Friday, July 8, 2016

COMC hoard: World Series Batting Foes

It's amazing how quickly a week can go by without a post. Over the last seven days I have spent just about all my free time card organizing, stamp sorting, and reading a very enjoyable book. I can honestly say that in this past seven day span I have only thought about writing a post once or twice, and those thoughts were fleeting at best. The idea of stopping altogether has started creeping in to my mind as well. I don't know if that's normal for bloggers or not, but for the time being I will try to suppress any such thoughts.

My COMC order finally arrived last week, it looks like I might have been part of the last wave of shipments. Rather than show everything in five or six large time consuming posts, I plan on doing a number of smaller posts that will be sprinkled in here and there, which could potentially go until the next shipment in December.

As I usually do before showing anything from COMC, I will reiterate that all these cards were gotten with credit earned from doing challenges. I always feel the need to mention this because there will be a few expensive (in my opinion) cards being shown, and I don't want people looking at this and thinking "Yeah, it must be nice to have that kind of money to spend on cards" and think I'm some kind of Mr. Moneybags or something (which couldn't be further from the truth). Also, everything being shown was acquired between January and this last Spring cleaning sale. I'm way too cheap to pay the $3.00 (now $3.99) shipping, so I just wait until the Spring sale and the Black Friday sale when shipping is free, to get my stockpile shipped.

Since there was one card in the box that was head and shoulders above the rest, I figured it decided it's own post. That card being this 1958 Topps World Series Batting Foes #418

With the corner wear and the noticeable printing line, this card is definitely not in perfect shape, but it was (and is) certainly good enough for me.

Seeing that this card has been covered on a few blogs already, I won't go too in depth into the history behind the image. I will just mention that the card shows a 25 year old (soon to be 26) Mickey Mantle and a 23 year old Hank Aaron before what I'm assuming is game 1 of the 1957 World Series, with a great shot of old Yankee stadium in the background. The Braves would of course go on to beat the defending champion Yankees in seven games, in a still much talked/written about series.
In case anyone is curious (I would be), this card cost me $37 in earned credit. I think I may have overpaid a little, but since it wasn't out of pocket money, this would be one of those instances where it doesn't bother me all that much.

Another thing that happened this past week was that I had a moment of clarity, possibly an epiphany, in which I realized that there is just no way I can keep working on all the sets that I currently am, with any reasonable hope of completing them all. So I have started going through and thinning out a couple, one of which is the 1958 Topps set. That doesn't mean that I can't still enjoy this card and some of the other big name players that I already have. Although I will probably still try and complete the All-Star subset and try to get a few more of the key cards on the cheap when I can.


And for your listening enjoyment, the top song in the country during the '57 World Series:

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your purchase of such an iconic card. I can usually tell how much I like a specific card by my willingness to overpay for it.

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    1. Thanks, Fuji! It's funny how when I got the card a couple of months ago, I checked eBay and for cards in similar condition it looked like I was overpaying a little. Then fast forward to last night when I checked again, and there have been a few recent sales of cards in similar condition for over $40. So, I guess maybe I got a good deal?

      I really like your philosophy on overpaying for something, it's definitely something I will think about next time I'm looking at something that is potentially overpriced.

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  2. Replies
    1. I certainly think so. Over the last week or so that I have had it, I find myself looking at it once or twice a day.

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    1. I thought so too! Sometimes it pays to have absolutely no social life.

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  4. I think it's totally normal for bloggers to "slack off" and to even want to take a break from it all. I blog because I love to write about, and show my cards to everyone. When it becomes a chore, it stops being enjoyable, and it's a job, not a hobby.
    When the feeling passes, and I have some new stuff to show off - I'm back to posting again.
    I think you just inspired me to post about this very subject! Ha!

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    1. I was very close to quitting altogether around Thanksgiving time, but I seem to have got past that and have actually felt like I have gotten my second wind in the last couple of weeks.

      It would be a great honor to think that I could ever inspire anybody to write anything. If you do decide to put together such a piece, I will be very much looking forward to reading it.

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