Christmas gifts to myself (from COMC)

For better or worse, I am someone who needs to constantly justify spending money on myself, if for no other reason than to quiet the guilty voices in my head.

I've bought a fair amount of cards over the past couple months, which is fair considering I haven't been to a card show since The National & actually have a few extra bucks in my wallet these days. Still, I've felt the need to classify these purchases with some kind of label, rather than willy-nilly spending - hence, said purchases became "Christmas gifts to myself." By that logic, I've bought myself about 32 different presents this year. 

Perhaps the most exciting of those self-gifts was a big box I received from COMC recently, packed with a brick of cards I've bought from them in the month or two since my last order - and hey, since COMC has finally caught up on their backlog, these only took about two weeks to show up on my doorstep!

A good amount of the cards I purchased came via COMC's Black Friday sale, which admittedly triggered the heartless consumer inside me with the amount of price-slashing and darn good deals I found.

Like any good order, I stocked up on some top-tier player collections with cards I'd probably never see in the wild.

Had a few mini-collections tag along for the ride as well here.

(Add Advil to the list of brands I never knew made baseball cards.)

Whether consciously or not, it seems like most of what I use COMC for these days is finding online-only Topps stuff for loose change.

I'm not spending $10 on a Topps Now card or a Throwback Thursday set, but I'll certainly take them for 80-90 cents a pop.

I don't know how much it costs for a Topps Montgomery Club membership (probably way more than anything I could afford), and I don't particularly care if I can scoop cheap ones up on COMC.

Always a sucker for cheap photo variations (especially the Banks).

Unlike Sportlots, I don't usually target specific sellers on COMC, but I did find one guy offering heavy discounts on a bunch of his minor league stuff.

I always have a special place in my heart for Kane County Cougars cards since I went to a bunch of their games as a kid (and probably saw Adrian Gonzalez there at some point).

Random shiny stuff, including a zero-year Gleyber Torres and a cheap eTopps card, which is cool since I never did get on that bandwagon during my younger collecting days.

I love online exclusives, photo variations, and other modern bells and whistles, but oddballs are what keep me coming back to COMC time after time.

Horizontal greats, including a rare Duke Snider Met sighting!

Apropos of nothing, I decided to go digging for Mario Mendoza cards one night, and the spoils didn't disappoint.

Oddballs come in many shapes and sizes, but all four of these rise to just about equal levels of greatness.

Fan favorites and big-name oddballs here, and you'll have to take my word that the raggedy Simmons is an OPC.

(Somehow Kent Tekulve looks even weirder as a lanky minor leaguer, pre-sideburns & shades.)

Another seller had a big blowout on his '78 SSPC stock, which you don't have to tell me twice.

For whatever reason, I never put much effort into grabbing '78 SSPCs until recently, which means I spent many lost years not knowing I had more Bernie Carbo(!) and Dock Ellis(!!!) oddballs to chase.

'60s Post aren't the flashiest oddballs out there, but they're usually affordable, and that's good enough for me.

Didn't find as much cheap vintage this time around, but I didn't get completely shut out there - that beautiful Bertell has me wondering if I should reconsider my mostly negative opinions on '61 Topps.

Kellogg's star power!

COMC is great for finding cards I need, but it's even better for finding cards I didn't know I needed in the first place.

See: random Japanese guy doing a backflip, and a minor league mascot band!

I made a concerted effort to track down some Japanese imports with this COMC order, from Big Name Stars like Hideki Matsui to Busts I Still Collect For Some Reason like Tsuyoshi Shinjo.

But in the end, this was the ultimate Christmas Gift to Myself from this order: a new BBM Ichiro!

At a shade under $8, it was far and away the most expensive card of the lot - but still way cheaper than most Japanese Ichiros I've ever seen (it's only the second one I own). Still, it seemed like a way bigger purchase since pretty much every other card I bought here was about a dollar. I hemmed and hawed over it - do I *really* wanna spend eight whole dollars? - but after a while I remember throwing my hands up and basically just thinking: eh, it'll just be a Christmas gift to myself.

Whatever works to calm the voices in my head, I guess.