Black Friday binge: A big flock of Blue Jays

There isn't a more addictive side on the entire World Wide Web than COMC. I would try to figure out how many hours I've spent browsing cards on the site this year but I think the final tally would terrify me. But...all that window-shopping meant I was ready to pull the trigger on a whole bunch of stuff during Thanksgiving Week, when many sellers on that site offer their best deals of the year.

The order arrived the other day. There are far too many cards for a single post, so I'm going to start with just the Blue Jays:

Leading off is a "blue slate" parallel of what I think is my favorite Blue Jay base card of the last few years. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are arguably the best power-hitting duo in the majors right now and they've been the heart of the franchise for four or five years now. I'd never seen one of these blue slate parallels before, but they are absolutely gorgeous, especially when paired with Toronto's team colors. They were apparently distributed through a wrapper redemption program. It's hard to overstate how much nicer these cards are than the regular blue parallels sold through Walmarts.

This is an emerald foil version of the card and it's awfully nice, too. And it makes 2013 Topps seem even more like the sea turtle set.

One more blue slate, this time of former Jays outfielder Rajai Davis celebrating a walk-off win. The Jose Bautista cameo is a little more subtle in this one.

Purple. These were Toys 'R Us exclusives.

Red. Target exclusive.

And gold. Numbered to 2013. These are the least attractive of all.

I'm not as much of a chrome fan as other collectors, although they have been growing on me. This is something called an "x-fractor" featuring the most interesting pitcher in the world with his former personal catcher, Henry Blanco.

Moving on to a run of Jose Bautista cards. As a native of Toronto, this is my favorite, for obvious reasons. Prettiest skyline in the world.

A close second-place finish goes to this card from 2011 Heritage. I like the fact that it commemorates Bautista's out-of-nowhere breakout season. I really don't want Toronto to let him go as a free agent next year...

If these 2012 retro parallels were full-sized cards I would be going full-on apeshit trying to collect this set. I just can't seem to get into minis, though. It's probably because they don't fit properly into binder sheets. To each his own OCD, I guess.

One more Joey Bats. I picked this one up because, as a child reared on 1987 Topps, I figured I'd really like the original wood grain design of 1962 Topps. This card is sorta meh, though.

I was psyched to pick this up: Edwin Encarnacion's first card as a Blue Jay. Hard to believe now, but EE was basically a throw-in in a trade that sent Scott Rolen to the Cincinnati Reds for pitching prospect Zach Stewart. ("Who?" you ask. Exactly.) Even harder to believe that the Jays once non-tendered him, briefly lost him to the A's and then got him back when Oakland waived him. It's better to be lucky than good, I s'pose. Anyway, this is from 2009 Topps Updates & Highlights. It's a black parallel sold through Walmart. I actually would have preferred the base card, but this one was cheaper.

I like all framed parallels. But I love blue-framed, Blue Jay parallels. I think this is my second from 2014 Gypsy Queen. (He'll be sitting next to R.A. Dickey in the box.)

Now we're getting to some of my favorite cards of the order. This is an artist's proof parallel from 1998 Score. I've been really digging 1997-98 Score hockey lately (which uses the same design) in large part because there are so many fantastic images. The same appears to be true of the baseball set, if this shot of Carlos Delgado shooting a super soaker (!) onto the field is any indication. And these artist proof parallels are like looking at the pictures through a kaleidoscope.

Next up are two "Museum Collection" parallels (at least, I think they're parallels) from 1994 Pinnacle. I didn't even know this set existed until seeing a post featuring some of them on Shoebox Legends one day. Naturally, I immediately logged onto COMC and bought myself a couple. He was right: They are really nice...

...But even nicer are these "Starburst" parallels from 1996 Pinnacle. I happened to stumble across these while killing time browsing COMC a while back and I immediately flipped out for them. The Olerud -- for which I definitely overpaid, at something like $2.25 -- is a double parallel, too, as it's also an artist's proof. The only difference seems to be that "artist proof" is stamped over and over again on the card. I'll probably stick to the regular starburst parallels going forward. These were easily my two favorite Blue Jay cards in the entire COMC box.

Finally, a single Blue Jay hit. I liked Stadium Club so much that I built the base set earlier this year. I think it's the first modern set I've completed since getting back into the hobby. Now I've been trying to pick up the Blue Jay autos from the set. Canadian native Dalton Pompey is my fourth (joining Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and the since-traded Daniel Norris). I *think* there's also a Josh Donaldson base auto in this set, but it seems to be much, much rarer than the others.

And that's the first wave of COMC Black Friday cards. More tomorrow!