…
Champions!
Big Ben- Two Super Bowls.
Bill Russell- 11 NBA Championships (the last two as a player-coach). Also, holy sh*t!
Emmitt Smith- Three Super Bowls.
Tom Brady- Three Super Bowls.
19 championships combined. There are no losers here. C’mon LeBron & LT, prove you belong in the company of these men. Hit Parade of Champions is another set I’m collecting, although I’ve never bothered to look up how many cards are even in the set (okay, 30 according the Baseball Cards Wiki… also, it’s probably too late Mattingly, Griffey Jr., & Yaz to become champions unless it’s in a coaching role). I have seven, counting these, including two of the biggies, Kobe and the previously mentioned LeChump.
Someday I’d like to get a few cards from the original set it’s based on. Narrowly missed on some hockey player from it once. Finishing the modern remake is more pressing the moment though. A card from an obscure set from 1954 isn’t likely to come through a trade. I guess I did get a ’53 Bowman in a trade once, not to mention a freakin’ Walter Payton rookie through trading, so I guess I should never say never.
That’s it for this one. More minis comin’ up next time, also continuing the heroic trend from these Champions, in a much more meaningful way. And by meaningful, I mean the kind of heroism that tends to get you executed by the oppressive powers that be for doing your damnedest to usurp them and freeing your country from their tyrannical grip. Seeya!
Bustin’ sh*t up in the name of freedom!
No One’s Going to Read this Post
Heh…
My first second thing to do now that I’m back is to get some old trade posts up. So, here goes. This trade comes to me courtesy of No One’s Going to Read this Blog. This isn’t quite the usual trade, oh no. This one started as an art trade, a sketch card for a sketch card. Then when I couldn’t decide on who I wanted, I suggested it be a twofer, one real person, one fictional character. And so it was done. I did an Adrian Peterson and a group shot of the Fantastic Four for Jeremy (you can check my deviantART link on the sidebar if you’d like to see them, as well as some of my other work), and I received the following two cards in return:
- Starlin Castro
- Raven from Teen Titans
Very nice work all-around. I can’t quite find the words to adequately to explain what it is about the cards that makes me like them so much, but who really wants to read a critique anyway? Suffice to say I think they are great, and welcome additions to my sketch card collection, as well as the individual collections I have for each.
The back of Jeremy's cool custom sketch cards.
On top of the sketch cards, we also ended up finding a few regular cards on our respective wantlists to trade. Here are just a few of the cards I received (the ones I was able to get scanned before they got sorted away).
Aramis w/ fancy-pants border.
More '09 A&G minis...
The Cubs Power Trio on '07 Goudey
Finally, an Action Packed Billy Williams..
And that’s all for this one, sports fans! A fun trades it was. It’s good to be blogging again.
Until our next…
A Post? For Realz? ~~ Thoughts and Sox WBC
First, let me start by saying I’d like to post more often. It’s not like I don’t have endless amounts of free time to post, because quite frankly, I do. As you may know, I am Bipolar to a pretty serious degree. As such, actual pressing responsibilities are pretty few & far between. I don’t have a lot I have to do, though I have slowly been taking over more and more of my life the last 18 months or so. The problem is, I just don’t have any useful discourse very often. I don’t trade a ton because I’m so slow about it (again, no real excuse for the slowness, my baseball cards aren’t even horribly disorganized anymore) and my ability to scan stuff is limited to how often I go over to my parents’ place and actually leave myself enough time to scan between other stuff, since I’ve never gotten around to getting myself a scanner (not that I have room for one right now anyway). And I’m not focused enough to stay fully up on the latest news, so I can’t really comment on the state of the Hobby that much, or whatever other pretty shiny piques my interest any given hour. My funds are so limited that there’s no point in keeping that close of a watch on things anyway, since I’m not gonna be able to experience a lot of what the hobby has to offer, in pack/box form at least.
That all said, I do have a growing backlog of trade packages scanned and ready for posting. So I’ll start with World Baseball Classic half of the still somewhat recent trade with Thoughts and Sox. There were some great football cards too, but we’ll get to those another time. Otherwise it’ll be daybreak before I finish this post, and I’m trying hard to not do that so much anymore. So enough jibba-jabba, let’s get into it.
These are from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars. Two or three cards shy of the 25 card base set, and I think one dupe.
These cards are super shiny and like Spuctrum, and are almost exactly as thin. They look ten times better though, with the solid colored world map in the background to even things out. The flags class things up a bit too.
Now we're getting to the parallels. The greens are #'ed to /499 and the red to /299.
The purples are numbered /1799 and are presumably the easiest parallel pull. Apparently there are three more levels of parallel as well, according to Upper Deck's checklist.
Not to be outdone, here is topps' chromed out 2009 Bowman version of World Baseball Classic subset/insert overkill. I love it though. The WBC is a fun event.
Last scan and then we're in the clear. Lots of shiny good stuff. Thanks again to Thoughts and Sox, and remember, if you want to dump your unwanted World Baseball Classic stuff, you can send it riiiight here.
.::~Outtro~::.
Trade Packages- Outbound
My cards are becoming somewhat more organized, and my end of trades are starting to get done! So here’s an update:
• Four trade packages have been packaged up and are ready to go. They are for Marie, Heartbreaking Cards, Community Gum, JD’s Wild Cardz, The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, no one’s going to read this blog, and I believe Carl Crawford Cards.
• Packages for Too Many Grandersons, Hey That’s Mine, Shoebox Legends, Indians Cards, Play at the Plate, Dayf and Mojo are organized and almost ready to be mailer’d up.
• Sooz, Baseball Card Stuff, and the First Day Issue I just need to sort… Yes, I’m still at the sorting stage on these, my three oldest trades still left hanging. Sooz and BCS’s were ready long ago, but their Jeters got mixed up again somehow… 
• Wicked Ortega, Offy, All Your Base Cards, The Real DFG, anyone who wants Cardinals cards, Dinged Corners, and Drew also have very disorganized piles of cards picked out for them.
• I have also found some stuff for My Cardboard Mistress and Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid and could almost put them up with the almost ready to be mailer’d up bunch.
• Thoughts and Sox, I believe your cards were sent at the beginning of this week.
• Who else, if anyone, do I owe stuff after all this?
• Man, October’s gonna be a busy month for the post office.
• Finally, does anyone want a really big stack of 2008 and 2010 MLS soccer cards? Or a much smaller stack of hockey cards? Or a pile of random wrestling and/or non-sports “entertainment” cards?
• That is all. Seeyas. 
CECE Swag
Voice of the Collector hit the recent Chicagoland Entertainment Collectors Expo. He tweeted me he had picked up something to send me, so I sent my address, and a few days later there was a big bubble mailer among my little eBay ones. It took awhile for it to register with me where it came from though because the shipping was handled online and thus looked much like the rest of the eBay mailers. So after looking through everything in the package (twice) in astonishment and bewilderment, thinking someone I purchased something from on eBay mistakenly sent these, I finally noticed the name and address it came from. Then it FINALLY clicked with me that this is what Rob sent. Good ol’ David ain’t got a thing on my slow-wittedness… *sigh*
With the super secret origin out of the way, let’s see all the freakin’ awesome stuff he sent! Not much I can add, mostly gonna let the coolness speak for itself. So just sit back, relax, and enjoy the pretty. 
First the big stuff!
The backs!
Then some artist promos (and business cards!)..
The backs..
CECE-specific artist promos..
Here's what the backs of these look like..
Art by Katie Cook, Jay Shimko, Bill Pulkovski, Trevor Mueller, Connie Persampieri, Larry Elmore, and Jessica Hickman
Art by John Haun, Peter G., Steven Miller, Ken Kelly, Chris Henderson, Warren Martineck, Denise Vasquez, Bruce Gerlach, and Andy Broome..
Art by Brett Pinson, Kevin Leen, Randy Martinez, Tom Kelly, Paul Allan Ballard, Tony Miello, Corbett Vanoni, Leah Mangue, and Chris Kuchta..
Finally these two..
The backs..
And yes, these are probably about as close as I will ever get to owning a Katie Cook sketch card without pulling one:
*le sigh*...
Thanks for these great cards, Rob! Please let me know if I can send anything in return.
Until our next…
Trading Day Pt. 1
Two trade packages arrived (last) Monday. They were good too, scratching a few wantlist items that rarely get itched. Or something. Um, anyway, here is the first, from the BA Benny hisself. And believe it or not, I actually sent my end of this one out first, and in a timely manner. What? I’m not lying! It’s true, I swear! Oh, hey, is that Bigfoot making out with the Loch Ness Monster? 
Less talk, mo’ card pretty!:
Random Player/Team Collections..
Several 2009 Chrome WBCs, including one familiar face..
2009 U&H Propaganda Posters, Randy Moss that didn't fit on the player/team scan, and the Bird Hit Parade of Champions that started the whole thing..
Great stuff, it’s good to focus on set needs and rarely touched upon collections sometimes.
.::~Outtro~::.
Trading Day Pt. 2: The Search for Curly’s Gold
September 22, 2010 at 19:18 (Sports Cards, The Trading Post, You've Got Mail) (2002 Gridiron Kings, 2005 topps Football is pretty, Aramis Ramirez, Bernard Berrian, Bowman looks better in blue., Brian Urlacher, Bronko Nagurski, Chicago Bears, commentary, Cubs, Danieal Manning, Devin Hester, Diamond Kings, Donruss, Felix Hernandez, Fleer Tradition, Geovany Soto, Go Cubs Go, Greg Olsen, Ichiro Suzuki, Jay Cutler, Julius Peppers, King Felix, Kosuke Fukudome, Kung Fu Panda, lets trade, Own the Game, Pablo Sandoval, refractors, reprints, Rex Grossman, Topps Finest, trades, Vlad Guerrero, Vladimir Guerrero, Walter Payton)
Here is the other package I received (last) Monday. These are from Too Many Grandersons hisself. Behold!
Suh-weet Walter Payton reprints, Gold Hester, base blue Manning parallel /500, Urlacher (foil and thus poorly scanned) insert from rookie year, and more Urlachers (have at that code)! How much better does that blue parallel look than the boring black borders that they've trotted out most of the last 10 or so years?? A set that looks that good I might actually consider collecting, as I once did the the '02 Gridiron Kings (even picked up about half the Legend SPs in a lot once upon a midnight's dreary).
More Bears! Greg Olsen, Bernard Barrien black parallel from one of the single greatest set designs in the history of cards, Cutler, some rookies, and my personal favorite, my first and Julius Peppers as a Bear.
Last of the Bears... The more I think about, the more I think Rex' dad was right about the Bears mismanagement of QBs, especially in the Super Bowl. Fortunately, in getting Martz, they seemed to have wised up to some degree. Not sure I like the total abandonment of the running game though. Somehow Bronko was the only card I already had amongst the Bears.
Moving on to baseball now…
Vladdy! I may have the Own the Game & one of ToppsTownies, but the rest are new to me, three I've never even seen before. The Diamond King is the gold parallel version #'ed to /2500.
Ichiro! Don't get a lot of him in trades. The '04 Own the Game in the middle just insane. And a rookie of the BEST catcher in baseball. Well, he's in that elite group with Mauer, McCann, and Victor Martinez (and maybe Posey in a year or two) at the very top anyway.
And a few of my favorite Cubs to finish it off. I really hope Big Z sticks around if it's between keeping him or Dempster. In fact, I think I'd just rather Dempster leave regardless. Something bothers me about him.
Thanks for the great cards! I’ll get together something worthwhile to send in return… eventually. *sigh*
.::~Outtro~::.
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