Some people around the blogging community go crazy during the annual Black Friday sale at COMC, buying up stacks of cards and taking advantage of free shipping offers for cards they've accumulated during the year. I personally probably haven't made the best use of COMC, as for whatever reason it is never among the first options on my mind when looking for cards to purchase. This past year I did find myself browsing the listings during the big sale, though, and I picked up a total of 6 cards.
The first card is this shiny Danica Patrick card from the 2016 Panini The National set. COMC is calling this parallel Hyperfoil. My card is numbered # 17 / 49. I've been tracking various versions of Danica's The National and The National - VIP cards on eBay, but haven't picked up nearly as many as I'd like. It seems like the prices plus shipping are always a little more than I want to spend. This one was on sale and I was able to combine shipping with the other cards in the order, so into the cart it went.
The other five cards in this order were all from the 2014 Topps Stadium Club Members Only parallel. I have a goal to add as many of these to my collection as I can, so I picked up the five cheapest ones that I didn't yet have copies of in my collection. The horizontal card from the lot is pitcher Chris Archer.
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The other four are Josh Hamilton, Michael Wacha, Nelson Cruz, and Julio Teheran. No huge superstar names here, but I was happy to add five more of these to my collection without completely breaking the bank. I had several more in my cart for a while, but they were in higher price tiers and I ultimately decided to just pare my order down to these ones. I've already progressed much further with this collection than I ever thought I would. I know I am not ever going to complete the set, so I feel less pressure to gather them all. That frees me up to seek out the best deals I can and pass unreasonably-priced cards.
Although these aren't serially-numbered, the rumor is that only 5-10 copies of each Members Only card were printed. As time goes by I would expect the supply to really dry up, but here in early 2017 there are still a few to be found. I think that in some ways the passage of time helps, as people have probably moved on from 2014 Topps Stadium Club in the search for the next hot thing, and this is a parallel set that kind of flies under the radar.
I also got one scratch-off ticket in the package, which netted me a $5 credit on the site. I used the money to purchase a card that I had already purchased once. The seller sent me a different card (which I also needed for my collection), and I let it slide. The card I actually purchased popped up on COMC around the time I scratched my ticket, and I negotiated a discounted price on it with the seller. Pretty dramatic stuff. Right now it is sitting in my COMC account. I will have it shipped to me some day in conjunction with another order.
