The other half

 

My most recent COMC order arrived the other day, after waiting a bit longer than they said I was going to wait, about two weeks longer.

I don't know if that indicates anything but it's not a big deal right now because it's still not as long as I've been waiting for the Beckett Vintage Collector issue with Rickey Henderson on the cover. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that it probably should have shown up about a month ago, and normally I wouldn't care too much but I suspect an article of mine (or maybe two) is in it.

If I had a decent book store near me (aka Barnes & Noble), I could check for it myself, but living among the rubes, I can't do that without planning an outing.

I bring this all up again because my articles paid for the 1970 Nolan Ryan I showed last time and they also paid for my COMC order. This is "the other half," although it's a lot more than one card and also cost a lot less. So, let's get to it, since other people aren't exactly getting to it.

I shall start with the most recent cards in the stack, two more 2023 Heritage high number cards. I assume some people wonder why I collect piece-meal like this, and it's because:

1. The high numbers cost too much to be grabbing a bunch all at once.

2. I like SO MUCH STUFF, I can't commit to one thing -- think of it like how the Diamondbacks choose uniform colors. They like them all, they must have them all.

You can probably title the whole lot of COMC cards I gathered this time "I Should Have These By Now," which is what I was thinking when I picked up most of these.

The '88 Kershaw is arriving way after I landed dupes of the chrome version of the card. The Bellinger is from 2018, which means it's a hold-over from the Hoard The Hot Rookie period for Bellinger and Judge. The Heart Of The City Muncy from last year I have wanted since the moment I saw it. And the 2013 blue Kenley Jansen is the last blue Dodger from that parallel set that I needed (there is one leaders card still out there but Kershaw is only one-third of it, so who cares).

More "I Should Have It By Now Dammit," the special Mookie edition. Everyone loves Mookie, which is great because usually certain (jealous) fans are looking for excused to hate on Dodgers. I'm glad Mookie has avoided that, but it does make grabbing his cards a tiny bit difficult for this Dodger fan. Both the Stars In Service card and the 2023 Big League bowling card were swept out of my COMC cart multiple times before I finally shipped them.

A pair of A&G Kershaw minis, one from 2017 and one from last year. Seems pretty random until you see the whole picture:

Fills up one tobacco-size page all by itself. Now I just need this year's mini to ruin the flow. Go Kershaw! Stomp those snakes!

I am noticing that Topps grew increasingly lazy with their photo choices through the years.

Fantastic, heart-of-my-childhood Wacky Packages stickers. Almost no one reading this cares about these, but they weren't there. These were on the same mom&pop store counters with 1975 Topps baseball, of course we bought them!

These four are all from the 3rd series, which was issued in 1973 -- those packs of stickers returned to store counters year after year. We didn't suspect a thing. I do remember each of these from those days though.

 

Another that's mine! card. Though this is my own damn fault. I used to own this card, then traded it away (or maybe gave it away, don't remember). I did that with a lot of 1969 Topps and now I'm trying to get them all back. Still a few more to go (Fregosi, Mazeroski). But at least Killebrew has returned.

 

Big finish ... OK, well, "big finish" for me.

My first priority with this order were the 1984 Nestle Dodgers cards. I can't even remember what set me off on this project -- probably someone showed their complete set of these or something similarly wild.

I tried to gather all that I could, I only had two of the Dodgers prior, which is criminal. I didn't quite succeed. I think I need like five more of them, but all the main dudes have been secured except Dusty Baker.

The '84 Nestle set, as you probably know, is identical to the Topps set except for the Nestle logo replacing the Topps logo in the top right. Apparently these were sold as 132-card sheets only but a bunch of dealers bought them up and cut them into single cards. The ones I have are perfectly cut, so it must've been a professional job (although the team leaders card at the top of the post is a bit curled).

I briefly mentioned this set in a previous Beckett article I wrote. If the newest edition ever shows up, I'll show here what I wrote about most recently. I've got a vacation coming up, so maybe a drive to a place that sells the magazine is in order.

And yes, it's pathetic that I have to drive an hour to get one. This is what happens when people don't read anymore (among other things). (P.S.: Beckett often mails me a separate issue when I have an article in it, so I'm not truly worried -- just impatient).