My wife and girls' spring break this year pretty much fell one week after everyone else in the world. Turns out this wasn't a bad thing as we were able to stay at my mom's beach house for most of this week. Knowing that I'd have time in the evening to myself, I grabbed a new 4 inch binder I had purchased, 2 packs of Ultra Pro 9 pocket pages and a my hobby box of 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen I've been sitting on for a few weeks.
The loose cards above the box were the only retail cards purchased up until this point
Andrew from
The Iron Lion gave me a great deal on the box upon GQ's release date back in March. Between work, being tired and perhaps some laziness I finally got around to ripping the box today. My daughters sat with me at the kitchen table as I ripped open packs, listening to 80's hard rock, watching intently for me to pull then next Braves card. I have to admit...I loved every moment of my girls sitting with me "enjoying" my hobby with me. At one point, my oldest daughter, Olivia, 8, began telling me about Jackie Robinson. I asked where she learned about him and she said at school. She asked if I had a card of his, but sadly the answer was no...but I followed it up with a "one day, baby".
After dinner at Nakato (Japanese steak house), a round of mini golf and some ice cream I owed the girls, we came back to the house and I was finally able to finish collating the cards. I feel as if I put a pretty good dent into the base set. Up until this point I'd only purchased one rack pack of GQ from retail. Now that I know what I need to finish off the set, I guess it'll be retail and (hopefully) trading with other collectors from here on out.
Logo swap, missing team name, Bazooka back & blue parallels
I know there has been a lot of discussion about the various parallels in this years Gypsy Queen set, and for the most part I agree with the masses. The missing name plate, team name, logo swap and such are just dumb. While I did pull two missing team name cards of players I collect and plan to hold onto them, I will not be searching out any more of these. I like the set for the base cards and their design. I've been a fan of the GQ brand since the beginning and this year is no different.
I didn't really hit a home run in the autograph department (in my opinion), but at least the Carlos Carrasco auto is numbered 056/150. I do like the one card autos, something that seems to be slowly disappearing in the hobby.
Each Hobby box yields one GQ ClassWorks Chrome box topper. I was really hoping to pull Freddie Freeman, but ended up w/ Josh Donaldson instead. Any Blue Jays fans reading this that want to trade?
Oh yeah, I pulled this little no name RC from the box as well. Nope, it's not for sale or for trade...it's card #089 that I need for the set.
The inserts in GQ have been hit and miss since the beginning and this year...well at least I like one of the sets. I like the idea behind the Fortune Teller set...it fits the Gypsy Queen theme...but these aren't real mini cards. I'd rather these be full size if they aren't going to be minis.
The Tarot of the Diamond inserts however are a lot of fun and look more beautiful in hand than scanned. The odds were right on the money with my box containing 3 of these. Only another 17 to go before I'll have the whole set. This is another interesting insert that fits the GQ theme quite well.
The thing about have a lot of image variation parallels that makes it hard on collectors is knowing what to look for. Well thanks to the article on
Cardboard Connection I was able to find a whole list of the variations and it just so happened that my "duplicate" Trevor Story wasn't a duplicate at all...it was one of the Jackie Robinson image variations. These were seeded 1:106 packs. Glad to have pulled it of a guy I also collect.
Overall I enjoyed ripping the box and had fun with my girls at the same time. It's memories like this that'll last far longer than the joy I get of opening packs. I really like this year's GQ set and look forward to trying to fill in my holes. Speaking of that, below is my want list that I threw together after opening the box. If you would like to help me in any fashion with these missing cards, by all means please let me know.
1, 10, 13, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 32, 35, 37, 39, 40, 52, 53, 58, 59, 62, 63, 66, 68, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, 97, 98, 100, 102, 105, 108, 111, 118, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 140, 142, 145, 156, 158, 160, 163, 164, 166, 169, 172, 175, 177, 183, 185, 195, 196, 197, 199, 203, 208, 211, 218, 219, 224, 228, 230, 136, 240, 243, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 255, 256, 260, 262, 265, 266, 267, 270, 274, 278, 281, 282, 285, 287, 289, 290, 292, 295, 296, 297, 300
SP
301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 319, 320
Fortune Teller
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20
Tarot of the Diamond
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,17, 19, 20, 21, 22
