Top 15 from COMC

In news that should surprise no one, I received another COMC order last week.

This haul was a bit smaller than my usual massive  (but still north of 100 cards), which probably shows my impatience at wanting a few of these into my collection as soon as humanly possible. It's also worth noting that COMC appears to have fixed the shipping backlog that'd plagued them over the last few days - these came in the mail a mere 10 days after I put in the shipping request! (Remember when we were waiting 6-8 months in COVID times?)

Instead of my usual COMC protocol of scanning stuff in batches and haphazardly dumping everything into a post, I've decided to narrow the focus a bit and give a proper spotlight to the 15 best cards of this latest fun-filled order.

#15 - 2024 Topps Now #241 Josh Gibson

MLB officially incorporated Negro League statistics into the record books earlier this year, which meant that Josh Gibson (.373) displaced Ty Cobb (.366) as the game's all-time batting average leader.

No matter how much stock you want to place in the impact of those Negro League stats (I personally don't have a problem with them being in the official record books), I think it's kinda cool that we've seen Josh Gibson pop up in a few sets this year as a result.

#14 - 1971 Dell Team Stamps #NNO Tommie Aaron

In a weird way, I value cards of Tommie Aaron more than Hank Aaron.

I can go to a show and get you a card of Hank Aaron in two seconds. But I bet you'll have a far tougher time finding anything of Tommie Aaron. At this point, I thought I had all the Tommies that were attainable to me, but then I stumbled upon this Dell Stamp (a set I'm admittedly guilty of ignoring most of the time) during a random COMC search one day.

I've probably added a good 15-20 Hank Aarons to my collection this year, but this is the one and only Tommie Aaron that's entered my binders in a long time.

#13 - 1981 Topps Coca-Cola Astros #4 Art Howe

I recently finished cataloging my Astros cards on COMC, and along the way I discovered this diamond in the rough I'd somehow never seen before - a cherished alternate-universe '81 Coca-Cola oddball, featuring a different photo than Art Howe's standard Topps card that year!

Thankfully, a few clicks and something like 80 cents later, I quickly became the proud owner of a copy.

#12 - 2007 Sweet Spot Classic #69 Al Oliver

Al Oliver is a staple at Dime Box HQ, but he's akin to Tommie Aaron in that I seem to already own most of his cards aside from the weird regional oddballs that like four people have.

But never say never, because here comes a rare new Al from the cool-and-oft-ignored 2007 Sweet Spot Classic checklist.

#11 - 2002 Topps Traded #T68 Sandy Alomar Jr.

I've already mentioned how much of a pain these 2002 Topps Traded SPs are - I've managed to track down exactly one of them in 22 years. 

Which means that this neat Sandy Alomar Jr. Rockies short-term-stop doubled my collection!

#10 - 1997 Ultra Gold Medallion #G429 Terry Mulholland

Just a wonderful card of a perennial Dime Box favorite.

#9a - 2003 Choice Daytona Cubs #12 Adam Greenberg

#9b - 2004 Grandstand Daytona Cubs #NNO Adam Greenberg

Cheating a bit here, but I'm including both of these in the countdown, my first minor league cards of a dude who occupies an interesting niche in the annals of baseball history.

Greenberg became (in)famous for getting beaned in his lone MLB plate appearance in 2005, and he never played in the bigs again until getting a courtesy at-bat with the Marlins a whole seven years later (I'm still mad the Cubs refused to give him that shot). 

#8 - 2002 Fleer Mets 40th Anniversary #15 Rusty Staub

Team-issued oddball of Le Grand Orange? Yes, please!

#7 - 1997 Pinnacle "Shades" #6 Mo Vaughn

Truly one of the best inserts I've seen in a long time, and you'll have to believe me that it looks 100 times cooler in-person since it didn't scan very well.

#6 - 1988 Mother's Cookies Giants #25 Phil Garner

Here's proof that I can still be stumped: even after decades of him being a binder guy, I had no idea Phil Garner ever played for the Giants, or that there was actually a card depicting that mediocre 15-game stint for posterity!

#5 - 2000 BBM #3 Ichiro Suzuki

I certainly don't try to add a new Japanese Ichiro to every COMC order, but I'm also not one to resist such things.

#4 - 2019 Topps "150 Years of Baseball" #150-48 Ted Williams

I've wanted this card since it was released five years ago, and for some reason it's been weirdly unattainable for anything resembling a sane price in that time.

It's a touching image (with a Tony Gwynn cameo!) from a banner moment of my baseball lifetime that hasn't been shown on cardboard as often as you'd think.

#3 - 1969 Topps #573 Jim Palmer

I must be getting old, because I couldn't remember whether or not I had this card when it popped up in a Night Owl post recently.

I must've thought I did, because I remember mentioning once about how proud I was to own all of Jim Palmer's Topps cards. But this one didn't look immediately familiar to me, and a quick consultation of my binders confirmed the horror - I didn't have it!

Had to pay a small high-number tax on it - thankfully '69 highs aren't as scary as other years - but I certainly can't complain about forking over $10 to close that gap in my collection.

#2 - 1982 Kellogg's #11 Nolan Ryan

Part of the joy of later Kellogg's is that they're both excellent and largely affordable...with the exception of Nolan Ryan.

Nolan's usually removed from the cheap batches of Kellogg's and Hostess I see at every card show, which explains why it's taken me until now to track down the majority of his oddball catalog.

#1 - 1967 Topps #540 Norm Cash

Above all, '67 high-numbers are just plain frustrating - there's no way in the world a card of NORM CASH should routinely sell for $80-100, but that's what life in the high-numbers does to you.

It leaves me dreaming about that hallowed beat-up copy, priced sanely, often fantasized but rarely seen. You just don't see high-numbers in bad condition too often. So you can imagine my surprise when one of those exact beaters popped up on COMC one day - my jaw just about hit the floor, and with a couple clicks it was mine for a hair under $20!

Another evil high-number slayed, and the easy king of what was, all in all, yet another stellar batch of goodies from our friends at COMC.