Ordering up a Barrel of fun!

There's no limit to the wonders that await you on the world wide web. Something that would be inconceivable to us in 1982 when this card was released is a website called Cardbarrel. I used the site in the past when it was known as "Just Commons" to knock off some junk wax wants, and now I am back since COMC is no longer an option for me.

See? Look how fun that is! I purchased about 60 cards in all, and it cost under $20 including shipping for everything.

It wasn't all 80s cards either, I found a fair amount of recent items as well. A lot of what I picked up will be featured in future "I love the 80s" and Topps All-Star Rookie posts. I had been using COMC to fill out those gaps in my collection, but they are now dead to me. Oh well!

Hey Look! Willians Astudillo! Can't beat that. I'll be back on Card Barrel again soon to add more cards to my cart.

Check Out My (Final ?) COMC Order

Dude, Where's My Cards?

Still waiting for an update on the shipment I requested on 12/2/2019. I emailed on 12/23, they replied the same day and said they'd look into it and get back to me. 

No response/update for over a week, so I sent a follow up on Jan 3rd. No Reply.

I emailed again on January 8th - no reply.

Hmm, maybe they aren't getting my emails? I started a new email thread on January 22nd - no reply.

I emailed again this Monday, after hearing nothing for another week, with no communication from COMC since that first response way back on December 23rd.

So, I have pulled all of my cards from sale on the website. I tried to have them shipped back to me, but they wanted to charge me $81 to ship my own cards back to me. Fine, you can keep them, I marked everything I sent to them as "For Charity."

I still had a sizeable number of cards that I already paid for, on the site, ready to ship. I had been using a strategy of placing a shipment order at the beginning of each month (after the $5 bonus), then adding store credit a week or two later and starting the process again. I would eat up all the store credit, save $4 of the bonus $5 to cover shipping, then repeat.

My first shipment request from COMC was way back on 9/17/2014. I had been ordering one shipment a month, EVERY MONTH, since March of 2015. This was before I even had a COMC account.

After not seeing my shipment change over to "packaging" status for 6 weeks, I decided to divest in the website altogether. I didn't have enough "store credit" to cover shipping, so I added $10 in store credit (the minimum allowed), and added my last cards to my last shipment to bring the amount left to $0.01

While I will really miss the site for its ease of navigation and all the great inventory, I decided that I didn't want to reward this poor customer service any longer. It's one thing if they lost the cards, or damaged them, or sent them to the wrong address... Any reason would have been better than not replying at all after 2 months. These were the last cards I ordered from COMC, they still owe me 61 cards from the December shipment that never materialized, and probably an apology too.

This is the only time I've had an issue in over 5 years using the site, but it's ridiculous to be ghosted on a simple shipping inquiry. What do you think, am I overreacting?

COMC Haul - 1959 set Building!

The Spring Sale provided a big boost to my 1959 Topps Set build, I added 48 cards to the set, and for the most part spent a dollar or less per card!

Here's the highest of the high numbers, the final card on the checklist, Billy Pierce. There are still plenty of cards on my checklist, but I've now passed the 75% mark.

Let's see the new additions, sorta sorted by color! First up are stripes. There are several rookie stars cards for each team, and I'm thinking of putting these in the binder at the back end of each team page.

Orange-y Pink. I missed it in the COMC scan, but the Moe Drabrowsky card has a big crease running vertically from the top. But it was under a buck, so I can't be too bummed about it!

Stoplight time - 8 new Greens, including 1950s iron man Eddie Yost, who was 2nd to Lou Gehrig for the longest consecutive games played streak.
 

Yellow has several familiar-ish faces, like Hank Sauer, Vic Power, and Bob Cerv! The Bobby Tiefenauer is a little off center, but probably the sharpest conditioned card in my whole set.

We stop with Red, adding 8 more to the set. 2 pesky Yankees, and Senators great Jim Lemon. He was a big power hitter for Washington right up until the move to Minnesota.

COMC Haul - The Minnesota Not Twins

Saint Paul has 3 Hall of Famers that called it home - Winfield, Molitor, and Jack Morris. It was also the birthplace of John Anderson, who made 24 major league pitching appearances. The zipper is a neat feature on that jersey, and of course that distinctive wind blown lock of hair stands out.

Bill Davis was a big time power prospect out of Richfield High School (just south of Minneapolis) and the University of Minnesota. In 1965 in the minors he hit 33 homers, and that made Topps very interested in the young man for the rest of the 1960s:

They only need 2 photos to get 4 more Bill Davis cards. He had 71 minor league homers overall, but just one at the major league level. There's a nice SABR biography of Davis by Daniel Leavitt, who at 6'6" was a two sport star at the U of MN.

Minneapolis was home to Yankee Johnny Blanchard, who attended the now defunct Central High. His 8 year major league career included 2 W.S. titles. He was primarily a reserve, but was used extensively in the post season- He had a pair of homers in the 1961 series, and hit .345 overall in 15 post season games over 5 seasons.
Lefty Tom Burgmeier  appeared in 745 games in the majors was also born in Saint Paul, but he attended high school (Up North!) in Saint Cloud. He was an All-Star in 1980, saving 24 games for the Boston Red Sox. For his career he had a 3.45 ERA and won 79 games while saving 102 others.
Alex Call is from Burnsville, MN attending High School in Thief River Falls, WI and Sam Carlson is from Savage, MN originally, but went to Burnsville High School! So that's neat.

Jim Brower and Jim Crowell pitched for short stints in the mid 2000s, while the Eisenreich bros saw playing time in various outfields in the 80s and 90s. Big brother Jim had the longer career. 

There were and are still plenty of Minnesotans in the minor leagues still waiting or never getting their shot in the Show, but there's still time for many of these guys.

The other Hall of Famer from MN? Charles Albert Bender, who was born in Crow Wing County. Not long into his youth he was taken to a boarding school in Ohio, where he would ultimately learn the finer points of athletics before become a literal Athletic for Connie Mack.

This postcard is a reprint from a pre-war issue of Bender in the prime of his A's career. All of these were acquired in the latest COMC binge, taking advantage of the Spring Sale.

COMC Haul - Tip Off Event!

With the NBA Finals starting tonight, I thought I would share the small stack of basketball cards I added from my most recent COMC splurge. I took full advantage of the recent spring sale (I even sold 5 cards!), and added a ton of cards to my 1959 Topps set build. But I also went off on a few tangents, including a trip down memory lane to a couple of my favorite basketball players.

Allen Iverson is relentless. Tenacious! Gritty! The man's got heart. I understand some people don't like Iverson for whatever reason, but I have to disagree with them. I wouldn't call myself a Sixers fan, but I definitely was a big fan of AI.

One reason I couldn't call myself a Sixers fan was this man right here. In many ways, Iverson and Garnett were two sides of the same coin - intense competitors whose play on the court rose the quality of play of everyone around them. Garnett was like a 6'11" Allen Iverson! Even though he had to go to Boston to get it, I was so happy for KG when he won the NBA championship and shouted "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!" Just a great moment.

I'm making it official- I want to build a 1957 Topps Minneapolis Lakers Team Set (I already have the toughest card, HOF rookie Vern Mikklesen), so this card is an appetizer.

For the 50th anniversary of the set, Topps re-created it, right down to the fun card back showing the sample ballplayer in front of a giant ruler.

I don't watch nearly as much NBA basketball as I used to, but with the Wolves playing well again (making the playoffs last year, narrowly missing this year in a tough West), I made a point to catch a few games. I was blown away by reserve guard Josh Okogie - he's probably 8th or 9th on the depth chart, but he had several games last year in which he would take over for several minutes at a time. He would get a steal and go coast to coast, lock down the opponent's top scorer, get a key blocked shot, or knock down a clutch three point shot. He's a fan favorite for sure.

Since he's not Karl Anthony Towns (or even Andrew Wiggins for that matter), this jersey / autograph combo was under $5 bucks. Game 1 of the NBA Finals is starting soon - are you rooting for Toronto or Golden State?

More Vintage Hoops from COMC

At the last monthly card show, I grabbed a few random basketball cards from a vintage table - they were actually dessert. I was on COMC earlier last month and decided that I hadn't paid any attention to the other sports besides baseball. I went over to the Basketball section and made some budget purchases.

Check out Dr. J with cameos by McHale and Bird!

Check out Rick Barry with the Granny Style Free Throw!

James Jones is bemused.

I went for some fun names - I think Corky Calhoun was a Christopher Guest character's name. Doesn't get any manlier than Butch Beard.

Big hair and big personalities. The ABA was almost entirely made up of teams I'd forgotten about or never heard of! The Harlem Globetrotters have had numerous sets over the years, this set was just the players messing around in a photography studio.

I should share at least one back - this was one of my favorites. Ollie Taylor of the San Diego Conquistadors. He jumped cars! He was a 6'1" center? / guard.

Before you say anything, just keep in mind that this man is seven feet tall.

Black History Month COMC Pickups

During the month of Februrary, I've been honoring Black History Month by posting about some of the prominent African Americans that have made contributions in the game of baseball (and beyond the field as well).

While making these posts, I would sometimes have to omit some cards because, well, I didn't have them (yet). I have been checking in to COMC throughout the month and picking up cards along the way. This Jackie Robinson card was featured in one of Fuji's posts, I have to say it's now one of my favorite Robinson cards too.

Frank Robinson was still managing in the 2000's, in a period of time when I wasn't buying cards. I was browsing through his cards and found these, I really love the Expos Manager card. I realized during my post on Dontrelle Willis that A) I didn't have his rookie card, and B) I didn't have a good card showing his big leg kick. Check and check.

Here's the back of that first Frank Robinson card - it has one of the factoids I heard most often the day Frank passed. He went to same high school as Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, and that they actually were teammates on the basketball team.

Had to check for more Denard Span needs, as I do most of the time when I log in to COMC.

For most of the posts this month, I've been checking my 56 set and my in progress 1959 Topps set for cards to post. I was surprised to find that I still needed a card for my '59 set of Sam Jones, the first African-American to toss a no-hitter in MLB history, and a member of the 20 game win club, the "Black Aces."

The back mentions his 1955 no-no, and also references his nickname, "Toothpick."

Last but not least, I am always looking for Kirby Puckett cards that will be new to me.