Cardboard Keepers - LeBron!

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

Today's entry into this project is a basketball card, and I'm virtually certain this is the first time in the history of this blog that back-to-back posts have been basketball-related.  Don't worry, I'm not turning into a full-on b-ball collector or anything, just kind of worked out this way for whatever reason.

As many have commented on recently, this hobby has gone absolutely insane recently.  I'm not sure how long it can keep up like this, or how long I can remain a collector if it does, but I'm trying to make lemons out of lemonade and take advantage of some of these outrageous prices to sell some things I am no longer interested in and pick up some significant cards with the proceeds (before I can no longer afford them, which happens in a matter of days in this climate).

This card is an example of just that, as I funded it entirely from eBay sales just last month:

Yes, the newest inductee into the Cardboard Keepers project is my first (and only) LeBron James rookie card!  I know his Topps Chrome RC (and it's various parallels) is considered the LeBron rookie to have, but since that now sells in good condition for more money than I paid for my new car four years ago, that wasn't happening.

I settled on this Bowman Rookies & Stars card instead.  It was right in the range of what I could afford in a PSA 9 based on the sales I'd made, and I really love that it shows him in his actual Cavaliers uniform (that Topps base card where he's wearing the white suit makes me cringe).

When I started to think about basketball players that I'd want in this collection alongside Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain (the only two basketball inductees so far), LeBron was an obvious choice.  I'll leave the debate about the all-time GOATs to someone with more basketball knowledge than myself, but is there anyone who thinks there's been a greater player in the NBA these last 20 years?

Here's a look at the back.  I like the layout actually, though I totally see how some could consider it overly "busy".

And now for a small rant about the state of the hobby.  Cards, not just select cards but seemingly ANY card that I develop an interest in, are literally rising in price exponentially by the week.  I purchased this card less than one month ago now, and while I won't get into the exact price, I will say that it cost me "three figures".  And it wasn't $999.99 either, it was a good deal less than that.

Well, in the few days that it took for the card to arrive in the mail, it rose to about a $1,200 card in a PSA 9.  In the couple of weeks since then, it's now eclipsed $2,000, and continues to trend upward.  Increasingly I get the feeling that, with the types of cards I'm searching for during my mission to condense and pick-up iconic cards, if I don't buy a certain card now, I will never be able to afford it again.  This "FOMO" landscape is not how I want to enjoy collecting, and there is no way that prices can continue to increase at this rate for very long, it's simply mathematically impossible.  I mean, at the rate things are going is this going to be a $10,000 card by the summer time?  I don't see how that's possible, even though I continue to be proven wrong on that front over these past 12 months.

I'm curious how you all are handling this new climate that we find ourselves collecting in?  Are you trying to make lemons from lemonade, and flip some overvalued cards into other more expensive overvalued cards like I am?  Are you just waiting it out for a bubble to burst?  Will the bubble ever burst, and will collecting ever again be what it was for us prior to 2020?  Ready to give up and find another hobby completely, perhaps?

Alright, sorry for the rant there, I'm just highly concerned for the future of this hobby.  If kids these days are completely priced out, and they can't even grab a pack of cards at the local big box store while shopping with Mom and Dad because the flippers cleared the shelves, will there even be anyone left who cares about sports cards in 20-30 years?  

For me at least, and for many collectors that I know, a big part of what we love about this hobby is the nostalgia factor.  If my Dad hadn't been able to purchase any cards for me as a kid because they were unavailable everywhere, and out of his price range when he could find them, I know for a fact that I wouldn't be a collector today.  I'd love to hear in the comments from anyone else who has similar worries, or even a contrary viewpoint!

As for the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection, it is up to 29 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 971 cards remaining to be selected.  With the way things are going it's looking doubtful that I'll ever finish this project, yet at this point anyway I intend to keep plodding along.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by! 

The Basketball Z-Folio Project - The Beginning

Over the past year, while working on selling off some things and condensing my overall collection down, rolling many small sales up into fewer, "bigger" cards has been my MO.  While I still believe this is the approach that's right for me at this stage in my collecting journey, it does leave me with a hole when it comes to the "have some good, cheap fun" side of the hobby.

Towards the end of last year I started to think about ways that I could still enjoy this side of collecting, but avoid things growing and sprawling out of hand in terms of sheer number of cards.  I settled on an idea of creating a single Z-Folio album for each of my lesser-collected areas of trading cards (football, basketball, non-sport, etc).

 If you're unfamiliar with the Z-Folio album, here's the one housing my basketball project.  These come in many different colors, I chose orange for this particular collection because it just seemed appropriate for the sport.  Last I looked they're around $25 on Amazon, with slight variations in pricing for certain colors. 

No, this one did not come with the hoop on the front, that's a custom sticker my wife created for me using her Cricut craft machine.  I'll probably add some more stickers to this over time, but for now at least I can easily look at this and determine what's inside without opening it.  Speaking of opening it, here's the first thing I like better about Z-Folio compared to your standard binder:

Yes, the Z-Folio zippers shut, all the way around the album.  While some may see this as an annoyance, I actually appreciate that it should keep the majority of dust out of these pages, and hopefully avoid that weird layer of "film" I sometimes see develop on the top of the first sheet in my standard Ultra Pro binders over time.

Inside the Z-Folio are 20 pages, each with 9 pockets on the front and 9 on the back, for a total of 360 available slots in the binder.  There's a solid black cloth backing on each page, so that the cards are housed back to back on a sheet.  Obviously this is not an ideal setup for those who really enjoy looking at the backs of their cards in binder form.  Are there a lot of those folks out there, though?  In fact, I know quite a few collectors that put their cards back to back in a standard Ultra Pro sheet anyway, just to economize space.

Besides, another thing that I really love about these is they are taller than your standard binder/sheets, and are designed for the card to fit within each slot while encased in a penny sleeve!  As you can see above, sleeved cards fit nicely right into each pocket, sliding in horizontally.  So, if you do want to have a look at the back of your cards (or shuffle around and rearrange what you have in an album), it's very easy to remove them without risking any damage.

So yeah, that's a bit about why I've really come to love these Z-Folios after learning about them in a YouTube video months back.  As I mentioned, I'll be looking to fill this one here with 360 cool, totally random basketball cards.  

Let's take a look at what I've got in the album so far...

You've seen this cheap Prizm Pink Ice Ray Allen parallel on the blog before, and in some of the photos above.  I'll buy amazing shiny basketball cards like this for less than a dollar for this project all day long!

Speaking of which, I'll likely dedicate an entire 9-pocket page to different variations of this Paul Pierce card.  So far I have the Pink Prizm to match the Ray Allen...

...and this Red White & Blue Prizm.  I've got at least a couple more parallels of this card on the way, whenever my COMC order from a couple months back eventually arrives.  In fact, there are quite a few singles for this project within that overall order.

Next up, a trio of Shaq rookies.  I was at a very impressionable age with my childhood collecting when O'Neal rose to fame, and even though I was never a big basketball collector I acquired a couple of his rookie cards at the time, at the local pharmacy where they had a small card shop setup with a display case up front.

The two that I prized most were this Skybox rookie (which I funded with money from raking leaves, if I recall) because of the really great photograph...

...and the Ultra RC, which I think was an under-rated card for a very long time.  I know it's not very rare, or super valuable, but this card is damn awesome.  Those foil ROOKIE ribbons on the first couple of Ultra sets across all sports were highly coveted among my group of childhood collecting friends.

Also tossed in this 1977 Topps White Back Dave Cowens card, which I picked up a long while back off of COMC just because it was cheap, and because I liked the photograph of the Celtics HOFer.  Look at those socks!  Like something my dad would have worn to go along with his "fanny pack" when we were walking around Disney World circa 1990.

Finally, the latest addition to the binder, and the card that caused me to get my act together and create this post finally!  I received this Mark Jackson card recently as a contest win from The Diamond King!  This card suddenly became quite popular a while back when it was noted that two well-known evil people are seated courtside along the left border of the photograph there.

Sort of a creepy card for sure, but an interesting one that I really wanted to include in the binder right from when I first conceived of it.  Big thanks to The Diamond King for holding the contest and sending me this one gratis, and thanks to everyone else for stopping by and reading a little bit about basketball cards from someone who knows admittedly very little about them.

With these 8 cards in the Z-Folio, I still have the fun of hunting and selecting 352 more before I call the project complete.  If I ever reach that point even, then I'll treat the binder like an un-numbered franken-set I suppose, where a new card can be accepted in only by booting an existing one out.  I'm a long way from having to make any of those decisions though, which I'm happy for since I enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

What's your opinion on Z-Folio binders if you've ever seen them?  Do you use any to store aspects of your own collection?  As you can see from this shot of my home office bookshelf, I've been bitten by the bug.  I'll be posting from time to time on what each of these is, and keeping you updated with my progress on each here on the blog as well.

In the meantime, thanks as always for stopping by!

Shiny from All Sports

Still around and still collecting, have just been using my hobby time to further organize and condense, and after taking a break for the holidays have started rolling with some eBay selling/flipping to reduce clutter and target some really big cards.  If you stop by here with any frequency then you know this strategy worked out amazingly for me last year, and I'll just say for now that I'm off to a similar start in 2021!

Since it's been over a week though since there was any activity here, I feel compelled to post something.

So, here are some shiny cards that have shown up here at Shoebox Legends headquarters in the past week or two.  Cards out, cards in, my collection has very much become a revolving door, and I'm having a blast with it...

As a fan of all cards that use Atomic Refractor (or 'Ice' in the Panini vernacular) technology, I really enjoy the Topps Chrome Sapphire releases.  Most years they are fairly limited as far as print run, and out of my price range when it comes to unopened wax, but I will scoop singles up cheap on the secondary market if the opportunity presents itself.

This David Ortiz/Albert Pujols is technically a checklist card, but it was $2 on Sportlots (plus pocket change for shipping) and features two of the absolute best hitters of their era.  I think the 2016 version of this set had a print run of just 250, so this is a cool addition to my shiny card binder.  Over 1,200 Major League home runs represented on this card!

Here's another one for that shiny card baseball binder, featuring one of the darlings of the 2020 post-season.  This was an add-on to an eBay purchase late last year, for a buck with no additional shipping.  Numbered to /499 on the back.

I love shiny Prizm cards, in fact we're about to go on a small run of great Panini cards in general.  Panini's NHL license was short-lived, but one of my favorite sets that they produced while it lasted was the 2013-14 Prizm release.  If I can get a legit star on a team-color-matching Prizm parallel from this release at a good price, I'm absolutely sold.  Henrik here, in glorious red-on-red, was available on Sportlots for just a dollar.

The same seller had this Green Prizm Roberto Luongo available for a buck as well.  Both guys are right on the cusp as far as whether they'll be inducted into the Hockey HOF, but one thing that's not up for debate is now nice all that shiny green looks with that modern-day Canucks uniform!

Landing a Crosby or Ovechkin parallel from this release is pretty high on my hockey to-do list, if anyone reading this should happen to have one, I'll pay handsomely in trade...

I mentioned a post or two back that I purchased some 360-card Z-Folio binders on Amazon, and am hoping to fill one each with my collections of my lesser-collected sports.  So, one binder full of only soccer, one football, and one basketball.  I ponied up a full $9 via eBay auction for this 2015 Select Ultimate Team Blue Prizm Neymar card (#'d /299), mostly because I think the blue looks fantastic with this particular photo.  This card pops in hand much more so than it does in this scan, though it doesn't look half bad here either.

$9 is more than I'd like to spend filling a slot in the soccer binder, but 2015 Select is really prized among soccer collectors, and Neymar is one of the best players in the world, so here we are.

Got a couple new cards in for the basketball binder as well!  I mentioned when I picked up the Pink Ice version of this 2019-20 Paul Pierce recently that I'd like to complete an entire 9-pocket page featuring different versions of the card.  Well, here's the Red, White & Blue parallel, had for a mere 50 cents.

While I was it it, here's another one of those fantastic Pink Ice parallels, of Paul's one-time teammate with the Celtics.  Growing up in Connecticut, Ray Allen was a household name as a big star at UConn.  Definitely wanted to have him represented in the basketball binder.  As for why I chose this particular card, see my comment at the outset of this post about my love for Panini "Ice" cards.  

By the way, everyone says basketball is so expensive, but this card was 40 cents?!?!

If you've made it this far, I'll reward you with a couple more baseball pick-ups to close out the post.  A Jake DeGrom 2018 Topps Heritage Chrome Purple Refractor here.  This was a perfect pick-up off of Sportlots now that I've started a Z-Folio dedicated entirely to purple cards, especially since 2018 was the first of his back-to-back Cy Young seasons.  I'd like to get a 2019 version of this to go side-by-side with this one in that binder.

We started with Pujols, and we'll end with Pujols.  The Topps "white border years" provided some of the best colored refractors in baseball card history if you ask me.  Shelled out $2.50 for this card, and I'd have bought 9 of 'em and filled a whole page at that price if I could have!

That's a wrap for tonight, getting late here, and I'm off to watch the rest of this train wreck of a football game.  Thanks for stopping by to check out my shiny cards, and stay safe!

Purple & Pink

I've got a few shiny card projects that I plan to work on in 2021, one of which involves a small binder filled entirely and exclusively with shiny purple cards.  Towards that end, here are a few that I've plucked recently...

At the beginning of this binder, I'd like to have complete Topps Chrome Purple Refractor Red Sox team sets of the white-border 2010 through 2014 sets.  Found a seller on Sportlots that had four I needed towards the 2014 team set, available for mere pocket change.

I really miss the colored Topps parallels from the years when the cards had a full border, these just look fantastic in hand.

I was especially pleased to find this Shane Victorino, as the photograph is amazing.  I've got many different flavors of this card between base and Chrome parallels, but the Purple Refractor had eluded me until now.  Look at how the crowd glows almost angelically.

I really thought Will Middlebrooks was going to be a stud, but it was not meant to be.  He did last quite a few seasons at the MLB level, though.

Even though Topps Chrome Purple Refractors are my favorite shiny purple cards, I do want some variety in the binder, so I added these next two for a buck a piece with free shipping when I tacked them onto an existing eBay order a few weeks back.  Can't go wrong with future HOFer Justin Verlander.

Trevor Story is one of the best shortstops in the game, has been for a few seasons running now.  Some say he has the potential for Cooperstown down the line.  I'm not sure, but I do know that I love a team color matching refractor, so this probably won't end up being the only Colorado Rockies card in the purple binder.  Maybe a Nolan Arenado or two to accompany Trevor here?

Back to back Trevors!  As the post title indicates, I enjoy a good Pink Refractor as well.  I tacked this 2018 Trevor Bauer onto a Sportlots order for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, I could add one more card to my order without increasing shipping cost, and this was available for a quarter.  Secondly, Bauer had recently won the 2020 Cy Young Award, so it seemed like a good time to add a shiny card of his.  Finally, of the sets that have come out since Topps moved away from the full white border, I think the 2018 Topps Chrome release has the refractors that look the best.

Part of that same order was this Xander Bogaerts 2020 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor, for my player collection of the Boston shortstop.  Xander has moved into the number one overall spot in my baseball collection as far as sheer number of cards, and I have a feeling he'll hang onto that title for quite some time.

One more card to close out today's post, and it's a basketball card?!?!

Yep, it's a basketball card.  I am very slowly and very selectively (please don't mail me heaps of NBA cards) venturing into basketball as something new in 2021.  As with the purple cards, I'm going to try to build up a really small collection of random basketball cards that fit into a single Z-Folio binder (these hold 360 cards).  

There's really no criteria for this project except to have fun with it.  I'm guessing the end result will contain a lot of bright cards like this one, and probably some sentimental stars of my youth.  As opposed to baseball where I am in pursuit of various sets and goals, and have more rigidity to my collecting, I think it will be rewarding to have an open goal like "stuff this binder with 360 basketball cards you think are cool".

The very first card to be inserted into said binder is this gloriously shiny Pink Ice parallel of Paul Pierce's 2019-20 Prizm card.  This thing looks freaking amazing, and makes me wish badly that Panini had a license to produce MLB trading cards.  If you're a baseball player or team collector, tell me you wouldn't love to chase a card like this of your guy?

My one fear with a basketball card project in 2021 was that the market may have gotten so crazy that I wouldn't be able to afford enough interesting cards to fill out the binder.  In the early going though, I'm realizing that you can still find some great b-ball cards for cheap coin even today.  This Paul Pierce cost me all of 75 cents for example, and less than a dollar shipping.  Better yet, there are so many different colored and shiny variations of this card that I may devote an entire page of the basketball binder to house nine different parallels of it.

More on my basketball project later, but that's a wrap for today.  Thanks for stopping by to see some of my new shiny pick-ups, and stay safe out there!

Cardboard Keepers - The First Basketball Inductees!

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

In today's post, we'll finally get around to inducting a couple of basketball cards to the Cardboard Keepers collection.  I'm not a big basketball guy overall, but I have decided to try to pursue some significant cards of the best players across many different sports, and so finally have a couple that I feel are worth induction into this collection.  Let's get to it!

In the lead-off spot today is my very first card of an absolute legend of the game, Wilt Chamberlain!  This is actually a tall-boy format card from Topps' 1970-71 flagship basketball release, which is the same width as a standard, modern-day trading card, but taller.  Very fitting for basketball in particular.

Even limiting myself to just 1,000 non-baseball cards, it seemed fitting that Chamberlain should be included in this project.  Easily one of the greatest basketball players of all-time.  The fact that he's the only player ever to record 100 or more points in a single NBA game alone is probably enough to make sure I include him.  Or, how about the fact that he's the only player ever to average 30+ points and 20+ rebounds per game across an entire season, and did it seven times!

An easy choice here for inclusion in this project.

Same goes for the second and final inductee in today's post!

BAM!  If you've been following my blog throughout 2020 then you probably knew this was coming.  Arguably the greatest basketball player of all-time, and certainly on anyone's top 5 list.  By many standards, the most iconic single basketball card ever produced, though opinions obviously differ there.

When I started working out this Cardboard Keepers project in my mind, one of the big goals was to acquire some significant cards of greats in sports other than baseball and hockey in order to broaden my horizons and better round out my collection.  This exact card was one that I specifically had in mind from the outset.  I had to sell about three dozen graded cards over a period of weeks on eBay to raise the funds required, and made many trips to the post office, but finally this beautiful Jordan "RC" was mine.

It's my favorite basketball card by a country mile, and always will be.  It was only a matter of time before I selected it as a Cardboard Keeper.  Hell, it would make this list even if I were hanging onto only 20 non-baseball cards, forget 1,000!

Hard to argue with either of these cards, and I'm happy to have them be the first cards to represent the sport of basketball in this project overall.  I guess I need to get out there and find myself LeBron and Kobe cards at some point now, and I wouldn't mind a nice Dirk Nowitski either.

In the meantime, the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 23 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 977 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Trading Card Challenge - My Favorite Basketball Card

Time for the fourth installment of the 7 Day Trading Card Challenge.  This particular challenge asks participants to showcase their favorite basketball card in their collections.  As with the previous favorite football card challenge, this one was tough for me in that I just plain don't have many basketball cards.  In fact, at the time of this post I have just 40 total basketball cards in my organized collection.

This 1993 Topps Finest Michael Jordan was one of my better basketball cards.  I use the past tense here because I decided to sell this one a few weeks ago.  I paid just $20 for this a couple of years back because I wanted one significant Jordan card in my small collection.  With the insane uptick in the hobby though, I sold this for about 10x what I paid just a couple of years prior, and used the funds to track down an iconic baseball card that I've always wanted.

That flip will have to wait for another post though, for today suffice it to say this card was not eligible for selection for this challenge.

So, what are some of my favorite basketball cards from the 40 that I do still own?  Well, I narrowed it down to five to show in today's post, saving the winner for last...

This mid-'70s Dr. J certainly makes the short list.  It's one of the basketball cards I've had the longest, having picked it up back in 2012.  As I mentioned when I featured it on the blog back then, the star of the show here is the amazing photograph where Erving literally looks like he's exploding through defenders.  It's not a super valuable card or anything, but to this day it's a top-5 basketball card in my meager collection.

Being a Boston sports fan, I had to have at least one decent Larry Bird card even though I'm not a huge basketball guy.  One day I'd love to own a nice copy of the Bird/Magic Johnson rookie from '80-81 Topps, but since I haven't wanted it badly enough to spend the hundreds of dollars it would set me back, I settled on this '86-87 Fleer instead.  A truly iconic set in the realm of basketball cards, and this was had for a much more reasonable $15 (also way back in 2012!).

I gave really strong consideration to selecting this '92-93 Ultra Shaq RC.  If you were a kid collector in the early '90s like I was, then I'm certain you probably remember what a big deal Shaq was when he burst onto the scene.  I wasn't even a basketball for or a basketball card collector at all, and I wanted a few of his rookie cards badly.  I vividly remember many hours of chores being done in orer to raise up enough funds to buy his Skybox RC, then riding my bike down to pluck it from the small display case of cards at the town pharmacy.  Felt elated after that pickup, some 28 years ago now!

The Ultra RC is my favorite though, and easily one of my favorite basketball cards of the few dozen that I own.

Just two more to go here, and the runner up goes to this tallboy Wilt Chamberlain card.  This was acquired via a really great eBay flip last year, and it's just plain awesome.  I've mentioned many times that I love the tallboy Topps cards of the '60s and early '70s, and I was ecstatic to land this one featuring one of the all-time greats of the game.

None of those cards hold a candle to the one I decided to go with though.  If you've followed my blog recently, you probably know where this is going.

My favorite basketball card is...

...my Michael Jordan RC!  In my most complicated eBay flip yet I parted with nearly three dozen slabbed singles and used the proceeds to fund this purchase.  I've always wanted a copy of this iconic card, and this one is an absolute beauty for the grade.

My reason for going after it at the time was that it was one of the "greatest cards in the history of its respective sport" that was still within a realistic price range in terms of a flip.  There was no way I was going to acquire enough funds for say a '52 Mantle, but an '86-87 Jordan was doable.  In my opinion, Topps Gretzky rookies are still in this category today, as you can get a nice mid-grade one for a few hundred dollars, which is amazing to me.  Already have one of those though, so Jordan it was when it came to my flip.

I'm pleased to own this card, and it's certainly my favorite basketball card.  I feel like I've shown it a lot lately on the blog.  I hope I don't come across as gloating, but with just 40 basketball cards to choose from in response to this challenge there's no way I could go with anything but this card for my selection here.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll be back with the next segment of the 7 Day Trading Card Challenge soon!

COMC Blaster - Touching the Five Major Sports

Today's "COMC Blaster" post will touch on all five major North American sports; baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and even soccer.  Let's dive right in and see what $20 of store credit netted me this time around...

We'll start off with what might be the star of the show today, aesthetically speaking.  I rag on Topps every so often for their generally uninspired inserts over the last number of years, so I have to give credit where credit is due with respect to this Turkey Red insert from about a decade ago.

This Yogi Berra is so visually stunning that I knew I wanted a copy the moment I saw it, even though it's not a strict fit for my collection generally speaking.  Between this card and the fantastic vintage Berra that I recently scored, my small collection of Yogi is looking pretty good these days.  Maybe the smartest 75 cents spent in today's post!

Moving on, here's a Young Guns hockey rookie card of a player that casual fans of the game may not be familiar with, Noel Acciari.  This one cost me just 40 cents, since modern day Upper Deck cards are so prevalent on COMC.  Aside from being a Bruins rookie I didn't have, what was my interest in this card?  Well, we'll have to flip it over to see...

To the right of the Bruins logo we see that Noel Acciari was born in Johnston, RI, which just so happens to be the town where I live and have owned a home for about 12 years now!  Noel grew up right here in Johnston, and as the back of the card indicates played his college hockey in my small state as well.

Primarily a fourth line scrapper with Boston, Noel did show flashes of goal-scoring capability.  He signed with the Florida Panthers for the 2019-20 season and really blossomed.  In fact, he had reached the 20-goal plateau for Florida before the damn coronavirus shut the NHL season down.

A nice personal connection to this card made it a no-brainer for 40 cents...

Surprise, surprise, 1954 Bowman.  I feel like I've been featuring this set a ton on my blog lately.  Two more nice singles bite the dust here, with Sid Gordon setting me back $1.15...

...and Al Robertson and his glorious catcher's mitt just 92 cents.  How on earth does a card this old and beautiful cost less than a dollar?  I'd also like to note what fantastic penmanship both of these '54 Bowman subjects had.

Let's transition to basketball briefly, with the "I'm not collecting them, yet they somehow keep appearing" 1970-71 Topps tallboy set.  I don't know the first thing about center Darrall Imhoff, but I know these cards just fascinate me.  While this card won't be sent off to PSA for grading any time soon, it's in pretty good condition given that it set me back just 59 cents!

I always show the backs of these too.  Did Imhoff really head the 76ers' season ticket staff?

We covered baseball, basketball and hockey so far, let's finish things off with the two versions of football.  First, the global "football" with this Donruss Optic Holo Antoine Griezmann.  Antoine is one of the top few dozen football players in the world, and was a big part of France's 2018 World Cup-winning national team.  A cool, obscure single for my steadily growing soccer collection for a mere 60 cents.

Then we have a card from the North American football front, a buyback of Patriots wideout Stanley Morgan!  I don't have more than a few of these Topps football buybacks, they're not as much a collecting interest for me and also seem far less prevalent than the baseball ones.  For $1.39 I've now acquired my fourth one.

I love Atomic Refractors, which is basically what these 2019 Topps Chrome Sapphire cards are.  Long-term I'd love to complete a Red Sox team set, but for now I'm content just plucking low hanging fruit from time to time.  Can't go wrong for 48 cents.

While we're on the shiny card theme, how about a few more of these 2014 Finest X-Fractors?  In this latest blaster we have Ryan Braun at 75 cents...

...and Braves star Freddie Freeman at a whopping $2.27.  I have to say, Freeman certainly has some dedicated collectors and fans out there, as his cards seem to demand a premium on the rare occasion when I need to acquire one for a project like this.  As much as I was hoping I could score this card for less than a dollar some day, it just wasn't happening, so I pulled the trigger at $2 and change.

One more X-Fractor, again 75 cents.  This trio has me at 60 out of 100 of these in hand (or, in binder).  When shipping from COMC becomes a thing again I've really got to try to put this project to bed once and for all.

The best bargain of today's post is this card, by a long shot.  I picked up this blue holofoil parallel of Xander Bogaerts' 2014 Topps Opening Day RC back in 2015, for just $2.38.  Nowadays this is more like a $20 card when you stumble across it.  The crazy thing is that I had one on my eBay watch list and had nearly pulled the trigger before pulling this from my COMC backlog for today's post.  Forgot that I'd already purchased it, that was a close one!

Here's the back, though it's difficult to make out this is serial-numbered to /2014 in the upper right there.  Awesome to land yet another variation of Xander's Topps rookie card!

I've been a fan of Rick Wise's since learning of his two-home-run no-hit performance in the early '70s.  Doesn't hurt that he was the winning pitcher for the Red Sox in what some consider the greatest World Series game ever played, either.  Somehow I'd yet to acquire his 1970 Topps card, a beauty at that, until now.  For 67 cents that wrong has been righted!

Hey now!  Here's something you don't see too often in these COMC posts.  My decision to sell my graded 1953 Topps commons last year really liberated me in a sense, and I've been having a blast collecting the set in much cheaper, raw format.  I'm not looking to pay a premium for mint cards, as long as they look visually appealing and don't suffer any major damage like holes, missing pieces, etc.

Joe Rossi was a single I needed, available for the very reasonable price (in this condition) of $2.45.

One of the greatest card back designs of all-time.  This card is significant as it now puts me over the 25% complete mark as far as my second run at this set goes!

Just so happened to pluck a trio of Red Sox cards from my "to be posted" stash next, starting off with this Black Refractor (#'d /100) of Clay Buchholz.  Any numbered Topps Chrome Refractor of a Red Sox player from the 2010-2015 sets that can be had for less than a dollar is probably going into my inventory.  Clay was 85 cents, and is just my second Black Refractor from the 2012 set.

I actually paid 90 cents for this Bryce Brentz Sepia Refractor from 2015 Topps Chrome.  Between this card and the Rusney Castillo that was in my last COMC blaster, I'm getting really close to a complete team set of these.  I believe I have just two more to track down, one being Dustin Pedroia.

Closing out today's proceedings is yet another '53 Topps card!  This one does double duty towards my set build and my Red Sox team collection.  This was purchased from the same seller as the Joe Rossi above, and for the same price ($2.45).  Just awesome.

This is actually also a significant card in my '53 set build, as it's the 70th card to enter my second iteration of the set!  While I don't consider myself a set builder at all when it comes to modern products, it's an awful lot of fun to pick an older set to go for casually, without being too worried about condition.  The pair of '53s in today's post has really motivated me to keep going in this quest.

That brings our running total to $19.75, so we'll call it there for today.  Certainly a random mix of cardboard in today's blaster, hopefully you saw at least a card or two that you found interesting.

Sheltering in place has resulted in more free time for me, which has benefited me in many ways.  One of those ways is increased posting here on the blog.  This is the 12th consecutive day that I've posted now, which I think is the longest streak for me in well over a year.  I've got plenty of other great cards to get to and hope to keep extending this streak.  Upcoming posts include my first purchase direct from Topps in years, another amazing eBay flip of a soccer card for a playing-era HOFer, and much more.

I hope you'll continue to check in and read along, and thanks as always for stopping by!