COMC Delivery (Finally)

Remember the old Heinz ketchup commercial, with people waiting and waiting and waiting for this thick, red condiment to finally seep out of the top of the bottle, while Carley Simon's "Anticipation," played in the background?

That's how I felt when I finally received a shipment of more than 150 cards from COMC's Redmond, Wash. location. 

I continue to pick up the odd bit of change by doing their inventory challenge and purchased numerous cards over the past winter, spring and summer. Since they said there could be delays, I waited until late summer to order the cards, so they would arrive well before the Christmas holidays (or so I thought). 

According to COMC, I requested this shipment on August 24, 2020. While it had an estimated shipping date of Nov. 24, 2020, it didn't actually ship until Jan. 10, 2021. I wasn't able to physically hold all these cardboard goodies in my grubby little hands until Jan. 15, 2021.

If you do the math, that's about a half year from when I first requested shipment, until the time I received them.

Oh well, enough griping and let's start with some fun stuff. Here's a pair of 1966 Batman Black Bat cards, featuring The Bat-Gasmask (#43) and Umbrella Duel (#23). I still love Batman - my school kids get a kick out of my Batman phone case.

As for some kindly Saint Nick cards, I picked up a 1991 Parkhurst (#SC), 2016 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection Wedges (S/N 23/50) (#25)  and a 1993 Skybox Nightmare Before Christmas International Promo (#S1).

I must have been especially nice, because I also received a 1995 Coca-Cola Series 4 Santa Card (#S-32) and a  pair of 1996 Coca-Cola Sprint Cel Phone Cards -  Santa With Toy Bag (#18) and Santa They Remembered Me (#19).

Of course, there's also the requisite amount of Tony Gwynn cards in any COMC shipment I receive. Here's his 2019 Topps Allen and Ginter Baseball Star Signs (#BSS42), 2019 Topps Franchise Feats (#FF23), 2019 Topps Allen and Ginter Gold Border (#77), and a 1985 Topps Rub Downs, with Lloyd Moseby and Buddy Bell (#3).

A few Padres cards for those cold winter nights (including another Gwynn I forgot to include in the previous bunch) - 2020 Topps Gyspy Queen Fortune Teller Mini Fernando Tatis, Jr. (#FTM16), 2020 Topps '85 Topps Silver Pack Chrome Manny Machado (#85C32), 2018 Topps Walmart Holiday Snowflake Joey Lucchesi RC (#HMW40), and a 2019 Topps Historic Through Lines, with Stan Musial (#HTL18).

As for my Japanese baseball card collection, these 1993 Kanebo Gold Cards, produced by BBM, are much like the old, raised-surface 3-D, Action-Packed cards. These particular cards feature Tomonori Maeda (#005), Yonetoshi Kawamata (#036), Kaname Yashiki (#006), and Kozo Shoda (#008).

Rounding out my Japanese baseball cards are a 2000 Konami Field of Nine Yuuki (#64), 2013 BBM Mitsuo Yoshikawa (#169), 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Toyoki Tanaka (#47), 1999 BBM Hiroshi Shibakus (#187) and a 1991 BBM Yasunori Ohshima (#132).

As for hockey, I'm not collecting as much as I used to, but this 2017-18 Upper Deck MVP Green Script Corey Crawford (#40) and 2019-20 Upper Deck UD Portraits Alexander Ovechkin (#P30) particularly called out to me.

And of course, I received a bunch of cards for my track and field collection, but perhaps I'll save those for a later date.

Was this collection worth the wait? Yes and no - I finally received my order, but the anticipation between when I ordered it and when they shipped it was painful. Maybe they should have been a bit more realistic on their estimates, or even used a "TBA" for the shipping date.

In any case, there here, they're mine, they're real and they're fantastic.

Stay safe and healthy out there.