COMC Blaster - Smorgasbord

Today's installment of my "COMC Blaster" series contains what may be one of the more random mixes of cards to be featured in one of these posts yet.  You know the drill, $20 that could have been spent on a retail blaster gets used on COMC instead...

This run starts off with a card that is a perfect reminder of why I avoid retail wax.  For just 85 cents, I landed this '55 Bowman Sammy White.  I have fewer of these over-sized cards than any other year of the Bowman run from 1948 through 1955, save maybe 1948.  This one's got a surface wrinkle...

...and a couple more (along with a small stain) on the back.  Honestly though, for less than a dollar this is in good enough shape for my collection, and plugs a hole in my '50s Red Sox needs, which is always nice.

I picked up this Yaya Toure card for my small soccer collection because I enjoyed watching him play for many years with Manchester City in the Premier League.  Didn't hurt that it was serial-numbered to /199, and cost a very reasonable 60 cents!

I've posted a few times before about Gene Conley.  I became intrigued by him when I learned years ago that he won championships in both Major League Baseball and the NBA (with the Celtics).  Growing up in the Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders era, I've always been fascinated by multi-sport stars.  I was long overdue in adding Gene's '58 Topps card to my collection, and this was is in pretty fine shape for just 75 cents!

I'll likely get one or two folks who find this hard to believe, but I paid a full $5 for this Pterodactyl card from 2015 Upper Deck Dinosaurs.  I've been plugging away at the 42-card 3-D lenticular insert set from this release for a bit now, and this is one of a couple of extremely short-printed cards at the end of that checklist.  Most expensive card in today's post, as silly as that seems.

Here's a real beauty!  I've loved these Hot Glove inserts from 1994 Flair since I first encountered them as a pre-teen 25 years ago.  Flair cards were a huge deal, certainly for the first couple of years after they debuted, and I remember thinking at the time that the Hot Glove inserts in particular were some of the nicest baseball cards I'd ever seen.  Bold, colorful, and certainly one of the more creative uses of die-cut technology to date.

They still hold good value to this day, at least compared to a lot of other '90s cards.  I paid an even $3 for this Kirby Puckett, but that was after a good deal of haggling with a seller during a sale.  It's typically in the $5-6 dollar range.  There are a few cards on the checklist that are cheaper than Kirby, but a few that are tougher too (Bonds, Griffey Jr...).

Yeah, these are just spectacular.  I'd love to end up with all ten of them someday.  As it stands right now, I've got Kirby Puckett and Kenny Lofton in my collection on The Trading Card Database.  Eight more to go...

Here's another really cool one, from the Topps World on Wheels set.  I'm not a big car guy actually, but I just really enjoy random vintage cards, and these are quite beautiful.  They're over-sized, as many early to mid-'50s releases from Topps were.

I like the job Topps did on the backs of these as well.  These were printed in 1954, but the backs use the same color scheme as the infamous '53 baseball set.  I can't believe I brought this one home for just 63 cents.

Here's one that I grabbed a while back with a specific purpose in mind.  You'll see it again in an upcoming post.  49 cents!

An early-career Blake Swihart.  So early, in fact, that when this Bowman Silver Ice card hit shelves Blake had yet to make his MLB debut.  He didn't exactly light the world on fire in his 82 appearances last year, but he logged a lot of time for a World Series winning team so I thought it was a nice addition for just 55 cents.

1971-72 Topps hockey is such an iconic set.  I've gotten reasonably close to a completed set over the years, and I was excited to land this very clean copy of HOFer and Bruins fan favorite Johnny Bucyk for just $2.30.  My excitement was slightly dampened when I went to slide the card into the binder where I store this set, and found this in there already:

Ouch!  Now, the new card is definitely a condition upgrade, and it's not the worst card to have a double of for trade either.  Still, I can't help but think that I could've picked up something real nice with that $2.30 in credit (a '52 Bowman baseball card maybe?).  Oh well...

Sticking with the '70s but switching over to baseball for a moment, a great card of a man who seemed to receive many great cards.  This nice copy in "I'll never need to upgrade it" condition cost me all of 59 cents.  At that price I can't believe it took me as long as it did to finally pick up a copy of this one.

Daniel Sturridge has turned out in some respect to be the type of player who makes you wonder how much better he could have been had health and injuries not been such issues.  Even still, he's provided some very entertaining moments for me since I first began following the Premier League around 2012.  Couldn't resist this serial-numbered Press Proof parallel from 2015 Donruss for 82 cents.

If you've read my blog for any length of time this one should come as no surprise.  I continue to hunt down any and all of the retired legends variations from the Topps flagship sets that started around 2009.  This Willie McCovey, from the 2010 Topps Update set, features a great photograph shot from an angle that makes it look as though Willie's 10' tall.  $1.83 in credit for this card.

I love the Prizm sets that Panini did for the past two World Cups.  I also love "Wave Refractors".  Thus, I ended up with this Red & Blue Wave parallel of former Liverpool striker (and infamous ear-nibbler) Luis Suarez from the 2014 set for 85 cents.

Two Gene Conley cards in the same post?  What can I say, I was just pulling from my COMC backlog at random and that's how the cookie crumbled.  This oddball was printed up by the Wisconsin Historical Museum back in 2007.  I'd never seen one before stumbling across the copy on COMC, and at 66 cents I couldn't snatch it up fast enough.  Awesome shot of the lanky, two-sport star signing for some kids.  At the time of this post there are still a couple of copies available for under a dollar on the site.

Final card for today is from the more recent Panini Prizm World Cup set.  I've picked up quite a few of these, but this is my first look at the "Lazer Prizm" parallel.  I have way too many other projects right now, but some day I'd love to build a parallel franken-set from this release, and towards that end I figured this one of Arsenal star Mesut Ozil was worth $1.25 anyway.

That brings the running total for today to $20.17, and concludes today's post.  From soccer cards, to oddballs, to dinosaurs and motor cars, it's clear I have trouble focusing while perusing COMC.  Hope you saw something that interested you, and thanks for stopping by regardless!