TwinsJake / Topps Project 2020

A good majority of the card collecting community may be familiar with the handle TwinsJake. Many of you may have purchased a Topps Now card from him when he had a presence on eBay. Some of you may have purchased Topps Project 2020 cards from him earlier in the year? 

If you are familiar with TwinsJake, then you'll know of the associated "issues" with him. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he basically admitted he bit off more than he could chew and fell massively behind. Toss in the destruction of his neighborhood post office in Minnesota due to riots months earlier and it appears some health issues and he fell further behind. 

People on Twitter were ready to grab their torches and pitchforks and storm the gates. Yes, the lnch mob was ready. I tried to remain neutral, even though I had several Project 2020 orders that just didn't seem to be moving. I understand that while someone's social media appearance may be just fine, you never know what is going on once you start to peel back that layer. I tried to keep my cool and at times would even defend TwinsJake online in places such as Twitter. 

In July I tried placing an order for some Braves Topps Now cards and after 4 unsuccessful orders I gave up. Later I noticed my PayPal account was hit for all 4 charges. I reached out both through TwinsJake's website as well as through Twitter and nothing. The radio silence went on for a few months. Shortly there after, out of the blue it seems, I was emailed some tracking numbers in early September. Yes! My orders were finally going to ship.

Then nothing. The tracking numbers showed zero movement. I messaged again through the website and Twitter and at first nothing. Then I got a reply. He offered to toss in some free stuff and I told him I just wanted those PayPal transactions refunded and wanted the cards I paid for. A few days later I got a new tracking number along with a picture of my outgoing package. Then I got a message from PayPal that refunds had been processed. Last week my order finally arrived.

While I still think these cards are beautiful, I'm done with Project 2020. I was excited earlier in the year for this project...as you can tell from my purchases, but through nobody's particular fault, I've moved on. I'm glad to finally have these in my hands, especially the Jackie Robinson cards (in retrospect, I just should have stuck with his cards and ignored everyone else).

Thank you TwinsJake for making at least my situation right. I still don't know what happened behind the scenes and I don't really care to know. As frustrating as things can be when communication slows down or drops between two parties, just remember that none of us have he shoe on the other foot...meaning we don't know what is going on in the life of the other party. More communication on the behalf of TwinsJake would have been nice, but I'm not going to criticize or judge. I'm thankful he finally responded to my messages and made things right. If you happen to be waiting on orders from him, continue to keep pushing with emails, Tweets and DMs and eventually he'll get back to you. I don't think for one second that he ever set out to swindle anyone. When he eluded to getting in over his head, I believe him. The early stages of Project 2020 were crazy. I'm glad I got off that rollercoaster.

Be good everyone...

Box Break: 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen (and Want List)

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

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 29

30 DAY BASEBALL CARD CHALLENGE

DAY 29

A favorite card from before 1950, whether you own it or not

Last night's poker night w/ the guys ran longer than I antipated...so there will be two 30 Day Challenge posts today! Then I can get back to some regular card blogging.

I can certainly tell you that I do NOT own this 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson RC, that is for sure. However just look at it. How can a baseball fan not like this man? For what we endured, what he did for the game...this is a rookie card that will be on my dream want list and I'm sure I'm not the only one.