COMC Blaster - Shiny & See-Through

It's been a while now since I did one of these COMC virtual "blasters", but as a kind of reward to myself for completing a 5-mile run this morning before the heat hit, I decided to raid my re-purposed sewing needle chest where I keep my COMC backlog to pull and scan until I reached $20.  Let's get started...

This isn't the most visually appealing card in my collection, not by a long shot.  It was produced for The National Convention in 2013, and is limited to 499 copies.  I couldn't resist it at 75 cents though, given that it's a somewhat rare rookie card of one of the best pure snipers in the NHL.  Tarasenko is still just 25 years old and has registered 37, 40, and 39 goals in his last three seasons.  Dude can shoot.

If you've checked in here before then you may remember that I'm somewhat obsessed with these Bubbles Refractors from 2014 Bowman Chrome.  I paid a little more than I typically do for this one at $1.95, but Pedroia is one of the top two Red Sox second baseman of all-time.  Plus I'm also tantalizingly close to a complete Red Sox team set.

This one I don't believe requires much explanation at all.  What a simply beautiful card.  I know it's "not worth anything" (I paid $.52), but I pretty much love everything about this one.  Well done Topps!

I'm foolishly trying to accumulate as many Refractors from the first two Finest hockey releases as I can.  They're not the most plentiful parallels out there, so any time I can find one I need for less than a buck I bite.  That's exactly what happened here with Michael Nylander from the '95-96 set for $.78...

...and yes, a Refractor version of the checklist for $.89.  What can I say, when you're trying to get 'em all, you're trying to get 'em all.

John LeClair here, on the other hand, is tied for second-most-expensive-card-in-this-post at $1.55.  I didn't mind paying that, after all LeClair was one of the most dominant scorers in the league for a few years there (three straight 50-goal seasons!) during my formative hockey years.

A couple of mini cards of Xander Bogaerts are up next.  From 2015 Allen & Ginter we have the regular mini...

...and the A & G back variation as well.  Both were available for 50 cents each, a nice little push to my Bogaerts collection for just a buck total.

This one's been kicking around for a while, I think I picked it up a few years ago actually.  It's from the 2013 Topps Archives release, a Gold Rainbow Foil or something like that.  Why did I buy it at a dollar even?  Hernandez is a damn good starter, and it's somewhat limited at 199 copies, but really it was my love of 1990 Topps that did me in here.

A nice Allen & Ginter RC of the man who is currently leading the AL in doubles.  Seriously, he is.  Shocking huh?  This one was had for just 38 cents, which isn't bad at all since it's also a short-print.

Here's a nice insert from 2010-11 Donruss, Les Gardiens.  With rounded corners and printed on clear acetate it very much has the size and feel of a credit card.  I'm really digging these, I'll be on the lookout for others for sure, especially if I can find them for as little coin as I did this one (53 cents).

This card is so bizarre that, as a Fedorov fan, I just had to buy it.  It's allegedly from the "Sport Unites Hearts USSR National Team" set.  I guess based on the name and the design that they're really playing on the whole different cultures being united by sports thing.  The back is even better though:

Definitely the only card in my entire collection that features a Russian nesting doll holding a hockey stick.  Just awesome.  I grabbed this one for 85 cents but would have paid twice that or more.

I actually shelled out $1.25 for this Ryan Dempster Topps Heritage card.  Why would I do that?  Because it's the Venezuelan black back parallel:

I really just wanted one of these for my collection and wasn't picky on who it featured, so here we are.

For 51 cents I'm now one card closer in my quest to complete both of the 100-card "framed" parallel sets from the inaugural Gypsy Queen release.

Here's another acetate card, much like the Felix Potvin insert above.  I learned about these Panini 2010 World Cup cards on another blog I think, but I can't remember exactly where.  They're actually kind of tough to find cheap, so the buck fifty I paid for Luis Suarez here is actually a pretty good deal.  I loved this ear-biting Uruguayan when he played with Liverpool years ago.

The Target Throwback retro parallels from 2009 Topps are really nice, as they're printed on the older Heritage-style card stock.  I was happy to pay 80 cents for future HOFer Vlad Guerrero!

My second shiny Pedroia of this post with a Blue Refractor from 2012 Topps Chrome.  This card, which features a fantastic shot of Pedroia mid-air while turning two, is limited to 199 copies.  At $1.55 I didn't exactly get a total steal on it, but it's a fair price.

I miss team photo cards.  I was pleased to snatch up this Gold parallel from the 2007 set for 75 cents.  It actually features the 2006 team photo if you look closely, with a couple of pasted in portrait headshots of players acquired in the 2006 off-season, but whatever.  Actually, the headshots feature green backgrounds and it almost makes them look like they're score tiles for the manually operated Green Monster scoreboard in the background there.

Pinnacle Rink Collection is one of my favorite parallels of the '90s, period.  Combine that with one of the best defensemen ever to lace up skates at 66 cents, and I'm powerless.

I've gone on record a few times as saying that I love the die-cut parallels from Panini Golden Age.  For under 50 cents I welcome Eddie Cicotte, famed member of the Black Sox, to the collection.

We're getting close to $20 here, so just two more cards to go.  We'll finish off with a pair of shiny Red Sox additions.  I was astounded last year to find that someone had listed this Yoan Moncada parallel from 2016 Donruss at just $1.11.  Given that he's one of the hottest prospects in baseball I pounced on it immediately.  For the record, I don't mind the Sale trade at all.

Closing things out we have a  nice Gold Refractor of Brock Holt from the 2015 Topps Chrome Update set that you could pull in those holiday mega-boxes.  I went kinda crazy with these, completing the entire set, and now I've even chased down a few parallels like this one of the Red Sox players on the checklist.

Well, that takes us to $19.96, so I'm gonna call it a day.  Thanks for stopping by, hopefully you saw a couple of interesting cards that made it worth your while.