Another one bites the dust...

As many of you know, I've been putting together the complete autograph set of 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen for some time. I'm down to just a handful, and the other day a pretty rare one popped up on eBay and my wonderful wife told me to GET IT! This card was originally a redemption in the live product, and at this point the redemptions expire next month so any that are left unredeemed only create more scarcity of this card. Even in the live product, this was a GROUP E level auto and thus the odds were in the range of 1:1422 hobby packs or 1:3200 retail packs. Needless to say, there are not a lot of these floating around:

Sweet looking Roy Halladay auto! It's not as off centered as it looks (I blame the scanner for not getting the full edges).

This leaves me with just (4) autographs from this set: Hank Aaron (Group E), Sandy Koufax (Group E), Ryan Howard (Group E - and the only sticker auto in the set) and Mike Stanton (Group D). The original autograph checklist is much longer than the actual checklist that made it to pack-out. There are quite a few names on that list that never got made (Brett Wallace for instance, who I was able to confirm as a non-pack-out auto via Topps "customer service"). I can absolutely foresee being able to pick up the Stanton and Howard some day, however I just don't know if the Koufax or Aaron will make it into my collection. Both are so rare and so expensive. There are a couple of Aaron's floating around eBay right now but it's literally been years since I've seen a Koufax and even with the product came out I only saw a few.  But I'll keep plugging along and hopefully someday maybe I'll find a blaster or two on a discount rack and hit it big!

Sorry for the long stretch between posts, life once again finds a way to keep me away from the hobby, although you wouldn't guess it based on the way my desk looks right now!