Five Packs of Gypsy Queen

Remember about a month ago when I said that I got five packs of Gypsy Queen from the card shop? Well, I'm finally now getting around to opening those. Since these were the last five packs in the box, I'm not expecting much from these except to have fun while opening some packs.

By now, everyone knows what GQ looks like. I picked up a number of singles for a dime each at the card show back in the spring. I can't remember what I showed off then but here's some of the more interesting base cards from the five packs.

Four Reds cards. Let's see where these guys are now .... Tanner Roark was traded to the A's at the trade deadline as he was the odd man out (and a free agent after the season) after the Reds acquired Trevor Bauer, Luis Castillo was one of two Reds in the All-Star Game, Scott Schebler has spent pretty much the whole year in Triple-A Louisville and is currently on their injured list, Barnhart is back as the everyday catcher after being outplayed by back-up catcher Curt Casali (who is due back from injury soon).

Insert cards. I like all four of these and I was pretty happy to get an Ohtani insert.

Whoa! Didn't expect this! Nothing better than getting an autograph card of the reigning National League MVP Christian Yelich. I tried looking this card up on COMC to see what it was selling for just for the heck of it but there were no listings for it. Regardless, I'm hanging on to this and it will be going into a penny sleeve and top loader shortly.

So that's the highlights of five packs of Gypsy Queen. I'd say between the inserts, the Yelich auto, and  some fun base cards, I did pretty well. Next time I'm at the card shop, maybe I'll take another gamble and grab the last packs from an empty box.

Opening Day Scan Dump

I was cleaning up my card corner the other day and came across this box of Opening Day I forgot I bought. It's the jumbo box variety and has the red parallels so that's a dead giveaway it came from Target. I had some time and ripped into it. While I didn't find anything groundbreaking, I did come away with some keepers and a few neat things. This will be pretty scan heavy and I guess could qualify as a "scan dump" and will also probably be quite brief.

Red parallels ... keeping most of these although I might send the Merrifield off to Dime Box Nick. Not sure yet.

Scenes of Opening Day. I was pretty happy to get the Reds card, even though it mentions last year's Opening Day was a rain-out.

Mascot cards are always fun!

Other inserts, parallels, etc. The "150 Years of Fun" cards are interesting but not really my thing, although I'm keeping the Aaron and the Carter pictured.

Reds and Indians highlights.

The best horizontal cards of the box. 

And lots of fun base cards. 

So that's the highlights from a box of Opening Day I'd forgotten about. Like I mentioned earlier, quick and painless, right?

Diamond Kings of Swing

Leading up to Memorial Day weekend and through part of the weekend, I was down and out with a horrible stomach virus. I was sick from the Wednesday before Memorial Day all the way through the majority of that Saturday before the holiday. I wasn't able to eat real food and I pretty much survived on oyster crackers, Gatorade, and water. 

By that Sunday, I was finally feeling better and able to get out of bed (and actually able to eat food) so the family and I decided to run some errands. As a treat to myself for surviving said affliction, I brought some extra cash and picked up some cards at Target. Topps Big League was out, so that's mainly what I was looking for. I grabbed some but also picked up a couple jumbo packs of Panini Diamond Kings, just for something different.

As is the case with Diamond Kings, there is a healthy mix of legends, current stars, and future stars. Here's some of the legends cards. I've always like the artwork on the cards and the feel of them. They have a "high end" feel for a lower price, plus you get neat cards of old school players.

More legends cards. I think I might have to add Walter Alston to my list of collections. He's from Darrtown, Ohio which is just a hop, skip, and jump away from where I live.

Yes, I know Panini doesn't have an MLB license. As long as the cards are of somewhat decent quality (like Donruss was this year), I'll buy a pack or two. Also, we've got dudes in new uniforms as in Machado with the Padres and Goldy with St. Louis.

There's always a healthy dose of rookies as well in Diamond Kings. I honestly didn't know any of the players on the rookie cards I pulled. These are the four I liked the best.

Obligatory Reds content. That Johnny Bench card is a thing of beauty.

Each jumbo contained a healthy dose of inserts as well as a framed parallel each. 

These are really some cool inserts and they kind of throwback to the old Donruss sets. The Honus Wagner card especially as it's a callback to the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes design.

Here's a few other inserts that I got as well. I'm kinda meh on the Masters of the Game cards but I like the Brendan Rogers "squires" insert if I really had to pick one of these.

So that's two jumbo packs of Diamond Kings. Is it a great product to break? I liked the base set cards and the Hall of Fame Heroes Wagner the best. There is something to be had about opening packs and getting legends that you don't see in Topps cards. I'm not going to go buying any more packs of this though, I'll rummage through bargain bins the next time I go to a card show for more.

Finally ... I Found 2019 Topps

Finally! I finally found some 2019 Topps! 

As I was in Target getting a box of Valentine's Day chocolate for my wife, I saw that 2019 Topps was in stock. Naturally, I couldn't help myself. I figured a hanger box and a few loose packs wouldn't hurt at all. I considered a blaster but I didn't want to go all in on one box, variety is the spice of life after all. I finally had some time to open these up this weekend

My first card of the year, Jonathan Villar of the woeful Baltimore Orioles. My initial impressions of the 2019 cards are that I like them ... a lot. Topps really had to work at topping themselves from the 2018 flagship but I feel like they pretty much did. The design is nice and clean and *gasp* borders are back! I also really like the team logo in the corner and how the inner border works with the team colors. The photography is good too. All in all, I'd say this is a winner!

Moving on now through the hanger box, here are my first Indians cards of the year. Both Bauer and his rotation counterpart Corey Kluber were mentioned in trade rumors over the winter. It's nice to see the Tribe hang on to both of them though.

I'm showing this card only because I remember Touki Toussant being involved in a trade where the Braves got him and Bronson Arroyo for Phil Gosselin. A month later, the Braves sent Arroyo to the Dodgers as part of some absolutely insane three team mega-deal.

My first Reds card of 2019 and it's Eugenio Suarez. Here's the other half of the Indians pitching duo I mentioned earlier as well.

Two guys who were both Reds at one time. Bruce had a very brief stint with the Indians as well in 2017 before going back to the Mets. Cozart had another injury filled season with the Angels last year. Here's hoping he bounces back this year.

Let's pause for a moment and look at the backs. Just like the front of the cards, they are very clean and the borders are in the team colors. I also really like the fact that it's full stats on the back, just as a baseball card should be.

Knowing it's Series 1, I know that additions made late in the offseason won't show up in here. For example, the Reds acquired Sonny Gray in January, which means he's still shown here in a Yankees uniform.

It's card #1 of the set! I personally always think it's pretty neat when I get card number 1 of a set out of a pack, but that's just me.

One awesome additions that Topps did this year was axe the team cards in favor of stadium cards. This is honestly something I've wanted for a long, long time in a set. I think these may be something I have to chase after this year as they are just absolutely brilliant. I think next year, maybe we could get an insert set called "ballparks of yesteryear" or something like that to commemorate former ballparks (or maybe even use those as the team checklist next year).

Seeing that I bought these cards at Target, I got exclusive Gleyber Torres inserts. They remind me of 1986 Donruss with the top and bottom borders.

Finally, the inserts from the hanger box, there's a foil Jack Flaherty, and 1984 style J.T. Realmuto (who was the subject of much trade consternation), and a Bryce Harper reprint. Topps seems to be doing reprints in some form every year now and I'll at least give them points on these because they are reprinting not just Topps cards, but Bowman and from what I've seen, early Stadium Club stuff too.

Ok, that's it for the hanger box, I'd say that was pretty solid. Now, onto the packs.

One thing I didn't show from the hanger box were horizontals. I really like how the design works with the horizontal photos.

More base cards. Luis Castillo is a lock for the Reds rotation this year and may actually even be in the running for the Opening Day start. The Cesar Hernandez card is awesome for a number of reasons ... first the photo as he's in mid-air turning a double play but the thing that really grabbed me is that Phillies logo.

A few more cool action shots and another stadium card. I've got to add these to my want list.

I got a number of different inserts from the packs that I didn't get from the hanger. First is this Tanner Roark card with the "150 years" stamp. While I don't mind that, I think this year, especially with it being the 150th anniversary of professional baseball, would've been a great year to do buybacks.

Here's something cool, a blue Father's Day parallel card.

With these Father's Day cards, they're numbered to 50 each and I'd say that was a pretty good pull from a retail pack.

More inserts. The "Stars of the Game" cards were one per pack.

Here's something I really like, it's a "Cactus League Legends" insert of Cody Bellinger. Spring Training seems to get forgotten about on cards sometimes so it's neat to see Topps include an insert set devoted to the Cactus League. I would assume the Grapefruit League has an insert set as well.

Overall, I think we've got another winner here from Topps this year. I really enjoyed last year's flagship and I think I'm definitely going to be buying more of this. Probably more of this than Heritage this year.

2018 Topps Big League Box Break - Part 1

Before I dive into this, I want to take just a quick moment to thank everyone for congratulatory comments and kind words on the Year 3 post I put up over the weekend. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to read my ramblings on cards. Now, on with the show ....

Recently, my aunt was in town doing her yearly summer visit from Tulsa and as is tradition, I tend to get some cards as a late Father's Day present. I went for a box of the new Topps Big League and I also opted for a box of Series 2.

Since Big League is new, I opted to bust into it first. I had intended on doing six packs at a time but my five year old and I went a little crazy the other day and tore open 11 packs, which is more than I intended. So, I'll show off the highlights of those 11 packs here and the remainder here shortly.

Here's the first card from the first pack I opened. Remember back in the spring I said I was going to show the first card of a product I opened? Well, I'm continuing that trend here.

Here's a sampling of random base cards I liked. I really like the design on these. It's got a tiny bit of an old school feel with some really great photography and a big team logo at the bottom left. Also, I tried to not show cards of the major stars, I went for cards that I thought stood out to me in general. Probably my favorite of these is Clayton Richard with the 90s throwback Padres uniform on.

These black and white parallels are pretty cool and they're numbered out of 50. 

Legends cards are always fun. I really like the Hank Aaron card as the uniform looks like it's from the 70s.

Some Reds cards, including my favorite Reds player right now, Scooter Gennett!

Really cool horizontal cards but that Ichiro card ... just wow. That's gotta be in the running for my favorite cards of the year so far.

These may look like inserts but they're part of the base set actually. Can't say I'm a big fan of the caricature cards. The players weekend cards look like an insert set that could be in flagship or something, I really like them though. 

My favorite cards from the set by far are these ballpark landmark cards. These cards just scream fun and cool and unique. They're the Topps Big League version of the mascot cards in Opening Day.

In every pack you get a gold parallel card. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. I think it's good because you're guaranteed a unique card per pack. On the flip side, getting one in every pack comes across as too much of a good thing, maybe every other pack would be a happy medium? My favorite of these is the Zack Cozart card since it's my first card of him in an Angels uniform (I don't count the Cozart card from Donruss as he's in a Reds uniform but is listed as with the Angels).

Anyway, that's about half the box. So far, I've enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the box includes.