COMC Hobby Box - A Super-Villain and an Auto!

Time for packs 11 and 12 from my Check Out My Cards hobby box. These bring us to the half-way point of the project. It's taken 9 days to get through the first half, so at this pace I should have things wrapped up within a couple of weeks.

Pack 11:

1990 Impel Marvel Comics - #59 - Doctor Octopus ($.25)

I was never really into comic books growing up. I guess I spent too much time playing hockey, and the rest of my free time with other things. I thought some of the characters were pretty cool though, and as someone who collected cards I ended up with a whole bunch of these Marvel cards that were put out by Impel Marketing in 1990. I think this was a neat set and that the cards were done pretty well. Chalk it up to nostalgia I guess. In any event, I was trying to get some obscure subjects in the spirit of A & G, so this works.

The backs are done pretty well too. I guess this guy's a portly fella, at 5'9" and 245 pounds. Not a very impressive win-loss record either, whatever the hell that means. There will be one more card from this set featured later in my hobby box. Anyone else out there collect these back in the day?

2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants - #RB - Rick Burleson Signatures Silver ($5.50)

My second hit, this time an auto. Pretty nice on-card auto of The Rooster! 4-time All-Star, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger award winner, and one of the best players on the mid to late '70's Red Sox teams. Very happy to add this Red Sox auto to my collection. This is a set that I really like as well, and could see myself ripping a box of if I can find it at the right price. I ripped 10 packs of this a long time ago, however I can only seem to put my hands on two packs worth of cards now. The rest has to be sitting around in a box somewhere...

1986 Fleer - #46 - Ozzie Smith ($.25)

Yet another '80's Ozzie that I didn't have. What can I say, I guess the Wizard was on my mind when I was putting together this box...

1994-95 Parkhurst Missing Link - #155 - Lindsay Loses Battle ($.17)

Another set that I haven't outright pursued but has been somewhat on the radar. I think I'm up to around 40-50 cards out of the 180-card set. These action shot cards towards the end of the set are a highlight in my opinion. What a great photo, Gordie Howe's even present (furthest guy to the left, along the boards).

1992 Mother's Cookies Nolan Ryan 7 No-Hitters - #5 ($.30)

Definitely the most bizarre photo in the Mother's Cookies 7 No-Hitters set. I'm not sure why they chose a photo from this angle, maybe they really wanted to show off the Astrodome roof? Either way I love the hideous multi-colored Astros uniform.

2006 Allen & Ginter Mini - #292 - Terry Francona ($.21)

I didn't get back into collecting until the summer of 2007, so my 2006 Allen & Ginter stack is paltry at best. I now have just 7 full-size cards plus this Tito, my first mini. In my (biased) opinion Francona is one of the best managers in baseball. True, the Sox payroll is pretty high, but he does a great job dealing with the Boston spotlight and the sometimes difficult personalities (cough, cough...Manny...cough, cough).


Insert:

2009 Topps Updates & Highlights - #LGU20 - Frank Robinson Legends of the Game ($.25)

These are classy looking inserts, until now I only had the two Nolan Ryan's from the '09 Update set. I'd like this card even more if Frank was sporting an Orioles jersey, but it's still a nice addition for a quarter.


Pack 12:

2010 Topps Heritage - #173 - Boston Speed Party (Pedroia/Ellsbury) ($.25)

Couldn't pass up this Heritage card of two of the hottest players in all of baseball for the last few weeks!

1974-75 Topps - #138 - Bernie Parent ($.69)

Most of the 74-75 Topps that I've shown so far has just been set filler, but this is a card I would've picked out whether I was chasing the set or not. Even though it's a bit off-center, the back more so than the front, I had no problem forking over $.69 for this one. Besides it's pretty close to the rest of my 74-75's condition-wise.

I'm not sure what the rationale behind showing the 1961-62 All Stars on the back of this card was. Each All-Star card from this set shows a past All-Star team from a different year on the back...

2011 Gypsy Queen - #47 - Jimmy Rollins (Framed Green Parallel) ($.63)

Did I say I was done with Gypsy Queen in these posts? Well I lied. I forgot I have a few more framed parallels (and maybe one more insert) to go. Any time I run across one of these I don't have for under a buck I'm grabbing it.

1995 Emotion - #77 - Ken Griffey Jr. ($.23)

One thing that always bugged me about the Emotion sets was that certain cards used a word that's definitely not an emotion. Junior? He doesn't seem to be as junior today? Did you see how juniored he was? Nope, just doesn't work. Still a nice looking card though.

2009-10 Upper Deck Champ's - #89 - Steven Stamkos ($.39)

I've loved the look of the regular-sized 2009-10 Champ's cards since I first saw them. After busting a hobby box, and then picking up a bunch of singles at the hobby shop, I was just 3 cards away from the 100-card base set. Stamkos was one of them, two more to go!


Mini:

1975 Topps Mini - #94 - Jim Lonborg ($.40)

I always grab reasonably priced Lonborg cards when I run across them, mostly because he was such an integral part of the '67 Red Sox team. Again, the trivia question here seems a tad easy, no?


Insert:

2010 Bowman - #BT60 - Daisuke Matsuzaka (1992 Bowman Throwback) ($.22)

Perhaps I went a tad bit overboard with these 1992 Bowman Throwback Red Sox. I think I have two more to go after this one.


Pack 11: $6.93
Pack 12: $2.81
Running Total: $38.47

Now that we're at the half-way point, and in the interest of variety, I may sneak in a couple of unrelated posts before going on to packs 13 and 14. When I do get around to them I'll be featuring another ferocious predator, some world champions and another card from the '50s.