The best budget is no budget (a COMC order)

I've really never had a budget when it comes to baseball cards.

Part of this is because I don't collect the seismic kind of stuff that requires a budget in fear of having to sell a kidney. But that's not to say I can't overspend on cards - lately I've been worried that I'm plopping a bit too much of my paychecks down on cardboard, in fact.

It's easy to trick myself into thinking I'm a light spender since a lot of what I buy tends to fall into the "loose change" category. But a few Sportlots orders here, a couple infusions of cash into my COMC account there, and before you know it, there goes 50 bucks. It's not a good or bad thing, but sometimes I'm left looking at my bank account and wondering why there's not more money in there.

I think it's telling that I seem to post a COMC order every other month or so on here - and, you guessed it, here comes another one!

There's very little rhyme or reason to my COMC hauls - lots of times I'm as surprised as anyone else to see what I ended up finding.

Can't really tell you how I stumbled upon these three Star Mattingly panels, and they're not anything I've specifically targeted in the past - but hey, for $1.50 a piece (50 cents a card!) you know I'm buying 'em.

(Also, yes, I have since split these up into nine individual cards.)

COMC is a good place to find weird regional oddballs there's a 99 percent chance you won't see anywhere, ever.

Those Spanish Kellogg's have been taunting me for a while - the cheapest ones always seem to be like $10 - but thankfully that Carew was around $4 and fit snugly into my (non-?)budget.

Oddballs, as always, were the name of the game with this COMC order.

I don't remember ever buying equipment during my Little League days (I know at least a couple of my gloves were hand-me-downs) but I've been more inclined to beg my parents to get me a Louisville Slugger if a baseball card came with it!

Lately I've taken a page from the Sportlots handbook and started combing specific sellers' inventories for deals.

I came across one person who was having a nice little blowout of their minor league inventory and, as a result, scored some cool pre-fame issues of a few guys you might recognize.

But I get just as much fun out of finding minor league treasures of Obscure Guys I Collect For Some Reason - only in a card collection can Mike Fontenot and Junior Spivey have as much pull as Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout.

A lot of minor league stuff is just plain cool - I didn't even know there was a card of Mark Prior's brief stay in the Red Sox system until this order.

Couple that with a group of batboys who posed for a photo exactly how you'd expect a group of 12-year-olds to pose for a photo, and A CARD WITH A CAT CAMEO(!) - and you have a whole lot of fun on the farm.

A few of my bigger player collections got a nice little boost with this order as well.

I finally convinced myself to splurge on one of those "Gallery of Heroes" inserts I've been eyeing for far too long - spending $6 on a modern card is nearly unheard of here, but I'd say Vlad was worth it.

I supposed my budget would be in further shambles if I spent as much on packs as I used to. 

But why do that when you can snag tough photo-variation SPs and other online exclusives on COMC for the price of one of those packs with five Marlins in it?

I'm on a quest to own every Hank Aaron Brewers card in existence, and I got one tiny step closer with that Heritage insert from a few years back - and speaking of guys on weird teams, how about a rare Jim Kaat Yankees sighting?

(It's also funny that exclusives I heard everyone raving about from this year's National are already showing up on COMC for almost nothing.)

A particularly fun helping of minis this time around - including Jim Bunning's only Dodger card, a Felipe Alou Venezuelan sticker, and a neat Bazooka!

Also, yes, that's a real 1950 Bowman Ralph Branca - vintage Bowman doesn't really do a whole lot for me, but when you throw one of a Dime Box favorite for a hair over $4, I'm helpless.

 

Japanese cards are one of my most frequent searches on COMC, and I had the good fortune to stumble across a couple weirdly affordable BBM Nomos this time.

COMC is mostly a place for combing and scouring and clicking BUY NOW!, but it can also be a rabbit hole for discoveries. 

There's a good chance I would've gone the rest of my life not knowing this brilliant Father's Day Nationals set existed (stadium giveaway, I assume?) - but thanks to COMC, my collection is all the better for it.

A handful of not-your-standard-size baseball cards here, including a couple Permagraphics oddballs that I've never thought got nearly as much love as they should.

This was the COMC order when I decided enough was enough and finally sprung for a '76 SSPC George Brett that's been a thorn in my side for quite a while now.

Plus, Mr. Brett had a little company on the way to Dime Box HQ, including The Mick and a couple '78 SSPCs I still needed (not many White Sox Don Kessinger cards out there). 

Full disclosure: I was excited to snag a cheap '55 Bowman Sal Maglie, only to later run to my binders and discover, wait, WHAT - I already have it?! (Side note: anyone wanna give it a good home?)

That Musial, on the other hand, was most assuredly not a dupe - those "Baseball Thrills" cards are excellent and cost less than Stan the Man's regular Topps cards will run you.

Still, the king of this COMC order was never in question: it's this scary '67 high-number of Rocky Colavito that looks like it went under a truck at some point.

I may be more inclined to drop heavier amounts of money on cards nowadays, but my goal of finding an affordable '67 Colavito was fixed on a hope and a prayer. I regularly see copies priced for hundreds at card shows, and the cheapest one I'd ever come across before this was around $80. (You better believe '67 high-numbers are feared for a reason.)

A copy like this - creased, mangled, and even with an updated "Dodgers" scrawled along the front by a young collector - was exactly what I'd always hoped to find. And for a mere $15, there it was waiting for me on COMC one miraculous evening. A prayer answered.

All in all, it's hard to have a budget in this hobby when I'm bombarded with so many things I DEFINITELY, TOTALLY NEED RIGHT NOW!