Refractors, Rookies, Parallels and Even a Football Card...Another COMC Blaster

Let's take a break from buybacks today and check out a virtual blaster that I built with $20 in credit on COMC.  I've been doing these posts for years; they're some of my favorites to put together and some of my favorites to read when I see them on other blogs.  I guess I just enjoy seeing how different collectors approach the overwhelming behemoth that is COMC.

Anyway, let's see what I ended up with this time around...

A football card?!?!  No, you have not landed on the wrong blog here.  I don't collect football cards at all, so please don't send me any.  I do enjoy the NFL though.  While I wasn't really into football at all as a kid, I became an unabashed Patriots fan in high school/college about 20 years ago now.  I've been fortunate enough to see them win an unbelievable five Super Bowl championships in my lifetime.  You can let me have it in the comments.

Back to the card, why this one?  Well, look at the upper left corner...it's a buyback!  What can I say?  The seller accepted my best offer of 63 cents, and "Sugar Bear" Hamilton became my first football buyback.

I'm pretty much all in on these Tip Top Bread inserts from Panini Golden Age at this point.  I showed one in each of my last two COMC virtual blasters, and Brooks here puts me at 3 out of 10.  I'm sure with patience I could have found a copy of this for less than the $1.16 I paid, but I just want them all!

Next, a couple of Jose Fernandez cards.  I really enjoyed him as a player, he seemed like one of those athletes that was genuinely having a good time whenever he was at the ballpark.  This Topps Tek Ice Diffractor is serial-numbered to just /75.

Grabbed this Blue Wave Refractor rookie simply because I love all of the wave refractors from Bowman Chrome.  This pair of Fernandez cards ran me $3.16 combined.

Here's a nice '85-86 O-Pee-Chee card of one of the most successful players in NHL history.  Picked this one up for 85 cents (seems like the perfect price for a card from '85) to use in a future Stat Kings post.

This Mookie Betts was one of the better bargains in today's post.  I picked it up back on September 1st, 2014 for 56 cents (goes to show you how long some COMC cards sit in my card chest before I randomly pull them for posting!).  These days Betts is one of the hottest players in the game and in the hobby, and you'd be hard pressed to find a copy of this one for less than a couple bucks.

Still working on the set that got me back into collecting, 2007 Upper Deck Goudey, after all these years.

These two short-prints inch me closer.  I will finish this one off in 2017!  $2.20 for the pair, if only I could find the remaining short prints I need for that price.

I busted a box of '92-93 Upper Deck hockey a few years ago and hand-collated a set, but I'm still chasing down the last few Gretzky Hockey Heroes inserts from the release.  Shelled out 58 cents for this one, not bad.  Love the Oilers sweater here.

There's really no room on the current Red Sox roster for Blake Swihart, but as I said above I'm a sucker for wave refractors.  79 cents I'll never see again.

I feel like every one of these COMC posts that I do ends up with at least one framed Gypsy Queen card in it.  This time around it's a fantastic shot of Mel Ott, which was a steal at 50 cents.

I will buy any 2014 Bowman Chrome Bubbles Refractor I see if the price is right.  It certainly was on these two, as I paid 60 cents for the Castro...

...and 62 cents for Josh Beckett.

Here's another nice shiny card, a '95-96 Topps Finest Refractor of Scott Niedermayer.  Scott seems to be one of those HOFers that gets very little hobby love for some reason.  I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it's the fact that he played defense.  Whatever the case, these refractors were tough pulls, and I happily forked over a buck twenty five for this one!

This card represents probably my poorest decision of this post.  I picked this one up solely because it's an image variation, and because it could be had for 75 cents.  I have nothing further to add.

A Roger Clemens Red Sox insert with fire in the background for less than 40 cents?  Sure!

Here's the latest Xander Bogaerts card to debut here on the blog.  I've talked a few times before about my love for 2014 Topps Finest, one of the more colorful sets in recent memory, and this is a "Hot Box Orange Refractor", whatever that means.  A beautiful, shiny Bogaerts rookie that I got a real steal on.  The seller at the time accepted my best offer of $1.15, these days the cheapest example on the site is north of $4.

Still plugging away at these incredibly tough one-per-box yellow parallels from 2009-10 Champ's hockey.  One HOFer closer!  I am getting close to reaching the halfway point now with this 100-card set, not too bad!

I'm frequently on the lookout for cheap Bartolo Colon pick-ups, since I find him to be one of the more fascinating present-day athletes out there.  This Gold Refractor from 2014 Bowman Chrome certainly fit that bill at an even dollar, which seemed more than reasonable for a card that's serial-numbered to /50.

Last card of the day is the most expensive card in this entire post, ringing in at a whopping $2.11!  I love, love, love the early Topps Finest refractors from the '90s.  While the '93s are considered the holy grail among collectors, I truly appreciate the '94 and '95 versions just as much.  They're not the easiest cards to come by, especially on a budget, so I didn't mind plucking down $2 and change for this Greg Harris for my Red Sox collection.

That brings us to $20.04 on the day, close enough!  Thanks for reading along as always!