Just Commons Part One: Close, But No Cigar

I finally received my second Just Commons order a couple days ago. It took a little longer from the notice that the shipment was sent until I actually had the package than the first time, but I don't think that is their (his?) fault. On the other hand, it was the second time I had to send an email (actually, use their message system) to get shipping payment information because the system can't handle Japanese postage. Both times, he said he sent emails before, but I was paying pretty close attention to my junk email folder the second time around, just in case, and I never saw anything.

Anyway, I'm still pretty happy with the service. Where I had a lot of commons in the first order, I dug a little bit deeper this time and checked out some of the inserts they sell. Given my lack of access to cards in Japan, the prices were right for the cards I purchased. I'll still need to do COMC, which is still a better deal for most of the more expensive singles - not high-end big money cards, mind you, but inserts and parallels are frequently pretty cheap on COMC, especially when I can get discounts around Black Friday.

I digress.

 Just Commons is great for set builders, provided they have the sets you're collecting. When it comes to major-company releases from the past few years and the major flagship (Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Stadium Club, etc) sets from the past thirty years, they have a really good selection. It's also a good source for player/team collectors looking for a lot of base singles.

I've made major progress on my 2011 Goodwin Champions set. Goodwin is one of the sets they had a pretty good stock of SPs for, but I'm still a little short. As of this writing, I need five more cards: 185, 194, 195, 209, and 210.

A lot of people knock Goodwin Champions for its strange images of baseball players and the inclusion of lots of non-baseball subjects. At the same time, there's so much love for Allen & Ginter, which has plenty of non-baseball subjects. And Goodwin's images are unique and different, when everybody's complaining about how "The Same" Topps has become... the same can be said about 2014 Donruss. Neither are perfect, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. If Topps isn't really doing anything different, and Panini and Upper Deck are going out on a limb with their products to make something stand out... well, I've said enough on the subject. (Yes, 2014 Donruss collation is crap, based on what I've seen from box/case breaks. I'm ignoring that factor right now, because I never break product anyway.)