COMC splurges of late

So now that I actually make money on COMC, I have to decide where to spend it.  Occasionally I buy up cards for my main PCs, occasionally I cash out some credit to pay some bills, and occasionally I buy stuff for fellow bloggers.  But when all those options have been exhausted for the moment, I buy random stuff that catches my eye.  Here are my four most recent examples of that latter option.

For one, I always wanted a 2 or more color Barry Sanders jersey in my collection.  I know that seems like a really random want, but he's easily one of the best RB I've ever seen, and I associate him with a lot of good Thanksgiving memories, so that's part of it too.  I also wanted to make sure the swatch of jersey was really genuine...which narrowed my choices considerably.  I then looked for such a card for a long while before, recently, finding it:

Ain't it nice?  I used to have a Kevin Johnson from this same set, and a lot of the cards have patches.  This one looks pretty nice - to be honest if the first down marker wasn't there it might be even better, but it's not like the first down marker kills it for me.  And it's got a two color patch, which is simply great.

And THERE'S the authenticity I like to see - actual picture of the jersey on the back of the card.  Basically as good as it gets...and makes me feel really good about my Barry Sanders patch card!

After I bought that Barry Sanders patch card, I remembered I also some day wanted a Tom Brady patch card.  Same elements apply - I wanted it guaranteed - and so my options were very limited here since people buy up Brady more than they do Sanders nowadays.  Luckily I found a guy selling a bunch of Brady jerseys right before the Super Bowl and was able to snatch a dual that was right up my alley:

I mean, as a Pats fan, this card is insanely awesome.  You've got a three color Brady patch, which is great in its own right, but you also get a three color patch of 2-time Patriots Super Bowl winner Antowain Smith.  It's marvelous to look at, and it really is a nice get as my first Brady patch card.

Then check this back out.  TWO jersey pictures to show where the swatches came from, and it's serial number stamped.  All cards should be this awesome - this is definitely like a top 10 card in my entire collection now.

Moving in a fairly different direction, I occasionally browse former Ice Cats players to see what's out there of them since I loved the team so much.  I was searching Brent Johnson the other day and found this crazy multi-player card that I just had to have...because of the helmets displayed:

Chris Osgood...whatever.  Brent Johnson was the IceCats goalie for most of the games I saw, but he's all Blues here.  Curtis Sanford and Reinard Davis both have Cats helmets here, which is AWESOME, and I remember reading about their goal-er-ly pursuits in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette on the daily back in the day.  And lastly we have Cory Rukowsky...he obviously spent a little time with the Cats too, but at this time he was actually playing in the ECHL with Reading.

The back kind of echoes what I said.  I think I just like seeing Worcester on the back of a card...their current AHL team (the Sharks) are leaving after this season, so it's nice to remember a time when hockey was really bustling in Central Massachusetts.

Last but not least, let's get back to crazy patches.  I found a Topps collegiate card that was way underpriced in my search for flips, and that reminded me that I have a sick logo patch of Seneca Wallace from one of those sets.  So I searched a bunch of those sets for similar, cheap logo patches, and found one of Talman Gardner.  He's a Madden 2004 guy AND he reminds me of that song "She's so high" by Tal Bachman so I had to purchase it for less than $2:

Gardner was on the team that faced Seneca in the Senior Bowl, and I didn't put in the logo legwork to see what this logo said, but I do know it's a five color patch that I got for less than 2 bucks...so I don't even care.  I just love nice patches that were truly game worn...man the like 2002-2005 time period was a great time for patches in sports cards!

Here's the back...sadly no picture of the jersey in question (Topps didn't do that unfortunately) but I like the design and I like to believe the jersey piece is authentic.  Who would fake a Talman Gardner jersey, right?