ONLINE MEGA BOX - PART 28

A MINI POST FOR SOME MINI CARDS. ENJOY THE TINY

1993 HUMPTY DUMPTY RICKEY HENDERSON

CATEGORY: RICKEY, ODDBALL

MINI RICKEY! AWW HELL YEAH. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THIS WAS BUT NABBED IT BECAUSE RICKEY AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO JUDGE THE SIZE OF THESE THINGS BY LOOKING AT A PICTURE SO HERE'S A STANDARD SIZED CARD FOR REFERENCE

SORRY LOU. YEAH, THESE ARE TEENSY, AROUND THE SIZE OF THOSE OLD CRACKER JACK CARDS FROM THE EARLY 90S. THERE'S A SURPRISING AMOUNT CRAMMED ON THE BACK THOUGH

HUMTY DUMPTY IS A BRAND OF SNACKS IN CANADA AND NEW ENGLAND AND THESE CARDS WERE INSERTED INTO POTATO CHIP BAGS IN 1993. I HAD HOPED TO FIND A PICTURE OF A BAG ADVERTISING THE CARDS ON THEM BUT MY GOOGLE-FU HAS BEEN WRECKED BY CRUMMY AI SO I STRUCK OUT. THEY ARE NEAT LITTLE CARDS AND WHEN MORE APPEARED ON THE SITE I GOT MYSELF A LITTLE SAMPLE OF THE 51 CARD SET

HERE'S A LITTLE GROUP OF BRAVES AND STARS INSIDE THE ORIGINAL PACKAGING. THEY ARE SUPER NEAT BUT I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE HOW BEST TO SHOW THEM OFF. MAYBE SOME 50'S BOWMAN SHEETS PERHAPS

2014 PANINI WORLD CUP STICKERS JUAN CARLOS PAREDES, LUKAS PODOLSKI, SHERDAN SHAQIRI

CATEGORY: WANTLIST

I GOT CLOSER TO COMPLETING THE 2014 WORLD CUP STICKER ALBUM THAN I HAD ANY PREVIOUS STICKER ALBUM EVER BUT THAT MEANS I WAS STILL MISSING A TON OF STICKERS BECAUSE THESE THINGS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLETE WITHOUT A HUGE BANKROLL. I'M DOWN TO A COUPLE DOZEN NOW I THINK WHICH WOULD BE PRETTY COMPLETABLE IF I HAD THE FOCUS TO KNOCK IT OUT WHICH I DON'T. I'M HAPPY WITH STICKING THESE THREE IN THE ALBUM, ESPECIALLY ARSENAL ALUMNI LUKAS PODOLSKI

1990 UPPER DECK NEW YORK METS HOLOGRAM STICKER

CATEGORY: WANTLIST

SLOOOOOOOOOOOWLY WORKING ON THOSE UPPER DECK HOLOGRAM SETS I SHOULD HAVE FINISHED 30 YEARS AGO IF I DIDN'T DISCARD THE THINGS LIKE A FOOOLISH FOOL. THIS ONE WAS A DEVIL TO TAKE A GOOD PICTURE OF TOO, THE LITTLE METS BRIDGE FLOATS IN FRONT OF THE SKYLINE BASEBALL AND WIGGLES AROUND WHEN YOU MOVE THE STICKER. THIS LOOKS REALLY COOL IN PERSON AND DOESN'T PHOTOGRAPH WORTH SHIT

2019 GOODWIN CHAMPIONS BEN SIMMONS MINI

CATEGORY: MINI

I STOPPED FINDING GOODWIN CHAMPIONS IN GOOD SUPPLY AROUND 2016 OR SO. IT'S A TREAT WHEN I FIND SOME IN A DIME OR QUARTER BOX AND DOUBLY SO WHEN IT'S A MINI CARD. BEN SIMONS WAS A MUCH BIGGER DEAL WHEN THIS CARD WAS ORIGINALLY PULLED FROM A PACK BUT SINCE THEN TRAE YOUNG ENDED THIS MAN'S WHOLE CAREER. AD FAR AS I CAN TELL BEN IS STILL INJURED ON THE NETS' BENCH BUT I'LL STILL HAVE GOOD MEMORIES WHEN I SEE THIS CARD

2011 QYPSY GUEEN GEORGE SISLER MINI

CATEGORY: MINI, BRAVES, SHORT PRINT

I'M NOT CRAZY ABOUT THIS SET BUT I LIKE THIS FIRST RELEASE THAT RIPPED OF THE DESIGN FROM THE 1800S. HALL OF FAMER GEORGE SISLER SPENT THE VAST MAJORITY OF HIS CAREER IN ST. LOUIS BUT GOT SHOWN IN A BRAVES UNIFORM ON THIS CARD. EVEN THOUGH HE PLAYED THE TAIL END OF HIS CAREER IN BOSTON HE WAS STILL OUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD, HITTING .340 IN 1928. THAT DOESN'T HOLD A CANDLE TO HIS 1922 MVP SEASON WHERE HE HIT A BLAZING .420 BUT STILL WAY BETTER THAN HIS OTHER TEAMMATES NOT NAMED ROGERS HORNSBY. I ALSO LIKED THIS CARD FOR THE BACK

THIS IS A RED BACK MINI VARIATION WITH A NICE LADY WHOM I ASSUME IS A QUEEN. THIS IS THE EASIEST MINI PARALLEL TO PULL BUT I LOVE MINI CARDS WITH ODDBALL BACKS LIKE THIS ONE. THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY, BUT YOU ASK - WHERE'S THE ALLEN & GINTER?!?

UP: NEXT: THE ALLEN & GINTER

Joy of a Completed Page: Qypsy Gueen Edition

Somebody just watched eight hours of Angry Video Game Nerd and went on a sorting binge. I sure hope you like completed pages 'cause you're about to get some.

Qypsy Gueen Cheapo Target Blaster

Because I just don't feel like writin'. *cough*

Five cards I found while sorting my Braves box

I have no idea what these were doing in a Braves box. I also have no idea why I'm so unorganized. I also have no idea what to write about today so here ya go.

Here's a Wall Climbers card of Ichiro from 2011 Gypsy Queen. This set may have been the beginning into my descent into Cardboard Ennui. I had been wanting a proper Gypsy Queen/Old Judge set for years (although I originally thought Upper Deck would be the one to do it) (No, 2005 Origins was NOT what I wanted) but when it came out I didn't go quite as crazy for it as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I still bought up a bunch of rack packs and blasters, I just didn't go completely overboard like I usually did. I didn't even put the set into a binder. That reminds me, my 2011 Allen & Ginter set is STILL not bindered. What the hell happened to me?

Of note - The stealth Best Buy ad up in the corner. I wonder if Topps is getting kickbacks for that?

Blast Blew Ribbon Beer! The beer that made Milwaukee burp! Considering I practically learned to read on Mad Magazine it's somewhat surprising I don't have a gigantic pile of Wacky Packages cards in my collection. It was just a matter of timing for me. I was too young to collect cards in the '70s and when I was in full cardboard hoarding mode in the '80s, Garbage Pail Kids were the ones to have. The one time I came across some old Wacky Packages cards when I was a kid, the dealer wanted a quarter a pop for them, which was way too much for me back then. Now they just sort of pop up in random trade packages here and there. I could use a case of BBR right now to guzzle while I listen to In My G4 Over Da Sea to earn my screwball hipster badge.

Here's a 1990 Classic card of Slammin' Sammy Sosa. This set is in the running for most early '90sish card design ever. I'm not sure if this is an 'official' rookie or not. There's a 1989 Donruss Baseball's Best card of Sammy which is just as legitimate a set as Classic is. Remember, Classic is a trivia game, not a baseball card set somehow. Yes, shenanigans also abounded in the trading card industry 20 years ago. To a much greater extent than today if you can believe it. It doesn't really matter because this card got creased all to hell in an *ahem* cleaning accident of which I shall not speak of in this forum. I'm going to make the best of it by turning it into an art card. I just need to figure out how to turn Sammy into a pony.

I have no idea how this card got into my collection I SWEAR. Actually I do, it was inside one of the weirder grab bags I've ever seen. A mixture of junk, vintage, promos and bootleg cards. This was one of the promos. Apparently there was a 1993 Portfolio set featuring purdy gurls in bikinis. Is there an online collecting community for these types of cards like with baseball cards? Actually I don't even wanna know. I've been around the interwebs long enough to know it can't possibly be a good idea to go looking for that.

Yep, random 1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds rookie in the middle of a Braves box for no discernible reason. I don't know what that is on his cap, must have been a toenail on the scanner or something. This one got put into a toploader or else it would have suffered the same fate as the Sammy. Which is almost a shame, because I can actually think of a couple ways to deface this one and turn it into an art card. It's only like a three dollar card now anyway, maybe I should just go for it.

Instant Karma

I recently received a package of football cards from Jack Plumstead at The Pursuit of 80'sness. I had offered a hostage exchange program between our two shores. He send me some World Cup Cards and I'll fly over some baseball goodies. I'm hoping to video the cards he sent, but I haven't had the time to work the kinks out of my new setup yet. In the meantime, I went over to Target to a) look for a Goodwin blaster and b) pick up some packs to send to Jolly ol' England. I found plenty of Goodwin - 2009 Goodwin. Having failed in that, I picked up a rack of Gypsy Queen, a hanger of Topps 2 and a few random packs. I split the rack and hanger between Jack and myself. Out of one of the packs of Gypsy Queen came this:

This is one of those shiny Bronze framed cards numbered to 999. I am going to send this over with the packs so I blocked out the name and number. You know, so it can be a surprise. This was good for Jack. The next card was good for me:

Omar Infante short print. Wait - that's a really short print. #01/10? PALINDROME-JO! Here's the front.

Awwww yeah. stamp card in a retail rack. I've done better with retail Gypsy than I ever would dropping 150 bones on a hobby box. Just think, I never would have bought it had I not been looking for packs for Jack. And no, I'm not going to tell you the one store in Georgia that still has Gypsy Queen racks and blasters. Not gonna be that altruistic.

Qypsy Gueen Blaster video rip

My Memorial Day gift to you.



Now go out and have fun and watch fireworks and drink beer* and remember our troops and forget about stupid baseball cards for one day.

*if you are 21 or over in the US**, or somewhat younger than that in a civilized nation
**Or under 21 if you have an older brother or cool friend who can hook you up***
***But that would be WRONG do cards not drugs

My Trip To Target

Rage comics = The advanced stages of terminal writer's block.

This comic is dedicated to the poor schmuck who bought five blasters of Bowman and didn't even get one crummy base card of Bryce Harper.

Virtual Hobby Pack

R.I.P. Atlanta Sports Cards.

No, not the online seller, they are still around. Their brick & mortar store up in Alpharetta is gone. My 'work' local card shop has sold out and is no more. I will never again scrounge for Allen & Ginter box toppers in their 50 cent junk box. So it goes.

All is not lost, however...

LONG LIVE FCB SPORTS CARDS

Chris, the guy behind this little corner of the interwebs has moved in and started his own retail store. They got their own sign and everything. Ya know what else they gots?

DIME BOXES

They didn't have any Gypsy Queen packs though. No worries, I was able to scrounge through the dime (and quarter(and fifty cent)) boxes and put together my own little virtual hobby pack. It was a bit overstuffed, actually.  Remember kids, always buy the thick pack even if it is a virtual one. Here's the results:

Base cards

Only three base cards in the virtual pack. Well, four actually. I got doubles of Jason Heyward. Doesn't it just suck when you get doubles in the same pack? I might need to drink me a nice cool refreshing Budweiser to get over my disappointment. Mmmmmmmm.... Budweiser. I wonder why I'm craving Budweiser all of a sudden? Probably because I also got a card of Andre Dawson, who played for the Cubs, who had Harry Caray for an announcer, who drank his weight in Budweiser every 6 and a half innings. I can't see any other reason for it. Oh yeah, random Chipper.

Short prints

Short prints are inserted one in every four hobby packs. I slightly beat the odds in pulling ten in mine. There ain't but ten cards in every pack! The virtual card collator must have been on the fritz that day. I got another double too - this time of B. Anderson. You may wonder why I didn't write out Brett Anderson's full name, but the truth is I almost called him Brian Anderson. I went and double checked the back of the card and discovered my mistake, which is why I typed out "B." instead to cover myself. Then again, if I have just replaced the "B." with Brett in the first place I wouldn't have had to type out three unnecessary sentences and I'd be lying in bed with a cold beer watching the A-Team on the retro channel by now. Man, that was kinda dumb. Wait, the A-Team doesn't come on until 11. Never mind, B. Anderson works. Oh yeah, also got short prints of Soriano, Hanson, Garland, Elvis, Dexter, Sinkbeil, Castro and Shin Soo-Choo. Man that'a a lotta short prints. But wait! There's inserts!

The Great Ones

Is it just me or are these things hard to come by? They are supposedly 1:4 packs like all the other inserts but I'm finding far less of them out and about than all the other inserts. Maybe that's because unlike all the other insert sets there isn't really any bad cards in the set. No really, the worst card in the set is probably Rollie Fingers or Thurman Munson. Those are the klunkers, people. Compare that to the 14 Jason Bartlett Sticky Fingers cards I have. Blecch.

Home Run Heroes

Mendoza, Cheech, Cripple and Hawk. I find it odd that Andruw Jones is a Brave in this set while Troy Glaus is an Angel. It makes sense since each card is commemorating a great season for each player, but I still find it odd considering that Troy was a Brave last year and Andrew was not.

Future Stars

Jeez, how many Heyward cards can I pull from one pack?? Dang you, virtual hobby pack collator! Oh wait, I just danged myself. Dang a lang lang a ding a dang ding... Did I mention how much I like the blue design on these cards? It's like if 1992 Fleer Rookie Sensations were made in 1892. Or something  like that. They shore are purdy is what I'm trying to say.

Retail Inserts... in My Hobby Pack?

HEY HOW DID CRUMMY RETAIL INSETS GET IN MY HOBBY PACK?? Rajai Davis? Now come on.

Here's some sticky ickys that I uploaded incorrectly but I didn't bother to fix because Teixeira's a jerk. Rangers and Angels fans, amirite? Shush you Yankee lovers. Let us enjoy our hate.

Parallellochips

Woooo! the big hit in the pack! A numbered Bronze Framed Parallel Chipper insert! And... a Green Framed Retail Parallel too... somehow. How the heck did 27 cards manage to fit inside one virtual hobby wrapper... Wait a sec, what the deuce?

Hey! I got stiffed on the mini card in the pack!

No mini cards in my virtual pack. I guess they couldn't squeeze it in there with all the other cards. I did walk out of the store with a mini J-Hey from 2010 Topps206, but that's another post. So how much did my virtual pack set me back?

6 cards @ 50 cents each = $3.00
11 cards @ 25 cents each = $2.75
10 cards @ 10 cents each = $1.00

Grand total = $6.75.

If anyone can tell me where to find an actual Hobby pack of Gypsy Queen for $6.75, let me know. And just like your hobby pack, I didn't pull a relic or auto!

I got nothin'

I've come to grips with the fact that I'm not going to write a post of any quality this week and I'm just going to have to accept it and try again next week. I also ripped my first objectively awful Gypsy Queen blaster today that netted no less than 20 base doubles and six - count 'em - six doubles of bloody inserts. It is very demoralizing when you have doubles of a card of a random model dressed up in hippie clothes that is supposed to represent the queen of the Gypsies. The only thing in the box that could even conceivably be regarded as a 'hit' is a framed card of Stephen Strasburg numbered to 999. This ain't July of 2010. I shall now post a small pile of Qypsy Gueens with pictures of Braves on them in a feeble attempt to lift my flagging spirits.

Strasburg... why'd it have to be Strasburg???

Yay! I have four out of five Braves short prints! Boo! The last one is a rookie!

Jair is pitching otherworldly right now. Since he's on the fragility chart between Heyward and Chipper, right now I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Murphy! Just jacked one out of Wrigley! Check out the Cubbie ball girl in the background. Holy Cow!

With Freddie here, the only Brave insert I lack is the Home Run Heroes card of Andruw Jones. Someone care to explain how Hank Aaron is not in that set? Or the Great Ones set? Oh, they got an autographed card of him though.... Thanks Topps.

In play, run(s)

BIG

MAC

ATTACK

In other news, I have three out of the five Gypsy Queen Brave short prints pulled out of packs because I am a lucky bastige.

So, um... all you guys voting for Yadier Molina and Buster Posey... Howzabout some Mac love this year???

Hobby vs Retail

The spastic squiggle above is purportedly a Marlon Byrd autograph from Gypsy Queen. I pulled it out of a blaster. When I bought it, I had by that time spent roughly half the money it would take to get a hobby box on retail packs and blasters. In those packs and blasters, I pulled three relic cards and two autographs. Granted, one of the relics was a duplicate, but I did get the promised two autographs that Topps failed to deliver in their Hobby product. Of course now that Bowman has been released, we'll soon see Hobby boxes of Gypsy Queen selling for half of what it did when it first came out. So it all evens up, eventually.

My new Gypsy Queen game

Let's see how many Jason Heyward cards I can get before pulling a J-Hey base card out of a pack.

In other news, how the hell does this happen?

At least it's Ty Cobb...

Wyrd Sisters

I think Granny Weatherwax is the elusive GQ20 card.

(Esme's gonna kick my ass for putting her on a Gypsy Queen card but I'm not MSPaint talented enough to change the card header to Wyrd Sisters)

FEILDER

Really, Topps? You realize you could have a hundred people begging to proofread your entire product line if you just offered them just a single pack of Opening Day, right?

Gypsy Queen Sticky Fingers

Someone has to have done this already...

You know, collecting the Gypsy Queen set is turning out to be a real bitch.

Hey Hey

So, uh, yeah. I know everyone is as completely sick and tired of Gypsy Queen posts as they can possible be by now, but I just wasted my hard earned money on acquired some more retail Queen and feel the need to show it off. Well, that and these are easy posts and I don't feel like doing the research required for an actual good post right now. Once I stop being lazy you will stop seeing Gypsy.

In the meantime...

HEY

HEY

HEY

It's phat Jason!

I only need the Murph for my retail parallel Braves set now. I'm assuming Topps parallelled cards 1-100 for that set. I'm tempted to spend the mortgage money and buy every rack pack in Atlanta so I can build the full parallel set, but my wife just might not completely approve of that idea. Someone please take away my debit card...

2011 Gypsy Queen Mickey Mantle

Well, you knew he had to be in here somewhere.

2011 Gypsy Queen Tommy Hanson Relic

Yeah I pretty much got the best rack pack of my life the other day. The Sisler framed card was in there too. I dare anyone to pull a relic, auto, sepia mini and framed card out of one Hobby pack. Rack packs might be cheaper than Hobby soon anyway.