Biggest. Order. Ever.

Over the first nine or 10 years of writing this blog I wondered what it would be like to collect cards and have money at the same time.

Oh, I wasn't destitute. I had a home and a job. Same home and job I have now. But the money just wasn't there. The kid took up a lot of cash and so did the house and the car and the pet. My job paid (and continues to pay) less than a lot of teachers make. I had enough leftover money for small card purchases here and there, three-times-a-year card shows (if the cash was there) and periodic trips to the card aisle.

I wasn't left wanting. People sent me cards from everywhere, more-than-generous gifts in the mail, packages that included cards I only dreamed of owning.

But still, what would it be like? What would it be like to have extra money to play with in this hobby?

I'm still wondering. The kid's college doesn't pay for itself. And that roof repair is overdue.

But 2019 has been good to me in making sure a little extra cash trickles my way, enough so I can throw a bunch at an online card order and not feel guilty about it in the least.

And that's how I happened to place The Biggest Order Ever on COMC. It was, by far, the largest order in nearly nine years of ordering cards off that site. Thanks to the Black Friday sales -- which I participated in for the first time -- I even ordered enough to get the free shipping.

Yup, 106 cards came my way this afternoon.

Let me tell you, it's not easy waiting for a card package that notable at this time of year. Well aware that retail outfits and delivery services are maxed out, I started to get nervous even as recently as last night that my cards were stuck somewhere in Nebraska. The tracking service stopped providing updates and ... OH GOD, WHERE ARE THEY????

But not to worry. Everything is here now. Let's take a look.

Some of the earliest cards that I placed in my cart were random Dodgers from about a decade ago. This was a product of updating my want lists and traveling through 2008 or so and realizing I didn't own a sampling of this pretty parallel and that cool boxscore insert. And so here we are.

Those are a few more, some short-printed cards the super-elusive Bellinger base card from this year and, no, I have no idea who Drew Locke is.

These pickups were super satisfying if a bit scattered. But I did key on some long-longed over team needs:

Freakin' 1992 Bowman, making common cards difficult to get for 25 years just because Mariano Rivera is wearing a polo shirt. I WILL finish this team set in 2020.

I barely pay attention to the Heritage SP Dodgers that I need prior to 2008. I made an effort this time. Granted, it was an effort that lasted 3.5 minutes, but at least the Edwin Jackson card is mine.

Three Dodgers to go now from the 2004 UD Timeless Teams set.

This wasn't on my radar at all. Some search for something else turned it up and warning bells rang throughout the house. YOU DON'T HAVE THIS. YOU DON'T HAVE THIS. GET IT. GET IT.

A couple of bloggers took money from my pocket with this order. One of them was Fuji, who recently displayed the Commanders of the Hill set from the mid-1990s. He called it a "forgotten set" or something similar. But I had never seen it before. I went right out and stuffed the Candiotti card in my cart.

Meanwhile, Peter from Baseball Every Night has been posting Darryl Strawberry's In Dodger Uniforms on his blog lately and bagging on the Dodgers each time (Yeah, like the Mets are adorable little puppies). All this makes me do is run right out and go get more Dodger cards of Darryl Strawberry, loving the Dodgers more and more all the way.

Speaking of the Mets, I didn't get a lot of 2019 cards with this order, but I did attempt to complete the team stadiums subset in this year's Topps flagship with seven or eight cards. I'm not quite sure if I have them all. But if I do, you'll see a post with all of them soon.

Also, how did the Mets rate to get such a picturesque view? No other team plays while the sun is setting?

These are brutal. They were created by Panini (of course) under its Score brand. It's some sort of follow-up on the early '90s Score caricatures except those were accurate. This is not. But for 30 cents, yeah, I'll take it.

But that Bellinger card leads me nicely into the Completed Sets portion of this post and this COMC order.

One of the sets that I completed here was the 1991 Score set. I grabbed the last 17 cards I needed for one of the speediest set completions I've ever conducted. Here are the final cards (plus the Alomar). I bet you can predict a bunch of them:

Many of these cards I have owned in the past. But I traded a lot of them away because I didn't believe then that I wanted to complete this set. How wrong I was.

I believe the only cards here that haven't been in my collection are the Nolan Ryan K-Man, the Eckersley, the Clemens, the Larkin (huh?), and the Will Clark and Frank Thomas franchises.

Can't wait to throw this in a binder.

But I wasn't done with completing early '90s sets. With the addition of three final cards, I finished off the inaugural Ted Williams Company card set from 1993.

Good stuff. All that's left are the inserts and I added a smattering of those, mostly because they were Dodgers.

Love the Drysdale card. Of course, I will be needing two of each of these Dodgers Memories cards so I can add them to the team binder, too.

The final set I completed is one I announced several posts ago. It's the 1973 Topps set and Leo and his airbrushed Astros cap was the last card to arrive at my address. I will be doing a separate post on those '73s in celebration of me finishing it off and having now completed Topps flagship sets from 1971-1991!!!!

Wooooo!

Of course, just because three sets are complete doesn't mean there aren't many, many others I'm working toward finishing. The above four are just four examples. The 1981 Fleer set is already finished but I had to get the corrected Jerry Augustine card because, come on, Jerry Augustine deserves that.

I'm still a ways off from finishing the 2008 Heritage set -- thanks a lot SPs -- and the 1976 Hostess set (watch out, 2020!) and the monstrous 1990 Target Dodgers set. I don't even know why I grabbed just one Wally Gilbert card. There are so many to go!

And, yes, there were completion quests not related to baseball, too. I'm still fascinated with this Allen & Ginter Folio of Fears mini insert set from a year or two ago. This gives me 5 of the cards in the set and I'm well on my way to completing my first A&G mini insert set.

Still on the A&G minis but back to the baseball. A&G has been amused by sneaking MLB players on insert sets unannounced, such as the Baseball Superstitions set from last year. But I caught on.

Also, please count with me. This is Kershaw card No. 698 in my collection.

This is No. 699.

🎈🎉🏆 THIS IS NO. 700! 🎵🎊🎯

And this is No. 701.

I'm now on my way to 800 different Kershaw cards! I guess that Kershaw guy turned out OK.

And you know, Kershaw isn't the only Dodgers pitcher that is the target of my obsession. Hideo Nomo is still cranking out great cards that I don't have. These are the latest new-to-me items.

The only other semi-current Dodger that I focused on was Matt Kemp, mostly because that 2013 Target parallel was the last one I needed to finish the Target Dodgers parallels for 2013. But then I saw the black-bordered '83 Kemp for a pittance. And if that was a pittance, let's look at these other Matt Kemp cards and holy cow, nobody respects Matt Kemp anymore do they??

Although I have many card interests, I'm not SUPER random, unless there's a card like this staring at me. My goodness, Buhners, get your other two kids sun glasses, their eyeballs are getting fried.

I had to land this 2019 A&G card of U.S. hockey team star Hilary Knight, because she happens to be the 2019 Allen & Ginter Babe of the Year.

Why?

Why?

That's why.

Another definite babe. I'm generally not into getting stickers from card sets, but the Charlie's Angels ones are insanely '70s, almost more '70s than anything that ever existed that decade. I've wanted one too long and like Kelly, I meant business.

These, though, will always be my No. 1 sticker interest.

I did pretty well finding more Wacky Packages stickers from when I was collecting them as a kid. I'm still focusing on the ones that I thought were the most hilarious then and Wormy Packages was absolutely one of my favorites.

Here are some others:

Buy It Stupid!

So, so great. I am delighted. Ten-year-old me is delighted.

Rick Upchurch, meanwhile, isn't so sure.

I didn't do a lot with my 1977 Topps football quest, but I do like the Upchurch card quite a bit. Also, when I figured out I wouldn't be getting much from '77 football, I made sure that what I did get made an impact:

That's the biggest star of the stars I didn't already have in the set. Heck it's probably the biggest one anyway. When I was a kid, Payton was the man, of course, but he has grown in importance over the years and is now at legendary status. I'm so glad to cross this off my list.

The remainder of the cards will be all baseball.

I made sure to track down several 1975 Topps buybacks, since the Black Friday markdowns would finally get some of these overpriced babies into my shopping range.

That brings the total number of buybacks from the set that I own to 347. Just 313 more to go! (Probably not, but don't stop believin'!)

I also made sure with this order to obtain a few overdue "hits" of some past Dodgers.

I've needed a Willie Davis relic or autograph for too long. It's extra-great that it comes from the 2001 Upper Deck Decade '70s set.

And Davey Lopes was the final holdout from the Dodger starters of my childhood. Now that Lopes has been added to the autograph list, he can join Cey, Garvey, Russell, Yeager, Baker, Smith, Monday, Sutton and Hooton in the club. (I probably should get Tommy John, Doug Rau and Rick Rhoden to finish things off for sure).

I didn't gloss over the TCMA cards since I love those almost above anything else. I picked off a card from three different sets.

Also, while we're in the neighborhood of '70s/'80s oddballs:

That's tremendous.

The Baseball Immortals set will be a No. 1 collecting mission in 2020. Out of all of the cards I could have nabbed from the set, I went with Mr. Giles because it is terrific. Is Giles wearing sunglasses at night?

This would be just one of the Warren Giles cards that I grabbed with this order.

This is card No. 2 in the 1956 Topps set.

This is card No. 1.

And now I have both the AL and NL presidents from this set. When there are cards like this in vintage sets, they pester and pester you until you're like ALL RIGHT FINE!!!!! I'LL BUY THESE! HAPPY?

I know I am.

I did a small amount of work with the 1956 Topps set. This is an upgrade over the Dick Donovan card I had before.

And, hell, why not grab one of the big names, too. Such a fantastic-looking card.

One of the other 1956 cards that I had in my cart was swiped out of it before I could realize. It's not big loss. It was a high-number of a guy I had never heard of.

Besides, I had bigger cards to fry.

This is the last Frank Smith card I needed from his career.

As I mentioned in the early days of this blog, when Smith died, his good buddy stopped by the newspaper office and gave me several cards of Frank Smith that he had owned. I filled in a couple gaps, but one of the cards his friend kept for himself was the 1954 Topps one.

I finally have it.

I think I'll do something special with the Frank Smith cards in my card room. I haven't figured out what that would be though.

OK, one more card to book-end this very long post.

Please go back to the very top and refamiliarize yourself with the first card I showed.

This is the second-to-last Sandy Koufax Topps card from his playing career that I needed. And it's one of the most difficult.

The only one left is the 1958 one and that shouldn't be that hard.

This is a card I could only get if I had a magazine gig and a little bit of inheritance money. I'm very grateful for both. It's been a trying year and adding to my collection is one thing that makes me happy and gives a little shine to Two-Oh-One-Nine.

Thanks for staying until the end.

I have a lot of card organizing to do.