A Stack of Gypsy Queens

This blog, like many others, has been rather quiet lately. Prior to this post, I checked my last publish date, which was the 21st. Almost a week. It's not that cards haven't been of concern -  I am actually working on a little baseball card "market research post" and ravings over the 2013 Bowman Sterling set. In fact this post was originally a considerably less eloquent canton written while waiting for out Chinese food to cook the other night. It was an attempt to publish via the Blogger Android App, which is trash. Don't bother with it.

I suppose it's the season. Many are travelling. Some are snowed in. In fact, today, I was more or less confined to the house  - my job requires me to drive a rear-wheel drive Ford Ranger around all day. Aaaaand last night we got about foot of fresh powder on top of at least six inches from Christmas Eve and another half-a-foot the weekend prior.

On top of a few other things at Target sometime last week, I grabbed the above pictured stack of Gypsy Queen packs. I love Gypsy Queen, and I was surprised and delighted to see a fresh retail box of them at Target...so I grabbed six of them.

The results were actually quite excellent. Here's what I came home with:

Love that AMERICAH! uniform the Nats showcase.

Six packs, three photo variations. I've had excellent luck with these. I'll need to do more research on them, and decide whether or not to go after a base-version complete set, variation set, variations and base complete set, or a motley Frankenset.

Miniiiiisss!

Obligatory minis. I enjoy the Gypsy Queen minis much more than Allen & Ginter's. I am slowly convincing myself to go after Gypsy Queen in '13 rather than A&G. I'm sure none of ya'll will stop me. The Gypsy Queen back is my favourite, yet I have not yet landed a paper-framed parallel. I do have one Sepia /99, of JP Arencibia, of course.

Some inserts. The Hallmark Heroes are a big yawner, but I enjoy the Moonshots. Cannot argue with the player selection showcased here. However, I also pulled a Mickey Mantle HHs, and if I pull another Mantle card I may quit collecting modern cards.

And of course, the hit:

How did CJ burn his mouth?
He ate his food before it was cool.

America's (least) favourite Hipster baseballer, CJ Wilson. A clean white swatch. I'd rather not see relics in nostalgia-type sets. It just doesn't look right. However, I am always happy to pull a relic, perhaps one I could flip in a trade or one ebay/comc, and its always a pleasure to have it be someone relevant. No Morgan Ensberg or Khalil Greene here.

So, in essence, not too bad for six $2 retail packs. Enough to scratch the itch for a week or two.