Tuesday, May 10, 2022

A first

COMC shipments have been a staple of this blog from the beginning, but today will be the very first time that I've been able to cover an entire shipment in one single post.

Normally my shipments are made up of hundreds of cards, which is a byproduct of often waiting a year or two to request shipping. However, today's shipment, built up for all of four months, is just 26 cards strong. 

I don't know how many people saw it, but back during the Black Friday sale, one of the perks for buyers was that people who requested shipments of 100 cards or more received a $4.99 shipping credit (basically free shipping when choosing the economy option) for that shipment, and would receive another one that was good until March 31st of this year. Having over two years worth of cards on the site as of the BF sale, it was not difficult for me to take advantage of this offer. I got my 200-ish cards shipped for free, and now had this other free shipping credit to play with.

I don't remember picking up 26 cards since the BF sale, but I guess it's easier to forget such things when your using earned credit, as opposed to cash, to pay for things. Had the shipping not been free, I would not have requested it, but it was, so I did. I waited until the 31st to request it, and was given a ship date of April 27th, which they met spot on.

I still have scan folders chock full of cards from the big two years worth of stuff shipment, but am bumping this one ahead, if only because it's the latest and greatest. I haven't gotten very many cards of late, so it was kind of fun fondle some cardboard again. Still wasn't fun to scan it though.

The post was led off by a really nifty Kellogg's Merlin Olsen. One of those scan folders that I mentioned has 4 or 5 more cards from this set in it, including a couple of HOF's for player collections; as was Merlin. There's a small part of me that would like to collect this set, but thankfully there's the much larger part of me that doesn't want to spend money on people that I don't care about. And it's a lot easier to listen to that larger part when money is tight, as it has been, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Cards from this set are really only worth, at best, about a nickel apiece. I overpaid by 35¢ for each of these, but didn't have to go anywhere to get them, or pay for shipping, so it was worth it to me. Denver Pyle (on the left) was needed for the Perry Mason collection. I didn't want a card of him as Uncle Jesse, which doesn't leave a lot of options. Hal Smith is needed for two collections, Perry Mason, and a Brady Bunch guest stars themed page. I don't know which one I'll use this card for yet, but he has a few more cards in the set, so it'll be easy enough to get another one of him.

I haven't looked yet, but I think I now have all of the Carnage cards from this Golden Web insert set. 

With the ridiculous prices that people are putting on all things Marvel these days, I don't spend a great deal of time seeking them out anymore. These last three were all found just looking through people's sale listings, and were all below the current COMC/eBay going rate. Because of said high prices, most of my character collections have had to be put on hold. With that in mind, it was nice to be able to add a few cards to them with this shipment, especially the Sentinels gold chase card.

Hey, it's my first Kahn's! I decided a few months ago that I was gonna start chasing Griffey Sr.'s cards a little more actively. I don't think it would be too hard to put together an entire playing day run of Seniors, Junior not so much, that is unless you're fabulous wealthy. And even though it's a little outside my comfort zone, I've been thinking about doing a post comparing the careers of father and son, and arguing (if need be) that senior actually had the better career overall, which would apparently contradict just about everything else I've read online.

More player collection needs, although this is only my second card of Tom's, so I don't know if that can really be called a "collection" yet.

I think I mentioned it before, maybe not though, I don't know. Either way, while I'm still collecting J-Stew in general, he's got so many cards out there, that I decided a while back to just focus on his blue cards. They're a little less plentiful, and they got the pretty color matching action going on. So far, I've just been picking the low hanging fruit, like these two dirt cheap refractors, which were both less than fifty cents apiece.

I've been trying to replace some of my lesser conditioned Franz cards when I can. It's funny to see all the kooky online Franz prices, because when I was a kid, you couldn't give away Franz cards in Portland. Every single person pretty much had an entire run of them tucked away in a drawer somewhere, and most of those folks weren't even collectors in the traditional sense; that's just how plentiful the cards were at the time. Nowadays, there seems to be a slight bit more demand for them online, though Clyde is the only one that people are paying the higher prices for.

I already showed Paul here back in my post about starting to collect the Fran Tarkenton puzzle. Bruce has since joined the fun.

With the Steve Stonebreaker elbow piece (not shown here) that I already had, I've now completed Fran's right arm. And yeah, I know, it's terribly exciting.

How's this for a mix? Jackie Cooper goes into the Columbo collection (see the last post). I didn't want one of the many cards of Jackie as a child, but this one worked perfect. Richard Loo is another new entry for the Perry Mason collection. And I got the stupid idea last year to try and do a Sarah Connor Chronicles themed page, which is where Summer Glau destined. I say it was a stupid idea only because three of the people from the show that you would want to see on such a page (Richard T. Jones, Garret Dillahunt, and Dean Winters) don't appear anywhere in card form. Considering how long Dean Winters has now been doing those Progressive Allstate (thanks, Brett!) commercials, you'd think there'd at least be a promo of some kind out there, but no, there isn't. Oh, and how is that Shirley Manson only has one card in some Jack Daniels (or some other booze) playing card set? That doesn't even seem possible! First world problem, I know. At least Fuji will appreciate my struggle to make this page happen :)

I've been thinking about adding Stan Humphries to the list of player collections for a few years now, and had been setting aside his cards just in case I ever did start collecting him. The only thing that was keeping me from officially collecting him was that I already had so many other player collections going, and didn't really want to take on another. I solved my predicament a couple of months ago though when I dropped around a dozen basketball player collections (I'm about to drop a few more too). With those now out of the mix, I figured I could take on one more guy. And unless I find out something really interesting about somebody who's currently flying under my radar, this'll be the last new player collection that I start.

As for the card, I've had this one in my watchlist for almost two years, just waiting for it to drop to a more reasonable price, which it finally did after a succession of ever increasing sales. I think it was down to $1.49 when I got it. This is the first football PPI from this year that I've ever held, so I didn't realize that a lot of the bits were raised, sort of embossed like. Allegedly these are limited to /250 copies, which I have no way of confirming, but either way it's pretty neat card.

I grabbed these two from the same seller right before I had to put in the shipment request. Both were on sale, and I figured I might as well celebrate my newest collection with a couple of "good" cards. I know that everyone loves all things 90's now, but a Printers Proof parallel for a phone card was just silly, and I dare anyone to argue otherwise.

This was my first football Rave. Apparently they go for a lot less than their basketball counterparts. 

I'll probably shock a few people by saying that I've never been much of a fan of the Back to the Future franchise. I've seen the first one a couple of times, and each of the sequels once. I know that it's beloved franchise (or at least the first two films are), but they just don't do anything for me. I like time travel stuff, love the 80's, but just don't care for those pictures. As such, I've never spent any time looking through the card sets, so it was only by happenstance that I came across one of the cards from the first set that I thought would make a perfect center card for an 80's themed page. I still haven't gotten my center card, but have acquired a few others for the page, including this very spiffy Huey Lewis from that old AGI Rock Star Concert Cards set. Huey's got a few card in the set, but this is the one that I wanted for my 80's page. There has almost never been anything more 80's than this card, and I absolutely love it! I actually won this card from one of their auctions too. It's great going through your account to bid on things because you can add the card to your account after paying for it, and avoid those brutal eBay shipping charges. I think this was just over a buck, and was very much worth it.

Here's some more auction wins. These Monty Gum cards have been on quite the rollercoaster over the last few years. They went from worthless before the boom, to crazy prices went the boom first started, and now aside from a couple of the bigger names, have pretty much slipped completely back into worthless territory. I got the Sarge for a childhood themed binder that I've started (more on that some other time. I've got a page dedicated to OMG/Akeem, and Jesse will go into the Portland Wrestling collection.

Orson Welles doesn't have nearly as many cards out there as he should, and trying to find one that wasn't made by Panini has been quite the task. I guess all I had to do was wait a little bit, because this 1959 Maple Leaf playing card practically fell into my lap through yet another auction. This was $1.54 well spent, and would be my favorite card from this shipment if it weren't for this...

From what I've been able to gather, this 1962 Dutch Gum is Barbara Eden's first card, or as the profiteers would call it, her rookie card. To me it's just her first card, and now it's all mine! I love this card so damn much, and couldn't believe that was only priced somewhere around $3. In this condition, I would've easily paid upwards of ten for it. I like too that the Dutch Gum folks had to tell everyone that she was a fox, as if no one would've known otherwise. And yes, I'm joking, Fox is the studio that she was with at the time -- my scenario is better though.

I wish that this shipping credit would've been dated a little further out, as I did get three more cards during the recent spring sale, and would've loved to have been able to include them in with these. I'll probably get those at the end of the year, so it's not like I'll have to wait that long.

It felt kind of weird getting an entire shipment into one post. I think the last time I had such a small order shipped from them was back in 2010 or 2011 when I has just found the site; that feels like a lifetime ago.

On a completely different, and final, note, I sold a card on eBay last week to Mark Armour, you know the SABR guy/pretty well known writer (of actual books). I thought about sending him a message saying that he was the first celebrity that I've ever sold anything to, but figured that he probably gets that a lot, so I spared him the message. It was still kind of neat though.

36 comments:

  1. Fun variety here. I'm sure I have a lot of Griffeys to trade when you're ready. Curious to see how you rate him higher than the son.

    I remember Summer Glau from Firefly. Funny to see her all grown up.

    Now that Betty White has died, who's the most active 90+ star? Barbara Eden has to be in the running.

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    1. I'm sure you do. The problem is, I probably don't have much left for you.

      She has a lot less cards than I would've thought. This one isn't ideal, but it'll do.

      That is an interesting question, active is obviously the keyword. Off the top of my head, my first guess would be Dick Van Dyke.

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  2. I like that Galley PPI Humphries card a lot. What is it that made you want to collect him?

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    1. Well, I was a fan of his way back when, and actually remember fairly vividly his amazing run in San Diego, which is kind of something, because I generally don't remember sports stuff very well. Also, I looked him up a few years ago for the first time, and he seems like a pretty good dude. That sort of thing keeps getting more and more important to me as I get older. And if that wasn't enough, most of his cards appear to relatively cheap, and he's not appearing in modern sets, so there's at least the small possibility of being able to collect his entire run. That's kind of important to me too.

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  3. Nice variety of cards. I think that Griffey Sr. is somewhat underrated and undervalued, but I am really interested in your thoughts on comparing there careers.

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    1. I don't know if I'm gonna do that post for sure or not, like I said, it's not something that I'm used to doing, and don't even know if I could do such a post justice. We'll see.

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  4. I don't really collect nonsports, but you do have a really interesting approach to it, trying to put together casts of shows from disparate sources.

    Allstate would probably like me to point out that they do the Dean Winters "mayhem" ads, not Progressive. I was picturing Dr. Rick, who helps you when you're turning into your parents. Turns out he's Bill Glass.

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    1. It gives me something to do.

      And thank you for the correction! I'm getting so out of touch with just about everything, and rarely see commercials anymore, so even though it sounded right when I typed it, I obviously didn't completely know what I was talking about. Story of my life :)

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  5. I remember Sgt. Slaughter. Never heard of the other two.

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    1. One Man Gang was pretty well known in the wrestling world, but not so much in the world of pop culture. And I'm guessing that even a lot of wrestling fans don't remember Jesse.

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  6. Wait. I had shipping credit for another free shipment? I did not realize that.

    Nice cards.

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    1. Yeah, you should have had one. It was mentioned in the original pre Black Friday sale teaser. After that though, I don't know if they ever went out of their way to mention it again or not.

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  7. I need to check out those AGI Rock Concert cards, I didn't even know they existed a couple months ago.

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    1. I haven't looked for a while, but a few years ago you could still find them in the original blister packs (which were really cool by the way) on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. I don't know if they too have been affected by the boom, but it might be worth looking into.

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  8. Living here in NY Franz cards were something I only ever saw in Beckett. I finally got a Jerome Kersey on COMC a few years ago but it's my only one from any of the sets.

    Sgt. Slaughter needs to appear in my card collection some, for the GI Joe connection.

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    1. I suppose it's just like any other regional issue, plentiful in their region of issue, and lot less so everywhere else. I have so many memories of Franz cards, from the free packs we got at the bakery during school trips, to people trying unsuccessfully to sell 3200 ct boxes full of them for $5 at the flea market. They were such a big part of a lot of people's childhoods in that part of the world.

      The Monty Gum in this post was around $2, but he does have some cheaper cards out there if you ever decide to try and buy a few.

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  9. Definitely a lot of variety in that shipment.

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    1. It is the spice of life, or at least that's what they say :)

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  10. I was wondering why I got free shipping on one of my orders a while ago. Guess I must've taken advantage of that Black Friday sale without even knowing it.

    (Also, and I apologize for the LOOONG delay, but could you email me your address? You claimed a few cards from my 10-year giveaway a-ways back - I couldn't find your address and totally blanked about reaching out. Email is nickpecucci AT gmail DOT com. Thanks!!)

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    1. Or maybe they're just really big fans of your blog :)

      It's okay. I sent you an email a few months ago, but I will do so again.

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  11. Always enjoy seeing phone cards on the blogs. That was a weird mid-90s card fad.

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    1. I liked them a lot more at the time than I do now. Although I do find it interesting that so few people seemed to have used these sports card versions. I guess everyone really bought in to the whole "collectible" thing, and didn't want take away from their future retirement plans by using them.

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  12. I really need to pay more attention to BF card related stuff. That shipping credit was pretty cool. I reserved one of my COMC purchases for a Marvel card I needed to complete a set. I'm glad I knocked most of them out before the hobby boom, because it's pretty silly how much some people will pay for these mass produced trading cards.

    I wouldn't say Back to the Future is one of my favorite movie franchises, but I enjoyed them... including the Western one. The Huey Lewis card is cool. I discovered the Concert Cards a few years ago when I stumbled across some packs at the flea market. I built a set and I'm pretty sure I have a stack of singles laying around. If there are other people in that set you're interested in, shoot me an email (sorry... even when I click the notify me box, I don't get notified 98% of the time) and I'll see if I have any extras.

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    1. I don't remember them doing this credit in years past, usually it's just for one round of free shipping. Hopefully they'll bring it back again this year too. I thought that some of the Marvel had started going down, but from what I've seen recently, it appears to be going right back up again. I don't get it!

      Obviously you've gotten my email by now, but thanks again for the offer!

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  13. Just like brothers I tell ya. I also took part in that promotion and actually had them ship a few days early since I was out of money and figured I could beat the end of the month backlog (I think it worked). I ended up with... 26 cards! One of those cards was none other than Fred Dryer. The exact one you showed. I actually tried to flip it for a while but no takers so I figured might as well keep it. I wanted at one time to build a collection of athletes who became tv/film stars, but likely have abandoned the idea. I hope in a couple weeks I'll show off what else I got.

    These are some very nice cards and I never even heard of Franz cards before. I've heard of Kahn but never owned any. I do like sets like that but until I can find a reason to get a few (and cheap), I doubt I'll buy any. Since my COMC money has dried up, it might be a while before buying any cards anyways. I remember the name Summer Glau but can't remember from what (I was never into Arrow or Sarah Connor Chronicles). Dean Winters I would have thought had a card too, I liked him on a short lived show called Battle Creek, but CBS cancels all the shows I like. The Huey Lewis card is cool, and I wouldn't mind getting a card of his (maybe you've inspired me to build a One Tree Hill set, he played one of the character's dad on an episode or two). As for Back To The Future, I pretty much enjoy the first one for nostalgia now, not so much of it being a "masterpiece". I can say despite a few scenes, 2 and 3 were never my favorites. As I get older, all three have lost their luster, but if they are one TV they are good for background noise.

    Love the wrestling cards, and always wanted a card or two from that set, its nice to see the prices have fell back to earth. I always liked Sgt. Slaughter, but honestly don't know how much I actually saw of him on TV outside of his heel turn in 91 which was terrible. I loved One Man Gang for some reason and thought WCW should have pushed him more but they did make him a champ for a while. As for Jesse Barr, the name isn't one I remember but am curious if he's related to Art and Sandy Barr, which I assume since they were local to Portland. I'm reading old wrestling newsletter recaps on reddit and Sandy's name came up a lot in 1993-94 for running unsanctioned shows and booking Tonya Harding for a show.

    Overall, you got some great cards for such a small package. Even the Barbara Eden card is pretty cool. I think my comments are getting longer, maybe I should do a blog post on just reacting to your blog posts, lol!

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    1. That's amazing! Not only that we had the same number of cards in our respective second orders, but that we had one of the same cards in each of the last two shipments. I started a Fred Dryer collection based strictly on my growing up watching Hunter. And while my interest in sports continues to diminish overall, my interest in former athletes turned actors seems to be on the increase.

      I took advantage of COMC's big selling promotion before the Black Friday sale, and finally sent some cards in. It was really good offer, where folks could basically have 60 cards processed for free. All you had to do was pay for shipping. Quite a few of the 60 cards I sent in have sold, so I've got quite a bit of money in my account right now, the only problem is, there hasn't been a lot for me to get as of late. I never saw One Tree Hill, but will admit to having wanted to give it a try back when it was new. If I could have caught it from the beginning, I probably would've too, but I didn't. Maybe someday I'll get another chance.

      It's probably cheaper to get the Monty Gum cards in lot on eBay, than it is to just buy singles. I only want a few specific people, so the lots don't really work for me. I loved heel Sgt. Slaughter as a kid. The Cobra Clutch/Million Dollar Dream is one of my all-time favorite finishers. I loved Akeem quite a bit too. Such a silly character, but man was it fun. And yes, Jesse is Sandy's son/Art's brother. Those newsletters sound like fun. Sandy was a nice guy, or at least he was to me whenever I encountered him at his flea market, but he did start get a little more shady, business-wise, as the years went on.

      I usually feel like I'm writing an entire post when commenting on your posts and/or replying to your comments on here. Not complaining though :)

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  14. That Huey Lewis card is pretty perfect as an "80s" image. I say this as someone who was a huge fan of the Back to the Future movies as a kid though I can also understand why it wouldn't be appealing to everyone (I think like 80% of my being a fan is just tied up in nostalgic memories of having seen the original in the theatre back in 1985 with my dad and sister).

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    1. I thought so too. In my mind, it's gonna be pretty difficult to out 80's that particular card. And that's a good reason to still enjoy a film. There's a number of films that I wouldn't consider to be among my favorites as an adult, but like you, I saw them in the theatre, and still have the nostalgia factor for them.

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  15. So many thoughts here.

    First, I wish the Rams had used that Rams head skeleton logo while they were in St. Louis. All my Rams shirts would still likely be at the Goodwill down the street, but that thing is underrated.

    Second, I need to start a collection of James Bond cards focused on the villains. I don't care about Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery, or Daniel Craig. I want a Jaws card. The Man With The Golden Gun is high on my list of Bond movies.

    Third, I still listen to Huey Lewis and the News today. Although seeing him dressed up in an absurd 1980s suit took my mind to the scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale axes the guy to death wearing a suit, listening to Huey Lewis.

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    1. It was a cool logo. Of course, a lot of teams, in all sports, had much more interesting logos back then. It's too bad that a lot of times the only way anyone gets to see them anymore is when they're looking at older cards.

      Richard Kiel has a bunch of Jaws cards out there, old and new. He's got a few autographs available too, though those have gone up a bit since the boom started. I've been trying to get one of them for years, but always end up getting outbid :(

      I don't listen to his music very often, but do enjoy most of it when I do. It's funny too how more often than not these days, a mention of Huey Lewis almost always generates an American Psycho reference. It would be interesting to know how Huey feels about that.

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    2. Huey Lewis made a parody of the Huey Lewis scene from American Psycho where he hacks up Weird Al for making a parody of New Drug.

      I am guessing he doesn't mind it.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk15H6PjBis

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    3. I guess you're right! This was something that I definitely never would've expected to see. Thanks?

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  16. Oh dang, that is the kind of variety I love reading about....love the telephone card in there too! Love it!

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    1. I'm glad that a few others seemed to have liked the variety, it was an awfully fun package to receive, and unlike a lot of my other recent card posts, it was fun to put together too.

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  17. I just posted about my first foray into selling on COMC...it's been weird.

    Dude, please send me what you have already on Griffey Sr. Tom Dempsey and Humphries. I know I have a good stack. I may just send them to you for fun...

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    1. And I just commented on it.

      I don't think you'll be all that surprised when I say that I don't have any kind of list for these three guys, and I really hadn't planned on making one anytime soon. it just isn't necessary when I'm now only buying a couple of cards every 3-4 months. If I need to, it only takes a moment to go see what I do and don't have before I purchase something. And I really do appreciate offer, but as I keep trying to tell everyone, I don't go to shows anymore, don't open packs, and never buy large lots online; so it's gotten to the point where I have very little to send out, and don't see myself having anything "new" to send in the foreseeable future. And the last thing I want to become is guy who just takes and never gives back. There's enough of those out there already.

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