If you've read baseball card blogs over the past few months, then you've probably encountered at least one person expressing disdain for the once-popular Check Out My Cards (COMC) website. COMC used to be a place where collectors could simultaneously offload unwanted cards for a bit of cash and use that cash to purchase wanted cards from other collectors. The nice thing about COMC was that the company stored all of the cards and provided scans of the cards. In this way, collectors felt like their purchases were more secure, and, as such, it was worth paying the bit of a markup that COMC charged on each sale. In addition, COMC would hold cards for collectors, which allowed people to make several small purchases before deciding to have their entire batch of cards shipped (thus saving in shipping costs for the customer). All of this was reasonable, and it was good while it lasted.
Unfortunately, COMC has been going downhill for quite some time in terms of the user experience. Selling cards seems to have gotten more expensive (you pay a hefty fee to get cards listed, and then COMC takes another chunk out once a card sells). During covid times, COMC suffered from extremely long shipping delays (understandable at the time, but it took them years to get things to a more reasonable time frame). And now, what I think is the final nail in the coffin, COMC has drastically raised their shipping rates while still maintaining a super slow turnaround.
In an effort to prove that the above isn't simply me whining, here are the "stats" for two purchases that I made from COMC.
In 2025:
I made an order for 30 cards to be shipped to me. The order was made on March 14, and the cards were shipped a bit over a month later on April 18. Shipping cost me $5.99.
In 2026 (less than a year later):
I made an order for 28 cards to be shipped to me. The order was made on January 5, and the cards were shipped over five weeks later on February 13. Shipping cost me over double the previous order: $12.74.
So to recap: Two orders placed less than a year apart. The second order had two fewer cards (neither order had any super large cabinet cards or anything like that), and yet COMC charged me more than double for shipping AND took another week+ to actually ship my cards out.
When I saw the shipping fees for my most recent order, I actually got so annoyed that I then went and tried to have all of my cards that I am currently attempting to sell on COMC sent back to me as well (roughly 250 cards). That was a mistake; shipping went up to something like $40 or $50 at that point for what would basically be a bunch of low-end inserts and base cards that I don't even need. Ugh.
On the bright side, the cards DID finally arrive at my house - and since you've made it this far, I might as well show off some of what I purchased! In fact, we'll start with the biggest batch of cards from a single set: Chrome Refractors from the 2024 Topps Allen & Ginter set.
From the above batch, you'll notice that seven of the nine cards that I still needed are rookie cards. Topps loves their rookies...and apparently a lot of collectors do too, because the above purchase was all cards that I could never swing a deal for over on TCDB.
And speaking of cards that no one wants to trade me, I was able to nab the final two Chrome Refractors for my set build:
Yeah, no surprise to me that Aaron Judge was one of the final cards I needed. I think Judge is the new Derek Jeter - a Yankee that I'll always seem to need for just about any set build, because of course Topps is going to jam as many Aaron Judge cards in a set as possible (the same as what they used to do with Derek Jeter)! At least I don't have to worry about that for this set, because my 2024 Topps Allen & Ginter Chrome Refractor set is now complete! This marks the fourth set that I've completed in 2026!
Sticking with 2024 A&G, I also grabbed a pair of the Chrome Mini cards for my set build.
This build is still in progress, though I'm now only missing two more cards before I can call that set complete as well. My last two needed cards are #66: Manny Machado and #170: Jackie Robinson.
That will conclude the first part of my COMC order. I still have quite a few more cards to show off, so look for a follow-up post before too long!
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