A Royal Visit to the Card Aisle

Today was one of the worst workdays I've had in quite some time. I was stressed about an issue walking in the door and the day just snowballed. It ended up with me spending 2+ hours with a dear friend(and coworker) of mine at an urgent care and eventually the ER. From the ER, it was back to work for another 2 hours, where I was unable to be very productive due to the events of the day. So, when I finally left the office, my car kinda drove itself to the local Target for some potential retail pack therapy. I would up picking out a variety of products to open, but for tonight I'll focus on the most unexpected.

Once again, I am apparently out of the loop on release dates. GQ officially releases tomorrow, but as is sometimes the case, I found some blasters on the shelf and some 'Value Packs' hanging on the pegs a day early. Not shown in this picture, there was a coupon for a free pack of Opening Day attached to the front of this package. Let's take a look, shall we?

Here are a few favorites from the three packs. Of course, I love the Tanaka. The Trout is already re-homed, but it's a nice 'art-card'. That concept seems a bit lost on me for a set like GQ though. I mean, can you really tell a huge difference between these drawn cards and the artistic likenesses that always grace the fronts of the Gypsy Queen set? I included Kirby Yates because he was one of my favorite Durham Bulls a few years back. Then he played with the Yankees for a short while. The Reyes and Swanson were the only RCs I pulled, but they're pretty good ones to pull. It's a shame Reyes got hurt. The Quintana shows of the design of the backs. Overall, I think I like the design a bit better than in most years past. It's probably not a product I'll open much more of, but it was a fun rip nonetheless. Now. On to the exclusive green bordered pack.

Not to shabby. A rare cardboard Wieters sighting, Andrew Miller(even if it is in an Indians jersey), and a promising young hurler from Philly makes for a decent pack. I really like the way the green border works with the design and it's a bonus for me that these are not done as 'colored frames' like in years past. My free OD pack was not my first exposure to the 2017 version of the brand. I had picked up a blaster and jumbo pack the day before they officially released. The goods from that break have been scanned and a post is about halfway written, but I haven't gotten a chance to finish it. Maybe I will sometime soon. Anyway, on to the free pack.

Of course it was not nearly as good as my last free pack(series one yielding the Bryant photo variation SSP), but it was a fun addition to my therapeutic break for the evening. I scanned the V-Mart because you don't often see him playing in the field on cardboard these days. The Bregman RC should speak for itself. I always dig the mascots in OD, maybe one year, I'll put together the set. The Sano was my first Opening Day Stars in hand. I like the design, but I'm not sure I'll ever get past the idea that Topps is no longer using the lenticular design on this insert. There were a few other packs that were part of my pack therapy, but they'll have to wait for another post. I'm so glad that cardboard is my 'go-to' vice on difficult days like today. Thanks for reading.

I Had to Wander Like A Gypsy to Find Some GQ

Here it is, a full week after the official release date for 2016 Gypsy Queen and despite my best efforts it's been quite elusive. Apparently today was my lucky day though. I'm not a huge fan of the product, but each year I sample at least a few packs. Here's a look at my first sampling of the year.

I walked out of good ol' Target with this 'value pack'. I even saved a buck thanks to the coupon found in the Marketside pizza packs. Since I had no expectations going in, I hoped to avoid disappointment. Here's a look at the best base card I pulled(really the only one worth showing off).

I still don't love the design, but it continues to move in the right direction for me. The look is even cleaner and less cluttered than last year, but still has some useless, extraneous design elements book ending the 'Gypsy Queen' text. It's still nice to pull one of the best RCs available in the product. Year after year, I tend to enjoy the inserts in GQ more than the base cards. I pulled one insert from the three packs.

Power Alley seems like a decent enough set. I like he crossed bats with the career HR total in a baseball in front of them. That being said, I find the decorative, blue design to be superfluous. Hey, I can be unnecessarily showy too! That's all for the post worthy standard size cards since I didn't pull any variations or SPs. I was fortunate that 2 out of 3 of the minis were pretty decent.

First up, an MVP insert of Willie Mays! The more I look at the insert designs, the more I feel like my 6 year old daughter just scribbled some random lines around the pictures. At least it's a new card of one of the greatest players of all time.

This Sparky Anderson is probably the best card of the 'value pack'. It's a green mini parallel. What does that mean? Well, let's take a look at the flip side.

It's pretty tough to read, but that serial number is 38/99. Granted, it's nothing Earth shattering, but still it was the best card of the bunch. Now, my favorite card(s) of the bunch came from the exclusive framed parallel pack.

I really like the way these blue parallels look. Similar to previous years, the blue frame is raised like the photo was matted. I was pleasantly surprised to find the look of these so much to my liking and was equally surprised to find two cards that actually fit into my collection. The Robbie Cano and the Greg Bird are staying put, but I could be pursuaded to trade any of the others if there's any interest. Thanks for reading.

Another Dance with the Queen

I recently picked up a value pack of Gypsy Queen, just to check it out. Much to my surprise, I found that I liked the design quite a bit more than in past years. I also like a few of the insert sets. So, when I found myself back at Target, I decided I'd give the product another spin. I picked up two more value packs even though it looked pretty obvious that they had been 'searched'. Well, either I was wrong, or I am fortunate enough that the pack searchers at my local Target aren't very good at it. Here's the goods.

I'll start with the six total retail exclusive white bordered cards.

I don't know about you, but I'll take these six if they'd been searched any day! Granted, the two that you'd be able to see if you tried were Napoli and Miller, but still. I love the faux-back on Matt Moore and I got the Captain(not to mention a Joc Pederson RC)! The three on top are up for grabs if anyone is interested. After seeing these come out of the exclusive packs, I wondered if my luck could hold up across the remaining packs.

As the base cards go, these were the highlights for me, though honestly, I'll probably only hold on to the Pederson RC(sorry Wade). I still think the design is way better than last year. Let's move on to the mini highlights.

I couldn't believe that I pulled a silver parallel mini from each value pack. Not too shabby! I could have done quite a bit worse than an RC and Adrian Beltre. They're numbered /199 and up for grabs. That's the first card of Andrew Miller in a Yankees uni and an addition to my small-but-growing Anthony Rendon collection in the middle there.

I almost struck out on the insert front, but this beauty saved me from the o-fer.

This is from one of the inserts I really like this year. It's a bonus that it features a former Durham Bull that I happen to collect. It's a double bonus that the pic was from a game at Yankee Stadium! Very cool, it could have only been beaten by one of the two Jeter cards that are in that checklist.

That's not a bad haul for a couple of value packs, huh? I agree, but fortunately the luck didn't stop there. In one of the packs from the first value pack I busted, I saw something shiny. I thought to myself that it was strange to see something shiny in Gypsy Queen...

Now, I am no fan of the Phillies, and that is a pretty boring white swatch, but pulling a relic from a retail pack is still pretty awesome! As is the case with a lot of the stuff in this post, this Hamels jersey is up for grabs if anyone wants it.

Well that definitely must be all, right? I would have thought so too, but there was one more awesome pull to come from the second value pack. As I was flipping through, I saw something shiny again. This time I thought there was no way I just pulled another relic from a retail pack...

Turns out I was right! My jaw dropped when I saw this autograph of 'the Hawk'! I had never seen any of his certified autos so I was quite impressed with how nice it looked. I was pretty darn happy with the haul. It was certainly in the top three retail purchases I've ever made. That was until I started flipping through the cards a second time. It was when I started taking the time to really look at the cards and read the backs that I found this.

The Dawson auto was limited to 25 copies! These two value packs that I thought were likely searched turned up the best collection of hits I've ever had the fortune of pulling from any retail purchase.

If you're interested in any of these, let me know. I'm sure we can work out a deal. Thanks for reading.

Ripping Some Retail Gypsy Queen

I'm not the biggest fan of Gypsy Queen. Like many of you, I can't pass on the opportunity to crack open some new product. Yesterday, I found myself walking around my local Target to pick up a few household items. The lure of the card aisle was once again to great to ignore. I quickly picked a value pack of the new Gypsy Queen and went on my way. I've seen the product pop upon a few blogs already and actually liked the design a bit better than past years. Here were my three packs and the three 'special' white bordered cards.

I didn't do too bad on the white bordered pack. I got the Ironman, a rookie, and a Ray. In one of the regular packs, I pulled the bronze bordered Shelby Miller on the top row. It is serial numbered out of 499. A fairly boring McCann and an awesome throwback George Springer round out the first scan.

Big Mac, Robbie Alomar, and another great Astros throwback highlight these 6. I've got to say that it seems wrong seeing David Robertson in a ChiSox uni.

Not too much exciting here, but I did land a new Jordan Zimmermann and I kinda like the Marcell Ozuna shot.

Minis came one per pack, as per usual. This Eovaldi sporting the Yankees jersey looks so much better than the one that I pulled out of the retail team set.

Overall, ripping these packs was fun, but didn't really yield many keepers for me. At least my pack busting urges were temporarily satisfied. I plan to hold on to the Baez white border, McCann, Springer, Zimmermann, and the Eovaldi mini. All the rest are up for grabs if anyone wants them. Comment or send me an email if you'd like to claim any of them. Thanks for reading and Happy Friday.