I have a problem... her name is Gypsy Queen...

Ok, so let me preface this by saying that what you see in the picture below, I did NOT buy all of this...

Ok, so here's the story... the wife and I went to the card shop yesterday over in Spanish Fort... she told me to go ahead get a box and just put it on credit and be done with it, and so I did... then another... and while I was standing there, a guy I'm familiar with named Kevin started busting a box. Kevin is a case buster and high dollar guy, he busted a CASE of National Treasures football at the last trade night, and for those of you who don't know what that is, the boxes are $500 each and contain one pack. Anyways, he's a great guy as well... as he opened these boxes he pull the hits out to one stack, the base in another and the mini's in a third stack. Well, after two boxes he was rather frustrated and said that if I wanted all the base and mini's I could have them since he know I was a set builder. Of course I jumped at the offer. I also saw the open box on the shelf with about 10 packs left in it and snagged those also... unfortunately those 10 produced no more hits but I got some good mini's and the like from them!

Let me go ahead and give a recap here of what I got overall...

• 298/300 base cards towards the complete set.
• 26/50 SP Variations - No Yu Darvish unfortunately...
• Complete sets of 2 of the 3 hobby inserts (except for Moonshots, I'm one card short!)
• 1 Gypsy King insert (lame cards in my opinion, Kevin pulled a Gypsy King Manu-Relic /25 but then was pissed to see they were only selling for about $20 on the bay of E.)
• Mini's GALORE... I have no idea what all the parallels are and don't understand at all why some of them are numbered higher than 300 and then the various backs associated with those... it's a confusing world of mini's this year for sure. But, I'm wanting your REGULAR BACK 1-350 mini's if you are willing to part with them. Regular back only, not really chasing the variation pictures, but will take whatever I can get to make the set 1 through 350.
• 255/300 towards a second complete base set, probably won't complete this just because I don't see myself buying many more packs of this product.
• Hundreds of triplicates and more... LOTS of cards if people are looking to complete their sets... PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU NEED!!!! I have WAYYYYYY more base cards than I'll ever need!
• 5 Blue Borders.... I collected the /999 bronze border set last year, but since they made them a smaller run and seeded them even shorter in the packs, there's no way I can collect all of them this year... dang it... But the 5 I got, pretty good names 
• 8 hits... only two of which I'm really excited about... Looking at the checklist online, I realize Topps screwed us all over by expanding the relic checklists astronomically. No way this collector is going after them all... 

Alright, so you want pictures??? You're about to get a bunch!

Here are the blue borders I pulled:

Can't really argue with Young, Fielder, Clemente, Mays and Berra... solid...

Next up, the mini's I thought I should highlight:

From top to bottom, those are the /99 sepia, the unnumbered green border and the unnumbered "black" bordered. 

Insert mini's from the "mini-box":

These are all for trade as long as regular back mini's are coming in return.... :)

I could go on forever posting mini's... I really could... but I won't... here are the SP Variations I managed to get...

You would not believe how "not fun" it is to find these among stacks of cards totaling 4.5 boxes of base cards... I spent all night last night collating and sorting... ok, I lie, it was fun... I'm a baseball card nerd...

Here are the Mini Photo Variations I got from the mini boxes:

I'm going to count these among the mini's for my main set... I'm not going to go out of my way to get the original and then the variation... maybe some day if my OCD is really getting to me, but I doubt it... haha!

GYPSY KING!

I have nothing to say... you want it? Make me an offer...

Ok, I lied again... more mini's!!!!! These are the "Straight Cut" back variation...

I got exactly 20 of these and exactly 20 of the "Gypys Queen Red Back" below...

Again, these mini's are for trade, as long as I get some regular back mini's in return! On these variations, I'd say for the most part I'd be hoping for 2 regular backs in return for a variation back... there may be some where I may want a bit more (like Ripkin) and of course the subject of the mini's in return would factor in as well...

Alright, so what you've all been waiting for... my hits... here's box #1:

Alright, the first box was very "meh"... Moreland and Walker autos weren't my favorite names on that checklist... Hudson is decent I guess, but no one is really going to be confusing him as a HOF'er... and Sandoval is still young enough that he could put a solid career together... Box 2 was much nicer to me...

Mariano Rivera! I believe this is the first relic of his I've ever pulled! The Freese is nice and if you look closely, there is a bit of dirt in the lower right hand corner of that swatch! Escobar = meh... Belt = Heck ya! 

So, my Gypsy Queen adventure begins this year... thanks to basically 2 free boxes of base, mini's and inserts... 

I will have a Need List posted soon!