Things I can't have (from COMC)

One of the many paradoxes of being a collector is that it seems like I'm constantly drawn to the cards I'm not really supposed to have.

While I like to imagine I'm above the branding of "Limited Edition" or "Regional Release" or other similar advertising claims, I'm not. I find myself wanting stuff that was issued nowhere near my home in Illinois and/or printed long before my time. Current, mainstream sets - easily the easiest cards to obtain even in today's flipper-filled era - are probably lowest on my collecting totem pole. 

This is one of a whole lot of reasons I'm both thankful and fearful of COMC - it gathers a lot of these elusive items into one virtual place, but siphons off a good chunk of my bank account in the process. Take this Roger Maris card that arrived as part of my most recent order yesterday - a rare early-days Indians card, and a National VIP-exclusive one, at that. I don't have the money/interest to do VIP stuff at card shows, and yet I've always found the giveaways incredibly enticing. 

Enticing enough, in fact, to make me pay a whole five dollars for this card, which if you know the name of this blog will tell you that's pretty much unheard of for me with anything modern.

For the most part, I've grown up long after the era when cards were packaged with food and/or given away at baseball games.

Result: I want all of those cards, of course - all the Kahn's, all the Hostess, and all the Granny Gooses (Geese?).

And who among us can resist the allure of Mother's Cookies?

(That's also the first and only card I've seen of Mike Norris's brief comeback with the A's in 1990.)

If west-coast Mother's Cookies cards often seem a world away, then I don't know how to describe my mostly futile obsession with cards made all the way in Japan.

I probably own about 1 percent of the Japanese cards I need (if that), but I treasure the few I have - and while I have no idea who Shoichi Busujima is, man is that one beautiful baseball card.

With the way my brain is wired, I often get caught up in wondering if my favorite mini-collection hits are the ones I don't already have.

And while I don't make a habit of chasing parallels off COMC, I couldn't turn down a purple-bordered Toys 'r' Us parallel of that Tim Hudson - easily one of the better "pitcher at the plate" cards of my lifetime.

Bigtime player collection hits - and I certainly would've given long odds that a Kraft Singles oddball would be my 500th different Mark Grace card.

(That '92-style Ichiro adds another notch in my somewhat-serious quest to get a card of his on every Topps design.)

Things I'm a sucker for, in no particular order: TCMA cards, SI for Kids cards, magazine-cover cards, and of course defunct-team throwback cards!

Minis of various makes and models - including a '51 Topps exclusive that to me seems a whole lot better than those (mostly ghastly) Project 70 things.

I've ignored Fleer Stickers for most of my collecting life, and I was okay with that decision until I found out there was a Royals Gaylord Perry card I didn't have floating out there in the abyss.

I don't often use COMC for recent releases - remember what I said about wanting obscure stuff I usually can't have? - but these were way too cheap to pass up.

(That Campy might be the best unlicensed insert I've ever seen.)

I'm able to block out most of the gaggle of online-only/limited/exclusive stuff Topps seems to be releasing these days, but every once in a while I'm reminded of their existence through COMC - and worse yet, see something I actually need from some of 'em.

Always love a good Indians Eck, and when's the last time Bucky Dent got a Topps card?

I've never signed up for Topps's Montgomery Club, submitted a Home Run Challenge entry, bought one of those SI cards, etc. - but I sure enjoy reaping the (cheap) benefits of people who have.

Topps Now reminding us that Lorenzo Cain is really good at robbing home runs.

I know for a fact that I will never own even a small fraction of the minor league cards I want.

My only hope is to pick up the few scraps I'm lucky enough to find along the way - including a zero-year Jose Quintana and a sweet Coco Crisp from his pre-nickname "Covelli" days.

A few horizontal greats - that's HOFer Joe Cronin making a cameo on that Yaz card(!).

I saw these Topps Screen Plays in a recent Night Owl post, and I knew I had to own at least a few - they don't scan well, but take my word for it and buy one if you can.

Whether consciously or not, oddballs have become my main source of joy on COMC, mostly because I rarely find stuff like this in my pocket of the world.

I must be quite a sucker because that Mattingly even says "Limited Edition" on the front of the card, and even that didn't turn me off from wanting it!

I'm not in the market of turning down Pepper Martin or Three-Finger Brown cards I need.

I've owned the standard Topps versions of these cards for years, and I thought that was enough for me...

...but apparently not, because I found myself adding OPC after OPC to my COMC cart one afternoon.

This was mostly a byproduct of these being obscenely cheap - don't think I paid more than 50 cents for any of 'em - and probably some exoticism of being able to own cards from Canada here in the flat US Midwest.

Always love a good modern-era food issue and such, but in the oddball world it's hard to beat the vintage stuff.

A whole lot of fun here - Burger King cards, cloth stickers, and an excellent Vida Blue (from the scarcer '75 SSPC checklist) I've been chasing for an eternity now.

I seem to be priced out of most of the vintage I need on COMC these days, but a little digging turned up a few hidden gems for this order.

Vintage All-Star cards are great for many reasons, one of which being they make big names like Eddie Mathews fall into my modest (see: cheapskate) budget.

But my biggest get (and the most expensive item) from this COMC order has to be this '57 Whitey Ford that's been creased about 835 times - which explains why it cost me all of five dollars!

I'm perfectly happy having a reprint of a T206 Wagner, because I know that's a card I'll never have. But seeing the same couple '57 Whitey reprints I've had for years has always annoyed me since that's a card I could conceivably own. And hey, now it's mine! Although now I'm thinking about the gads of other reprints sitting in my binders right now, waiting for the real one to come along...

My collecting brain is just never satisfied, is it?