The Big Hurt..
So yeah, if you heard on twitter, there was no flea market on Saturday, and apparently there won’t be one at all this month. It’s okay though, I took my what basically amounted to my entire monthly card budget to Target and Walmart, and had the good fortune of it turning out fairly well. We all know how hit-or-miss doing that can be, but it can turn out rather nicely at times too. I picked up a 33%-off ($20 instead of $30) blaster of 2009 SP football (the only dud of the bunch) and a Heritage value box (should’ve doubled up on these) at Walmart, and the last two 3-pack value rack pack things of Gypsy Queen at Target. So let’s see how it all turned out, shall we?
Just uh, pretend you didn’t read my tweets from Sunday afternoon. They were spoiler city for this post. We’ll start with the Heritage Value Box.
The value box bonus refractor. Classy design with rather subtle and subdued refractoring that perfectly highlights without being gaudy. End result: An excellent bonus card.
The only card of note from the Heritage hobby packs..
There weren’t even any SPs that I know of. Nothing wrong with getting an insert of a legendary pitcher, but the design is snooze inducing, so without chromeyness or a hit (or some sort of super SP variation nonsense), Heritage tends to be… forgettable. It’s cool though, the regular topps was on point.
Start it off with a much-needed mini, because I think I'm still in single digits on this set, unless this McCutchen gets me to 10.
A Frank Robinson card is ALWAYS a welcome addition to my collection. 60 Years of topps.
A diamond parallel of a star. No longer collecting this set (just Cubs and my other player collections), but Cruz is probably worth one of bigger players I am after, to the right trader.
topps60 > Peak Performance, I'm just sayin'. Fairly classy design. These are for trade..
Another cool insert for trade..
I also pulled two Diamond Giveaway cards from the packs, so I ended up with four instead of two. That was nice. Oddly, they were both the same as the two that came with it (’77 Reggie, ’50-something Jackie). I ended up with an ’88 Tony Gwynn, an ’05 Reds team card, an early ’90s cards so forgettable I can’t even remember which of my three forgettable early ’90s cards was the one I got in this bunch, and a ’70 Don Young (Vintage Cubs!).
Other cards of note were base of Beltre and King Felix for myself, a Steve Carlton/CC Sabathia Diamond Duos, ToppsTown of Mauer, Markakis, Carlos Santana, and two David “I hit a game-winning home run with a broken freakin’ back!” Wright. Oh, and this:
A jersey card of The Ace of the Angels staff! Weaver is 6-3 with an ERA in the low 2s and a WHIP below 1(!) so far this year. Bonus: It's a nice red swatch. None of that white or gray business here.
Great to pull a great player when you hit on a 1:96 pack card, that’s for sure. He’ll be added to the For Trade page when I get around to it.
Now, for the dud blaster… Presenting 2009 SP Signature Edition Football:
Purple swatch is nice & all, but John David Booty is so very not worth the price of admission, even at 33%-off.
What can I say? Even with a better hit, this wouldn’t have been very exciting. There were Bears base, but this was just disappointing overall. Why would anyone ever be willing to pay $30 for one of these, when the vast majority of them were most likely just as lame as this one, which stunk on ice at $20? It was a mistake, plain & simple. I would’ve been much better off going with a second Heritage value box, even if it turned out to not be any good itself.
Needless to say, only the Bears in the top row are keepers. The other 57 cards in the blaster can’t be gotten rid of fast enough.
Putting the failure of the day behind us, let’s get to the main course and do us up some Gypsy Queen!
You saw one of my keepers up top. Frank Thomas with the White Sox is an official player collection now. I’ll take hits from anywhere he played, but base and inserts and such I’d prefer be of the White Sox variety.
Anyway, everyone always says “Since you’ve already seen the base on countless other blogs, we’ll just skip to the inserts and hits”. No, EVERYONE says this, so no one that doesn’t break down single packs shows the damn base at all (save for the occasional shortprint)! So here are three more base cards (okay, Markakis is a shortprint).
Kyle Drabek RC, Andruw Jones in what has to be one of the least flattering pictures on a baseball card this year, and a Nick Markakis SP. The base isn't getting as much love as I expected, but it's got style and is anything but boring.
With that taken care of, now here are some inserts. Was that so hard?
Pujols, Alexei, Rollie, McGee RC, and the Gypsy Queen back is Chris Carter.
I'm suckered in and collecting this set, so if you have any extras, the nine I have will be posted on the set wantlist page later, so you can see what I be needin'. Also, STARLIN!
It wasn’t all Hot Pockets and singing frogs with sombreros in Gypsy Queen land though. The second of the two value rack pack things had about a half dozen damaged cards, the worst two being the best two cards I pulled from thing.
This is a Gypsy Queen-backed shortprint. Difficult to see, but the damage is visible on my oldass low-def monitor at least. The bottom of the left vertical edge is slightly raised on the front, as if someone tried sticking a finger nail in the edge or something.
Jackie Robinson Framed Paper #'ed 100/999. Then it got worse. The card came out of the pack with that little chunk below the words at the bottom ripped up and barely hanging onto the card. What the hell, pack searcher and/or lollygagging topps quality control person?! Like half of the inserts in this same rack having minor damage on *two* corners, and my short print and Aroldis Chapman base having far worse on one of theirs wasn't bad enough, let's screw up the two best cards too... Will be sending these back for replacements.
Fortunately, there was a saving grace with the Gypsy Queen. Behold!
The Man!
There was a lot of good in this little binge, and plenty of bad, but it can’t be denied… Retail has it’s occasional moments. A lot of my better hits seem to have come from retail, and this… well this card is right up there amongst the best of them, team allegiances or not.
That being said, ol’ Stan here is going to be available, seeing as how I am a Cubs fan and have no love for that whiny team from St. Louis, but I’m not in any rush to get rid of him. You’ll maybe want to set about blowing me away if you’d like to add Mr. Musial to your collection. 😉
So there you go, my latest binge. I think I would’ve preferred taking another $25 to the flea market, but aside from the SP and what should be replaceable damaged cards, I am exceedingly pleased with the Heritage value box and Gypsy Queen, and it only amounted to $10 more. We’ll just call SP a $20 learning experience and try to be smarter in the future.
And this overly long post is finished! Sorry it’d been a couple days without posting by the way. My sleep got JACKED UP by a linebacker that goes by the name Ray Insomnia.
EDIT: Forgot the Gypsy Queen inserts, and the sign off! Here you go:
How could I have forgotten these funderfulriffic cards?! These are the undamaged inserts. I am definitely collecting the Sticky Fingers set entirely because the design is so utterly perfect. Just now noticed the spider motif on the Wall Climbers too! I was going to collect it, but probably not now because I'm so utterly terrified of spiders. Admittedly, that is a terrible excuse, because bees are actually the thing I had a traumatic incident with in my youth (one somehow got in my shirt and stung me on the back several times DURING a little league game). My dad lost a toe to a Brown Recluse bite though, so my spider fear isn't misplaced though. Ah, screw it, I'm not collecting either one. Crap.
Now that’s a wrap. I’ll post up the two insert sets I will be collecting later on tonight. Thanks, as ever, for stopping by!
Also, I got my new computer, baby!
Life and Baseball Cards 