A low-end guide to COMC

A noted scarcity of money and time have brought my new card acquisitions to somewhat of a halt lately, which I guess was the main reason I decided to pull the trigger and have my months-long accumulation of COMC cardboard shipped to me a couple weeks ago.

This, to me, is the site's main draw: I don't always have large chunks of money to throw around at card shows, but I can usually afford to drop ten or fifteen bucks into my COMC account and prowl the inventory for a while. It's a whole lot of fun for a relatively low-end investment.

Plus, I can't begin to describe the excitement you get when those cards you've been accumulating for months finally arrive in the mail in that big, bulky box.

Like most, I suppose, I have my own formulas on how to find stuff I need on COMC.

Mini-collections are perhaps my first and biggest goal, but of course there isn't any way to search by double dip or autograph shots (not yet, anyways!). Part of COMC's allure is the excitement of one click leading to another and another down an eventual rabbit hole that ends with me finding something I didn't even know I needed and/or didn't know existed at all. Other times I rely upon specific searches or pockets of inventory that I know are more likely to result in stuff that suits me.

Single-player base or insert sets, like these four and the magnificent Mays at the top of this post, are a good place to start when it comes to my mini-collections.

Better yet, I stumbled upon some kind of spring sale going on right around the time I had my order shipped to me, which enabled me to snag quite a few high-quality deals at the last minute.

That David Ross (featuring a Chicago Whales throwback!) is a good example -- I repeatedly saw the same copy listed at right around $5 until said sale, when it was inexplicably marked down to a whopping 70 cents(!).

Throwback Thursdays are usually my first search whenever I hop onto COMC: the sets are far too rich for my low-end blood, but some of the singles can be had for a song.

It goes without saying that I'm a huge fan of these, especially the ones that stray into non-baseball designs (or even non-sport in the case of that "TV Westerns" Arrieta).

I sampled a few of these excellent '78 Topps On-Demands in my last COMC order, but this time I treated myself to an all-out feast.

Mother's Cookies is another of my saved searches since these west coast-issued cards are akin to UFO sightings here in the Midwest.

But there's pages and pages of them available on COMC, and most for couch-cushion change (that Chili Davis is particularly nifty).

Permagraphics cards are also rare sightings in the wild in my experience, but again, you can get 'em by the gross on COMC.

Speaking of buying by the gross, here's a whole page of TCMA!

A large part of me wishes I could go back in time and order all these sets through the mail back when they were issued in the '70s and '80s. But until such technology is invented I guess I'll have to be satisfied with picking them up in droves on COMC.

Shoeless Joe and Campy and Teddy Ballgame are all neat, but my favorite might be the Kiki Cuyler in the bottom-right for the double oddity of (1) being my first card of him as a Cincinnati Red despite (2) coming from a set themed "All-Time Cubs."

But not every COMC search is calculated: these two came onto my screen by chance as I was looking for other things.

I always enjoy Burger King oddballs, but I'm especially partial to the few that feature different photos (and teams, in the case of that Morgan) than their Topps counterparts.

This latest COMC order didn't feature much vintage, sadly.

These two Kellogg's singles were the oldest cards I picked up, and the cracked windshields ensured they'd fit snugly into my budget.

COMC shiny!

I find it funny that I was able to get the Loney (a zero-year card!) for all of 37 cents considering it hails from a scarce, online-only, $1,500 set(!!!) -- if that's not a metaphor for my collection I don't know what is.

It ain't a COMC order without Legend Liquorfractors.

Perhaps my biggest steals from COMC's spring sale came in the form of Flagship photo variations.

The Kipnis was the lone variant in this scan that cost me more than a dollar, but you better believe it's my favorite since it's the only card I've ever seen that shows a dude sliding on a tarp.

Photo SPs for the Short Term Stop and mini-collection files.

Somebody must've been anxious to get rid of their leftover legend SPs from 2018 Flagship, because these beauties were obscenely cheaper than I ever imagined they'd be.

I don't even really collect Will Clark, but he probably has the distinction of having my favorite card from this latest COMC order...because I mean look at this thing.

Mine is a low-end blog, filled with low-end thoughts about a low-end collection: but with COMC in our world, the quality of the cards at my disposal, like Will Clark and all before him, remain anything but low-end.