My newest COMC haul

I recently made a small purchase on COMC for my Charlie Morton player collection and a few other cards that I wanted to add to the treasure room.

The Morton gem of the lot was a "Hope" parallel numbered 59/60.  I've been after one of these for awhile, but with a print run of only 60 they don't pop up too often.  When I saw this card, I decided to add some other items to my shopping cart and complete my purchase.  If it wasn't for this card, I probably would not have bought the others.

The card is numbered 59/60 and cost me just shy of $5.  I still need the printing plates for the card, and the Topps factory set parallels.

I also picked up a couple 2012 Topps variants I was still chasing

I needed the mini despite having the black printing plate for the card.

The red Target parallel and gold sparkle parallel.

The gold parallel numbered 566/2012

a 2008 Bowman Chrome blue border parallel numbered 32/99

From rehabbing pitcher to future ace, I also grabbed a Simpsons hand full of Taillon cards for $3.

I got 3 base cards of the young right hander.  2012 Topps Heritage Minors, 2012 Bowman Platinum and 2011 TriStar Pursuit.

I even managed to grab a jersey relic of Jameson for under $2 from the unlicensed company Onyx.

Since many of you may be unaware of the Onyx brand of unlicensed cards, I included a scan of the back.  This particular jersey is numbered 139/500

For $1.26 I also grabbed a game used relic of one of my favorite players here at the PTR, Dave Parker.  It's an unnumbered UD Heroes of Baseball bat relic from 2001.

It will go nicely with my Mad Dog bat relic from the same series.

Pedro Alvarez is the type of player that many fans can lose sleep over.  Personally I'm a huge fan of El Toro.  When he's swinging the bat well he can carry an offense.  When he's not in the zone, you'd rather send up a pitcher to pinch hit.  There's no doubt about it though that the man has incredible strength.

Check out the above video for some of his raw power.

I grabbed 4 cards of El Toro that I needed for my collection.  These were some of the most expensive cards I purchased with each card averaging a buck and a quarter a piece.  Each card is from 2011 Topps except the 2008 TriStar Plus Prospects (3rd card).  I didn't have any atomic refractors until I got this one of Pedro and I have to say, I love these cards.  They look like glass shattering and when light hits them they really pop.    The top 2 cards are from box store exclusives.  The Blue Diamond insert is exclusive to Wal Marts and the 2nd card is exclusive to Target Hanger packs.

One player who has not been struggling at the plate for the Bucs this year is Starling Marte.  He's having a season simlilar to what Cutch did last year.  Through May 4th he's posted a .328/.394/.513 line for an OPS of .907.  That's not a bad line for a corner outfielder.  When you consider that his natural position is centerfield, that's even more impressive.  He's leading the NL with 10 steals while also hitting 4 HRs and driving in 15 RBI.  

Because I will never get a pack of Spring Fever or Turkey Red, I figured it be fairly cheap to pick these two base cards of Starling up for $2.50 total.

To finish things off I got 2 autographs of Pirates prospects.

Stetson Allie was a highly touted flame throwing pitcher the Pirates drafted in the 2nd round of the 2010 draft.  In 2012, the Pirates turned the high risk/high reward prospect into a corner infielder.  His numbers through 2013 are monsterous and he has become the top slugging prospect in the farm system for the Bucs.  I recently did a prospect profile on him where I had showed off some of the cards I have of the 22 year old. The above ITG Heroes and Prospects auto cost me $2.25 and is now my 6th autograph.

Wyatt Mathisen is currently ranked the Pirates 15th best prospect, just one behind the highest ranked catcher, Tony Sanchez, in the farm system.  Mathisen is still very young, 19 years old.  He's currently struggling in A ball batting .182, but will be given many chances to prove himself as the everyday starter for West Virginia.  Last year while playing in the Gulf Coast league, he batted .295 with a very solid K:BB ratio (basically 1 to 1).  The raw skills are there for the young backstop.  The on card auto of Wyatt ran me $2.65.