The COMC Pirates Package

I recently received a package in the mail containing over 100 cards for my player collections of Andrew McCutchen, Gary Sheffield, and various Pirates players I like to collect. 

While the package arrived in 2021, I am not going to count it towards my 50 card goal because they were all purchased in 2020.  It is only because of COMCs slow shipping that forced me to receive the cards many months after requesting shipment.

Let's dive into some of the highlights of the package...

This card is extremely difficult to find.  

And I mean extremely difficult.

If you travel with me into the way back machine to 2011, the hobby wasn't as strong as it is now.  

Not only could you find retail packs at retail establishments, but many collectors were doing just that...collecting.

Topps wasn't producing factory sets with multiple parallels encouraging people to open their retail factory sets.  Granted there was 1 (yes only 1) pack inside every sealed factory set containing a handful of cards with a unique color border parallel.  

These were often red or orange.  

Trying to find one of these 10 years later of your player?  Good luck!

They are numbered to 245 copies on the back and I suspect many of them are still sealed away in factory sets.

So remember what I just said about 2011 Topps Factory red parallels?

The same is even harder for the 2010 Factory red parallels.

There is another McCutchen that has been looking for one of these for a few years.  I'm hoping to use this as trade bait to help me acquire a card of his that I have been after.

If you've followed the blog for a bit, you probably know that I love the 2015 Topps Strata set.  It is the first set that Topps produced featuring an MLB authenticated sticker on every relic used in the set.  My goal is to collect as many of these of possible.  I added 3 more of the plain grey swatches to the collection.

They will go nicely with all these patches I already had from the set

Next up is a 2016 Optic Teal parallel numbered to 50 copies.  This helps get me closer to completing this rainbow.

Speaking of 2016, here is a 2016 Diamond Kings silver Artist Proof.  It's not numbered, but rare to come across 5 years later.  I really like the design of this year's Diamond Kings release.

This 2016 Bowman Platinum would be a perfect card to show off next month for St. Patrick's Day.  The green parallel, numbered to only 99 copies, really pops in the background.

Here is a card I was surprised I didn't have.  It's a 2013 Topps Heritage Chrome Refractor.  I have the black Refractor, the base chrome, and the purple chrome, but never got the refractor...until now. It's numbered to only 564 copies and is based on the 1964 Topps design.

Ok. This one is kind of a cheating card.  It features Cutch in a Pittsburgh uniform, but is from 2018.  Cutch was traded prior to the start of the 2018 season and this technically doesn't count as a Pirates playing days card because he didn't play for them in 2018.

What do you think?  Should a 2018 card that features Cutch playing for the Pirates count as a Pirates playing days card even though his last game played was for the Bucs in 2017?

Here is the first Panini relic card I picked up that I needed.  I've shown the dual relic off of this card, but not the single relic.  It's from 2014 and is a nice designed card.

Here is one of those cards that I knew existed, but a few things prevented me from adding this to my collection over the past decade:

It is a Topps Heritage card so Master Set collectors are always looking for this.

It is a rare card (only 62 copies) from a set 10 years old.

It features the Baltimore Orioles, who in my eyes have a very loyal collecting fan base.

It features a former MVP in his early career.

It is a stamp set so there are stamp collectors who also collect things like this.

What an awesome looking card.

And to finish up its another pajama party card.  Despite no logos, this early Donruss release is a much needed Press Proof parallel.  The silver proof is numbered to only 199 copies.

That wraps up my Cutch Pirates cards from my COMC pickups from the 2nd half of 2020 (except one notable card).  I'll show off some others in the future.  They will include my Giants, Yankees, and Phillies Cutch pickups. 

Just Win Baby

I can not believe the kind of baseball the Pirates have been playing since the All-Star break.  The team looked to be a serious contender for the division during the first few weeks of the year when the starting rotation was throwing up a bunch of zeroes through the first three weeks of the year.

Then injuries started to happen and they slid back to reality and in a very clustered and talented NL Central standings.

At the All-Star Break they were just a few games back from a Wild Card berth and looked to potentially be a buyer at the trade deadline.

Then the All-Star Break happened and it has been nothing but losing since.

4-24
That is the Pirates record since the All-Star break.

4 WINS!!!

Their winning percentage is .142 since the break.

I legit haven't seen baseball this bad in a very long time and that's with a team that had 2 DECADES OF SUB .500 BASEBALL!


When the Pirates win a game, announcer Greg Brown says "Raise The Jolly Roger".  This is a reference to Pirate ships hoisting their colors after approaching a ship requesting their surrender or risk the fate of death.

It has been over a week since the Pirates have raised the Jolly Roger so I am posting all my Andrew McCutchen relic cards featuring the Jolly Roger Pirates logo sleeve patch.

Here's hoping they do better than continue at a .142 pace the rest of the year.

Lot Of Great Things To Come

On Sunday night I faced the impossible task of trying to win 14 Probstein auctions that were all ending within 40 seconds of one another.

It appears that another high end Cutch collector is giving up as they have begun consigning their collection to the eBay powerhouse Probstein.

While I didn't win as many as I wanted I won enough to officially pass on trying to add more cards to the collection for a few weeks. There are going to be some monster cards coming to my collection in the next week.

I received this card in the mail late last week and it will go very nicely with one of the incoming cards from my eBay victory.

It is from 2015 Strata, a set that I fell in love with and currently have over 25 of the patches from.

By plugging the code into the MLB authenticator it indicates that this card was in fact from the May 2, 2012 game of the Pirates vs Cardinals.

The Pirates sent newly acquired AJ Burnett to the mound and he got absolutely lit up against the Cardinals offense, giving up 12 runs in 2.2 innings. 

Hot hitting Andrew McCutchen was given the day off so that another offseason acquisition, Nate McLouth, could get some playing time.  The former Pirate went 0 for 4 in the game.  He would be released a few weeks later having only gotten a few more plate appearances in a Pirates uniform.  Cutch wouldn't play in the game at all as he was given a full day off.

I remember this game so vividly. 

Much like the Pirates success after this game, my life got better too.  I broke up with my ex girlfriend shortly after this game after being in a toxic unstable relationship for a few years.  I got a promotion at work with a significant pay increase.  And I found someone who I enjoy being with every day of my life. 

Life got better after that game.

In a weird way, maybe my card collection will too....

SICK PATCHES WARNING: Jolly Roger Show Off!

The Pirates won their 1st Game of 2017.
Greg Brown, the energetic voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates declares "Raise The Jolly Roger" after every victory. So in that tradition, let's Raise It!

Here's all the Cutch cards I have with the Jolly Roger sleeve patch.

I will start things off with one of my favorite cards before I became a Cutch supercollector.

This was one of the first Jolly Roger sleeve patches I added to my collection.  It is one of only 3 autographs I have with a sleeve patch.  It's numbered 8/10.

Here's the other 2 autographs with the Jolly Roger patch.

Despite having bold parallels and Jolly Roger patches I think they fail in comparison to the 2012 Museums.

Panini Flawless.  It's obvious after looking at this card why it would be called Flawless.  Look at that nice Emerald frame around the patch. The patch itself is one of the better ones I have to.

Topps Strata has been producing some amazing cards for the past few years. I'm lucky enough to have some nasty looking patches from both the 2015 and 2016 releases.

2016 Museum offered a few nice patches in their Primary Pieces.  I was only able to add two, but love the two I added.

From Triple Threads is this 3D style card showing a nice patch and that sweet Jolly Roger patch.

My only 2017 Jolly Roger sleeve patch (so far) is from the flagship release.

This is one of the hardest to recognize having a sleeve patch due to all the lettering for this Triple Threads release in 2010.

Well...these next two are kind of cheating since they don't have Cutch Jolly Roger sleeves, but they do have logo patches on cardboard that features Cutch.

A Jolly Roger sleeve patch of Gerrit Cole? I'll take 2 please!

Ok, that card was just a beast, here's the other Cole Pirate logo patch.

This is another patch that features other pretty good ballplayers in Hall of Famers Willie Stargell and Reggie Jackson.  I hear that Yoenis Cespedes guy is pretty good too.  The Cutch patch is what makes the card pop tho.

Let's finish strong!

Boom! That is a big patch of an angry Pirate sleeve patch.

There's still 159 games to go so hopefully there will be plenty more Raising of The Jolly Roger!