Zistle Trade #35

A smaller zistle trade of that cards that came from Los Angeles to the frozen Canadian winter. As someone who appreciates a nice set of sideburns, this Eddie Murray card goes into the sideburn Hall of Fame, first ballot. The same photo was re-used for his stadium club card this year, one I still have to track down. Rob Brantly for the catcher collection, and another chef card.

2013 Gypsy Queen Complete

Not much of a post, just taking a minute to celebrate the completion of 2013 Gypsy Queen including short prints. The cards are all in hand and in binder on the shelf with 2011 and 2012 complete sets.. The last card I needed was Nolan Ryan and that just leaves 2014 to pick away at, including two of the pricier cards in the set, Masahiro Tanaka and Jose Abreu.

COMGQSP

Another COMC order arrived, meaning chipping away at my Gypsy Queen sets, starting off with 2011, a set I already finished but found the Rockies short prints for cheap so I added them for the team PC, I don't remember buying the Hanson, but I only paid 45 cents, pretty cheap for a short print.

Canadian Trading

It's always nice when a trade doesn't have to to cross international borders, this was the case with the latest Zistle trade with fellow Canuck Olerud363.

 The highlight for me was 3 Gypsy Queen short prints, leaving me 9 short of the 350 card set.

Mini Mailday

It took me a while to jump aboard the mini bandwagon, and while I am not fully obsessed with them, I jump at the chance to add certain tobacco size cards. First up is a 2011 Gypsy Queen photo variation of Troy Tulowitzki, the first 100 card in the Gypsy Queen set have mini versions with different photos, and are very hard to find.

My Top Acquisitions of 2013

A quick post just showing of some of my favorite pick-ups of 2013, I don't bust a ton of wax so only one was a pulled by me.

9. John Buck 2005 Absolute Memorabilia - Possibly the ultimate catching relic card.

Gypsy Queen from My Cardboard Habit

A nice package from My Cardboard Habit that has been sitting here a while waiting to be scanned in. Along with the last cards I needed for the base set, the package also included two Rockies autographs, two Collisions at the Plate and a short print of Hal Newhouser. Thanks for the much appreciated cards and a return package is being assembled.

GQ From COMC: 2012 Completed

The biggest part of a recent COMC order, over half of the 48 card order was Gypsy Queen, and a large part of that was finishing the photo variants from 2012 (not including the Yu Darvish card). There was also some 2011 & 2013 short prints as I slowly chip away at those sets.

I managed to gather a couple nice Rockies cards as well, the 2013 Tulo short print, a 2011 Printing Plate of Jorge de la Rosa, relics of Jordan Pacheco and Carlos Gonzalez, a 2013 Black Mini Cargo, the last 2 Drew Pomeranz mini's I needed for the rainbow and a mini autograph, numbered to 10, of Wilin Rosario.

Full Trade and Want lists below if anyone is intrested in trading
2011 / 2012 / 2013

2013 Gypsy Queen Johnny Bench Bat Relic

Updating an almost forgotten project, collecting bat relics of the top home run hitting catchers of all time. Johnny Bench held the record with 327 until it was broken by Carlton Fisk and later by Mike Piazza. Bench does have more total career home runs than Fisk, but I am going by home runs hit as a catcher. This pick-up puts me at 7 of the top 10, with Yogi Berra next on the list.

Trade From The Dollar Store

A quick trade with Sportscards From The Dollar Store, one of the few trades I have done that haven't crossed an international border. I was offered a 2013 Gypsy Queen D.J. LeMahieu autograph which was much needed as it is the only LeMahieu card with the Rockies. Also included we have some 2013 GQ base, leaving me 6 shy of the non-sp set, the 2 Rockies mini photo variants, Wilin Rosario Collisions at the Plate, and a 2012 Colby Rasmus to replace the one I took from the set binder to get signed.

Trade with Dutch Card Guy

Everyone's favorite European baseball card blogger recent posted his side of our trade and after getting the post today here it's my turn. Upon opening the package I got thinking that American baseball cards coming from the Netherlands to Canada, these cards might have had a more adventurous life than I have. Starting off with an autograph of Greg Smith who was traded with Carlos Gonzalez among others from the Diamondbacks to the A's for Dan Haren, then traded with Cargo and Huston Street to Colorado for Matt Holliday. Smith went 1-2 with the Rockies in 2010 posting a 6.23 ERA, but probably provided more value with the bat, going 4-13 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs scored. Smith recently signed with the Phillies and is pitching in Double-A. The trade came to be based on 2013 Gypsy Queen, in return for a stack of minis, Jeroen sent me 19 base cards, leaving me 13 short of the base set. (Want/Trade list here if you can help me out).

2013 Gypsy Queen Want and Trade List

2013 Gypsy Queen Wants

Updated Dec 4, 2017

Base Set & SPs
Completed

SSP Photo Variant
1, 3, 9, 14, 20, 26, 34, 35, 45, 61, 62, 64, 99, 100, 110, 117, 150, 172, 189, 259, 276, 310, 311, 321, 324

Mini
110, 202, 270, 305

Mini Black
110, 202, 270, 305

Autographs
Wilin Rosario, Jim Abbott

For Trade

Base
1, 4, 10, 16, 20, 22, 25, 38, 44, 49, 52, 55, 64, 73, 80, 82, 88, 89, 91, 94, 98, 100, 104, 117, 118, 121, 123, 128, 132, 136, 138, 155, 156, 159, 165, 169, 170, 171, 175, 194, 203, 217, 223, 227, 231, 234, 242, 246, 250 ,254, 264, 265, 266, 268, 270, 274, 278, 282, 283, 287, 291, 292, 296, 298, 300, 307, 311, 313, 315, 316, 324, 326, 333, 339, 343

Mini
21, 25, 38, 41, 167, 177, 235, 244, 263, 284, 

Mini SP
239 Reddick, 340 Mays

Mini Green
Cahill 297

Mini Sepia
Fernando Rodney, Brandon Morrow

Mini Photo Variant
20, 85, 121, 172, 208, 258 (x2), 275, 276

Framed Blue
Zach Cozart, Wade Boggs

Dealing Aces
Strasburg, Weaver, Sale, Lee, Price

Glove Stories
Snider, Crisp x2, Harper x2

No-Hitters
Bob Feller x2, Felix Hernandez, Philip Humber

Sliding Stars
Adam Jones, Griffey, Harper

Autographs
Vida Blue, Michael Morse, Jean Segura, D.J. Lemahieu

Relics
Danny Espinosa, Scott Rolen

2013 Queen Box 2 with an extra hit

Box two ended up being much better than the first one. No dupes in box two, and both boxes together leave me 32 cards from the 300 card base set. I got my 6 SP's per box leaving me 38 cards away from the 50 short prints. Oddly enough I got the same four Gloves Stories and No-Hitters as in the first box, giving me doubles of each.

My autographs were better with Michael Morse and Vida Blue, the Nationals and A's are my number 2 & 3 behind Colorado so they kind of fit into the collection, but I would trade them for Rockies autos. The relics were just a disappointing as the first box with Scott Rolen and Corey Hart. I am not sure if Rolen is part of the active player part of the set or the classic players (because he is old you see, it's kind of a joke). The coolest part of the box was pulling a yellow printing plate of Torri Hunter, the first plate I have pulled from a pack. Printing plates are not going for huge money on the secondary market, so I might hold on to it was trade bait for a bit.

My want and tradelist will be up soon, if anyone is interested in swapping some cards.

2013 Gypsy Queen Box 1 Recap & Review

Box number one is ripped and sorted, this post will count as a box recap and a product review with box 2 and a summary to follow. While I did not get much of a return on investment, that's not really why I buy boxes. I enjoy this product and as a set builder, getting a box with 4 hits is pretty nice.

Base cards (177 cards, no dups) - I am not confident that the number 177 is correct, but I am sure that there were zero doubles in the box, and for a set collector this is great. As someone who started collecting in the late 1980's this is still amazing to me. My love for Gypsy Queen is no secret and this year is no different, I would put this years design ahead of last year, but not as good as 2011. This years design is a little busy and the elaborate borders do take away from the photo in some cases, I hope that 2014 goes in the other direction and simplifies the design a little. (and hopefully they can get some new photos to use)

SP (6) - I don't mind the SP's, but scattering them around the set is pretty annoying. 2011 did it best by putting them in order as the last 50 cards.

2013 Qypsy Queen Mailday

A week behind everyone else, my boxes finally came, after a few slow months in the card department it's pretty exciting to have these to rip through.

Seriously Topps?

Not an April Fools joke, although I wish it was, here we have 2012 and 2013 Gypsy Queen Yogi Berra. I noticed Topps used the same couple photos for a bunch of 2012 Drew Pomeranz cards, but they at least were cropped a little different, but using the same photo of the same player in the same brand is seriously ridiculous. I also noticed the Tulowitzki card looked familiar.WTF.

2013 Gypsy Queen Checklist is out

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Gypsy Queen? For those who are interested the full 2013 checklist is out and linked below.

PDF Link Here

We get a 350 card "base set", including 50 short prints that are scattered around the checklist instead of being the last 50. To further complicate things, we also get 25 base card variations which I assume are photo variants. The minis seem to follow the same 350 with short prints, but have a much longer list of variations.

On first glance the auto checklist is nice with 3 Rockies including D.J. LeMahieu's first rockies card, along with Jim Abbott and Dave Stewart, two players I followed as a kid.

Goals for 2013

I wasn't going to do a post on this, but reading a few other list got me thinking about what my goals are as far as collecting so here it is.

1. Keep the blog active, the minimum I have set for myself is 2 posts a week but I hope to stay more active than that.

2. Complete more trades, in little over a year I did 15 trades, so about one a month, not bad but a few more would be nice.

3. Finish the "One of every Rockie" collection. After a COMC purchase yesterday I am down to 9 players from 1993-2012. The remanining 9 are Gary Wayne, Aaron Ledesma, Ross Gload, Justin Speier, Chris Richard, Adam Melhuse, Edwin Bellorin, Rob Scahill and Thomas Field. The list will grow once the 2013 products come out but I want to focus on these ones first.

4. Complete a 2013 set, I will be buying 2 boxes of 2013 Gypsy Queen which should get me close to the base set leaving me to work on any short prints.

5. Complete 2 older sets, right now I am looking at 1992 Pinnacle and 2012 Gypsy Queen short prints, or at least all of them other than the Darvish.

6. Get my 2011 GQ set above 50%, right now I have 147 out of 350 (42%) including 33 of 50 short prints (66%).

7. Acquire at least one more 1977 Topps Mexican NFL Redskin, I am down to 7 for the team set with mostly expensive short prints left.

8. Get a TTM autograph, I was going to try this last past year, but the NHL lockout put this on hold, I will try a few over the year and see what happens.

9. Get an in person auto, more on this next week hopefully.

10. See a pro baseball game, this might be a small goal for some, but with the closest MLB stadium over 850 miles and an international border away, it's a big deal for me. Any planned trips look like they will be to a minor league stadium so we will see what happens there.

11. Buy a box of cards other than Gypsy Queen, last year I was all set to buy a box of 2012 Update or Bowman Draft, but I blew my budget on two cards costing around $80 combined in Tim Thomas and Daniel Paille autographs.

12. Add to my Rockies autograph cards, Matt Holliday, Larry Walker and Andres Galarraga top this list.

The list ended up longer than I thought, so it seems like a worthwhile effort and if you made it this far into the post thanks for reading.

2013 Gypsy Queen First Look

Topps has now unveiled the design for next year Gypsy Queen set. I again love the base cards, the sharp corners at the top of the design give the brand a more modern look than the first two years, but the design on the bottom with the Norse/Celtic style knotwork still give a bit of a retro look. The painted photoshop filter is back on the photos as expected. My biggest problem with Gypsy Queen is the inserts tend to be ugly and the playing card look of the "Dealing Aces" inserts look a little over the top. I for one am excited that GQ is returns and look forward to the product release in the spring.

More info at the Beckett article.