COMC Black Friday weekend in review

Did you do any Black Friday shopping on COMC this past weekend? This is likely the first time I did not have anything shipped to me during their annual sale. Their "specials" continue to be less and less special every year, and setting a minimum purchase of $99 just to earn free shipping (by Dec.23?!?) was such an insult that I refused to qualify (but I nearly did anyhow...) 

Since the cards I purchased won't be in-hand for quite a while I might as well share my thoughts on them now.

I had $17 in challenge credit before the sale, and I will give credit to the COMC gatekeepers for keeping those challenges open the whole week leading up to the sale. There were four cards I immediately wanted to jump on, but only two of them were discounted - both by the same seller:

This Orlando Cepeda second-year card was $8 before the sale. I grabbed it for $5.29 on sale, which allowed me to add this to my cart:

Solly Hemus sounded only vaguely familiar to me but it's a 1952 Bowman rookie card in good shape (I hope), and it was only $2.69. That's good enough for me. 


I had $65 remaining from eBay sales and put $60 in my COMC account. It was all I'd planned to spend during the weekend. With my total up to $69, I made an offer on another vintage card and it was accepted:

Really thought I had a 1956 Topps Richie Ashburn already, but I guess I added it to my eBay watch list and never picked it up. This was an auto-accept at $36.20; the seller had another '56 HOFer I needed, but I could only afford one and chose the cheaper card so that I could pick up some Packers.

The backs of these Flashback Fabrics cards are weak (like most non-base cards these days) but it's an actual game used swatch, and..

It's numbered 4 of 399! This would be my first Favre card numbered #4/xx, so I gladly paid the sale price of $11.73.

Then we have this Jordy Nelson Immaculate Numbers relic. I absolutely overpaid for this. 

When I came across this last year it was priced at $20.25 ($16.25 on sale). That was too much for me, so I left it on my watch list all year. This Black Friday weekend, Nelson was on sale for.. $16.25. I got tired of waiting so I grabbed it. What could I have bought instead?

This Calvin Johnson relic is available for under $16 right now. On sale it was less than half that. Sigh.. the price of being a Packers fan..

To be honest I could have purchased both cards. I had enough room in the budget for Megatron, but instead I spent my remaining cash on a couple of Boston boys.

I added this Zdeno Chara to my Exquisite set build for just $3.75. That left me with $4.40. There was a Sterling Sharpe relic that I really wanted priced at $5.24 ($4.50 on sale.) I made an offer of $3.75, and the seller countered with the sale price of $4.50. I didn't have $4.50, I had $4.40. So I offered him that, and he declined.

Then I tried the same offer with a card priced at $5.25 (not on sale). This seller accepted:

That was it. My Black Friday shopping was complete, and I had... six cards?!? A new personal low by far. 

Then Cyber Monday came along and some of the cards on my watch list were discounted even further. I decided to clear them out, and added another $10 to my COMC account. With $2 more in challenge credit earned late Monday night I had $12 to spend... but what to spend it on?

The Calvin Johnson relic was now $6.25 and I agonized over it. I really wanted to grab a Taylor Hall auto even though I know he's not long for New Jersey and will probably be traded by the end of February. But $7 for an on-swatch auto was too good to pass up:

That left me with $5 - not enough for Calvin, but enough to add another Exquisite single:

Nathan MacKinnon cost just $2.49. I'm now down to five needs in the 30-card base set.


With my remaining $2.51 I added two more Brett Favre cards:

 

There were three copies of this Pinnacle Inscriptions Favre - one unpeeled for $2.75, one peeled (and scratched) for about $0.65, and this peeled and (hopefully) unscratched copy, which cost me $1.20. 

This Panini Illusions Favre sold at $0.75 then resurfaced for $0.68. I double-checked my TCDB have list, confirmed I don't have it, and added it to my cart.

That left me with $0.63, just enough for this odd-looking Dave Andreychuk milestones card which, if turned on its side, notes his 500th goal.

That's... better?

How did you spend your Black Friday weekend? Did you get any great deals on cards, gifts, or anything else?


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