Happy Friday, everyone. It’s time for the latest installment of Check Out Your Cards, our blog post where I meet with a member of our COMC team and find out more about some interesting cards that they’ve seen while on the job. This week I’m switching it up a bit, and sitting down with myself to go over some cool cards that I remember from my time in the shipping department. Today I showcase some non-sport items from Topps American Pie, Upper Deck, and Topps Allen & Ginter.

2011 Topps American Pie Pieces Memorabilia #APCR-GK – Grassy Knoll

This card is one of the first truly weird cards I remember from my time in shipping. After the first few hundred baseball, basketball, football, and hockey cards, I remember this one jumping out at me. Regardless of its historical relevance, I am completely astounded by the simple fact that there are cards with bits of earth in them that people collect.

2001 Topps American Pie Relics #PAPM2 – John F. Kennedy

It’s wonderful what people will put inside a card. Contained in this small piece of printed cardboard are authentic remnants from the Berlin Wall.  Seeing a card like this makes me fully appreciate the amazing things we have stored in our warehouse.

2013 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Museum Collection Relics #MR-CN Chuck a Luck Number

I was introduced to this card a few weeks back when one of our users called in asking about a redemption card they had sent our way. The user had mailed the card to us, and we took care of the hassle of scratching and putting the code into the manufacturer’s site. While most use this service because it allows them to sell the card while waiting for the redemption to come in, this user wanted to get the card shipped back to them when it arrived. I remember going into our warehouse and looking for what I expected to be a standard sized card – but the relic in this piece was massive, easily the size of my hand. I’m happy that we were able to assist, if only in a small way, with helping send this card off to a good home.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Colony in a Card – Artemia Salina

I wanted one last card to round out this display of strange cards, and I thought that there was no better place to turn than to our shipping department. Thousands of cards pass through here over the course of a week, and I was sure to find something surprising. Here I leave you with this truly unusual card, which has as an insert a packet of shrimp eggs, perfect for starting your own sea monkey colony.

Stay tuned next week for an extra special edition of COYC!

Hello again, folks. It’s time for the second edition of Check Out Your Cards, our new blog post where I meet with a member of our identification team and ask them to tell me about some of the amazing cards that they’ve seen while working at COMC. This week we continue with some items that Greg had flagged when I asked him to help with this project. Today we’ll show off a Black Slabbed card, a nice Logo man, an impressive auto, and a great soccer card.

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Introduced as the ultimate label, for the ultimate card, for the ultimate collector, this is the first black slabbed card that we’ve seen. A perfect ten in centering, edges, corners, and surface. And on a chrome card, this is even more difficult to achieve. Not much more needs to be said about this spectacular Jose Abreu card, other than it’s great to have an item of this quality listed on our site.

2013-14 Panini National Treasures Logoman Signatures #LS-KI Kyrie Irving

Greg admitted that, beyond this being a good looking card with a great signature of a rising star, it was the Logoman that made him want to rescue this card from mailbox obscurity and give the world a chance to see it. Logoman cards are such a chase, and with a patch this pristine, you know the owner of this card is happy.

2014 Bowman Prospects Chrome Printing Plate Magenta #BCP25 – Kris Bryant /1 [PSA/DNA Certified Auto]

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Kris Bryant, Dick Howser Trophy winner and second pick in the 2013 Major Leauge Baseball Draft, is one of the hottest prospects in baseball right now. He has what it takes to be one of the greats, and only time will tell how far he’ll go. Greg thought that it was great to see people sending such rare 1/1’s through our site.

2014 Panini Prizm World Cup Signatures #S-LME – Lionel Messi [BGS 9.5]

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This card is from the 2014 Panini Prizm World Cup Signatures, one of the coolest soccer sets ever. In fact, when the product came out, Greg and a few of his friends went in for a case, hoping to pull something as valuable as this. Sadly, they were out of luck. But, shortly after, Greg and another friend went in together on a box, and wouldn’t you know, they pulled a Lionel Messi. While this is not the card they found that day, seeing this one on our site made Greg smile.

Next Time on COYC

We show off some strange non-sport items from Topps, Upper Deck, and Allen & Ginter.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first edition of Check Out Your Cards, our new blog post where I meet with a member of our identification team and ask them to tell me about some of the amazing cards that they’ve seen while working at COMC. There are over 3,380,000 unique items on our site –  and that’s not even counting cards through our mailbox service that few people will ever get to see. It’s my goal to highlight some of these cards and let our ID staff explain what they find interesting about them. For this inaugural post, I sat down with Greg and picked his brain regarding a rare card from a mailbox user, a sneakerhead’s dream, a great celebrity autograph, and BGS success story.

2014-15 Panini Gold Standard Black Gold Threads Platinum Prime #43 Shaquille O’Neal

One of the great things about the mailbox, at least from the point of view of the members in our ID department, is being able to see some beautiful and rare cards. This Shaq, from one of the rarer inserts of the newer Panini Gold Standard, is one of the cards that caught Greg’s eye. He thought that everyone deserved a chance to see this 1/1.

2013-14 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection UD Signature Kicks Monumental Laces #ML-AH Anfernee Hardaway

Greg, a self-described sneakerhead, was amazed at this card. Most of the memorabilia in shoe swatch cards are about the size of a nickle, so a piece this large is pretty astounding. Even I was impressed by the amount of shoe they fit in this card. (For disclosure purposes, I also want to say that Greg has owned several pairs of Nike Air Foamposite 1’s in his life. His choice to add this card to COYC may be biased.)

2014 Leaf Pop Century Live Signatures Blue #LA-AP1 Al Pacino

While COMC was originally a place for sports cards, there are some heavy non-sports hitters. Over the years we’ve added a number of Leaf Pop Century cards to our site. In recent memory, this is one of Greg’s favorites, as this is the first signed Al Pacino card that we’ve seen come through our site. We’re lucky to have items like this pass through our mailbox service.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Black Pulsar Prizms #48 LeBron James

When I asked Greg what was so special about this Prizm Black card, he told me to think about this card like a success story. First, it’s a hard card to pull. Second, even fresh from the pack a card is not guaranteed to come back a ten. On top of that, this success story was made possible by COMC being a BGS Authorized Submission Center. A user sent us this card, and we got it off to Beckett and back to them with a stellar grade – a result that everyone hopes for.

Next Time on COYC

We show off a Bowman Black Slabbed card, a nice Logo man, an impressive auto, and a great soccer card.

It’s Good to be Back

While I know it’s been announced in the forums, and some of you might have seen me responding to emails or answering your calls in the last three weeks, I have not yet formally introduced myself. I am Nathan Richards, Communications Manager at COMC.

My name might be familiar to a few of you, I worked Customer Service at COMC from the summer of 2012 to the fall of 2013. I’ve spent the last few weeks reacquainting myself with the ins and outs of COMC, and I am looking forward to reintroducing myself to all of you. I am here to make sure that we have clear and open lines of communications between COMC and our fierce and loyal users.

In the next few weeks I will be working with Tim and Julia to answer a lot of long standing questions and to resolve a number of customer concerns that we have been hearing. My goal is to make sure that we are building the best company using all of the insights from our users and employees. Additionally, I will be on social media, in the forums, and answering email and calls along with the rest of our customer service team.

Goodbye to Moe

Yesterday was Customer Service Agent Maurice (Moe) Smith’s last day with us. He had been with us for some time, working first in the Identification Department, and most recently he was an important member of the customer service team, handling email and many of our social media accounts. We wish him well in his future endeavors.