Ruth, Gehrig & Everything in Between - A COMC Blaster

Just a quick "virtual blaster" tonight, courtesy of my favorite hobby site on the web, COMC.  Let's see what $20 in Paypal credit landed me this time around, starting with the Babe Ruth above.  Still plugging away at 2007 Goudey, the set that got me back into collecting a decade ago now.  I jumped at this hard to find short print of the Sultan of Swat for a buck twenty five.

This mint O-Pee-Chee card of Hakan Loob (one of the most fun names to pronounce from '80s era hockey) will be put to use in a future Stat Kings post.

This Xander Bogaerts Black Wave Refractor is one of the more expensive cards in today's post at an even $3, but I still feel I got a steal on this one.  I love the Bowman "wave" refractors in general, and Bogaerts is my favorite current player and one of the few I collect en masse.

I'm expecting big things from Xander during the 2017 season, which starts on Monday for Boston.  After really busting out last year with a .294 / 21 HR / 89 RBI stat line and an OPS over .800 Bogaerts clearly established himself as a legitimate threat at the plate.  He's been able to stay healthy since becoming the team's mainstay at short, and has come tantalizingly close to a 200-hit season the past two years (with 196 and 192 hits respectively).  Can't wait to see how things pan out here!

Tyler Randell debuted with the Bruins last year, and his 6 goals over 27 games played were good enough to get him a Young Guns rookie in Upper Deck's Series 2 release.  He's been stuck down in Providence this entire season though, unable to crack the talented Boston roster.  Even if he never suits up for the B's again it will be cool to have this card of a short-term Bruin, and it was dirt cheap anyway.

By the way, if you're only going to end up with a few NHL hockey cards you could do much worse than this, what a great photo!

Next up, a couple of shiny Mike Napoli cards.  From 2014 Bowman Chrome, one of my favorite parallels in recent years, the "Bubbles Refractor".  These are numbered to /99 and are simply gorgeous in hand.

Paired with that one is a nice Black Refractor from 2013 Topps Chrome, serial-numbered to /100.  I finished the X-Fractor, Purple Refractor and Orange Refractor team sets this year.  I started on the Black Refractors but ran out of steam.  Not before I landed this one though.

This Vladimir Tarasenko RC is a big card for my 2013-14 Prizm set.  Vladimir is one of the most exciting snipers in the league, period.  In 2014-15 he scored 37 goals.  Last year, 40.  This season he's at 36 with a few games still to play.  Those numbers are nothing to scoff at in the modern NHL.

Mixing it up a little with some vintage.  Scored this one for 50 cents during a sale.  Can't beat that!

I showed one of these Tip Top Bread inserts from 2013 Panini Golden Age last time I did a COMC blaster a couple of weeks ago, and I'm hooked on these inserts.  Stan the Man set me back a buck and a quarter, and just like that I'm 20% of the way to completing this 10-card die-cut insert set.

I aspire to someday complete the 100-card Framed parallel set from the inaugural Gypsy Queen release in both Green and Paper versions.  This Green Tris Speaker, which even if I weren't pursuing the set would be an awesome Red Sox card in its own rite, was had for just two quarters.

Going to wrap it up here with a trio of shiny cards, one hockey and two baseball.  First, the hockey.  If you've read this blog for a while you may have seen me gush about these Blue Cubes parallels from 2014-15 OPC Platinum before.  At 65 copies each they're tough, so when a seller had a bunch of stars listed at $1.50 over Black Friday weekend last year I snagged a few more for my collection, including Joe Pavelski here.

When these sparkly Topps Chrome Update cards came out towards the end of 2015 I went a little overboard.  I completed the entire set, then grabbed a few of the rarer serial-numbered parallels of Red Sox players as well.  There are just 99 copies of this Black Refractor in existence.  Rodriguez has a spot in the rotation to start the 2017 season, and I'm not sure anyone truly knows what to expect from him.

Last card for today, the latest addition in my slowly moving project of acquiring the different Legends variations from the 2011 Topps flagship release.  I was pretty pumped to land this Cognac Berra for just a dollar even.

That brings the total up to $20.01, so I'll stop there.  At a baker's dozen, I might not have gotten the most quantity out of this virtual blaster, but the quality is there for sure.  Thanks for stopping by!