The dreaded shopping cart

I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly comfortable when I have cards stored in my shopping cart on the COMC site.

I once used to consider cards in my cart as good as mine. That's the way it works on ebay most of the time (at least for me) as well as on a number of other sites in and out of the hobby. But it doesn't exactly work like that with COMC.

Cards that you've placed in your cart can disappear out of it if another collector purchases those same cards before you do. I found that out the hard way a few times when I was first getting into COMC purchasing about seven or eight years ago. It stunned me at my first. I couldn't figure out where the devil that card went. You mean my cart isn't a safe space?

Fortunately this doesn't happen a lot to me, probably because of my very specific and off-beat card tastes. I can only imagine what it's like for the collectors who chase all the latest rookies or even for the 30-somethings who all seem to collect the same thing: Gwynn, Maddux, Griffey Jr. It must be a pain throwing stuff in the cart only to have it jump out over and over again.

Another COMC cart annoyance is when everything in my cart vanishes. EVERYTHING.

I've always thought that this happened if I accidentally logged out of the site or if there was a crash of my computer when I was on the site, because I've had my cart empty when those things, I guess coincidentally, happened.

But apparently, COMC cart stuff can cycle out just whenever. And isn't that a fun discovery.

So I am now very wary of my cart on the online site.

That's why I was very happy today when I ordered everything in my cart, meaning it was officially out of my cart so other collectors can keep their grubby hands off, and safe with me. As long as the USPS doesn't goof things up, they will be safely en route to me.

This time, I was able to take advantage of a COMC sale for once. It's the spring sale this week and all of my cart cards were nicely discounted. I usually have zero time to sync up my saved money with an online card sale, so I am very proud of this. There are lots of goodies from some very important set pursuits of recent note. I'll be sure to show you all of them.

Also, I ordered a couple of card things from ebay today, too. They were in my ebay cart for quite some time but they stayed there fortunately. One card in particular I am quite happy to finally have in my collection ... when it actually does arrive. You'll see that, too.

I don't want to get too cranky on COMC. They are my preferred online card site by a mile and have been for years. I remember when I first started touting COMC and people would comment "yes, but this site ..." and I'd check out that site and find, it's not as good as COMC. Sure some other card sites have stuff you can't find on COMC or are cheaper than COMC. But as a whole, for one-stop card shopping online, only ebay can match COMC, and you know what a disaster ebay can be sometimes.

It would be nice if things would stay in my cart all the time, but again, that's a minor deal.

And for those who are now cranky because they haven't seen a card yet on this post, here is something from my last COMC purchase that I never showed:

Christy Hemme used to be a big deal in the pro wrestling world as one of the primary divas. I have never followed wrestling, but that sport sure does like to feature some pretty ladies and Hemme is definitely one of those.

She was mentioned a lot on the blogs when I first started blogging. Nobody mentions her anymore. She's retired now and a mom of five kids (including quadruplets!). So I was able to get this signed card for much more cheaply than I could have in 2008. It reminds me of the good old days when card blogging was wild and crazy.

Also, I think she's wearing Ron Cey's number.