Hobby Box Break #15 – 2015 Gypsy Queen

A few weeks back I was on a focus group for the new exhibit  Martin Luther and the Art of the Reformation at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I believe it will be showing at the MIA from October 2016-January 2017 and then onto Chicago, New York, and Wittenberg. If you have a chance to check it out at one of those places, do! It looks really cool and they are doing a correlation of the invention of the Printing Press’s role in spreading the Bible and Martin Luther’s ideas with the current era’s inventions of the internet and social media.

For two hours of my time and opinions the MIA bequeathed upon me a shiny $50 Visa gift card. I traded that gift card and ten bucks for another 2016 Topps Series 1 Hobby box from my local card shop, Three Stars Sportcards. I was able to complete my base set from the box and also received three pretty good hits.

A Harper Camo SP

Willie Mays Coin & Stamp #/50

Another Clear Acetate – Papi & the Prince (Yep. I bought two boxes and pulled a clear acetate from each! That’s 2 out of 3600 cards in the world!)

Since my budget is pretty limited I sold those cards (those are my actual listings!) and returned to Three Stars Sportcards to splurge on a box of Gypsy Queen! Here’s what I pulled!

Four “hits” per box for $95 is pretty good but I probably would have never bought it if I didn’t have the money from my eBay sales. You get 25 packs with a total of 250 cards. $0.38/ card is a little pricey for me since I’m mainly a set collector.

Here’s my first card. I had been buying some discounted Target blaster boxes and really fell in love with the design and the card stock.

I think every pack came with a mini card. These are my variants. At this moment I’m not collecting the minis so let me know if you’d like to trade for any of these! I also have a mini 328 Eckersley ,334 L. Hernandez, and 264 Rios 56/99 (bronze/gold?). Let me know what you need for the base minis and I’ll see what I have!

I really like the hand drawn picture on this Basics of Base Ball mini. I think I’ll hold on to this one.

These are my regular size SPs. All of these are for trade since I’m not willing to spend the money to collect them. I also have  312 Palmer, another 318 Morgan, 325 Sparky Anderson, 336 Rivera, and 341 Konerko.

My two autos! Do I have any readers from St. Louis? These could be yours!

A nice Jeter relic with a pinstripe and a REALLY nice looking mini Verlander. I like the frame on the mini but I”m pretty sure I have a few readers who collect Tigers. Both of these are for trade!

This is a bronze paper-framed variant #’d 354/499 for trade. I really like the look of the paper-frames and have a page or 2 of the white ones. I also have Greinke 088/499, Street 011/499, and d’artaud 198/499 in bronze for trade. If anyone has some white-frames they don’t want send them my way please!

Cool looking insert. I think I’ll hang onto this.

These are pretty cool, too, but I’m not going to collect them. For trade! I also have GS-3 Adam Eaton, GS-5 Mike Aviles, GS-6 Dustin Ackley, and GS-9 Alex Gordon.

I’m going to collect the Queen’s Throwbacks, though! I love the pic of Nelson Cruz. I do have another copy of Kipnis (QT-25) for trade.

Walk off winners are also available for trade. I also have GWO-4 Ortiz, GWO-7 Freese, GWO-14 Perez, and GWO-24 Walker.

Within my hobby box was a mini box containing these variants. All of them are available for trade.

In my 2nd Hobby box break I pulled a 1/1 Platinum Jose Abreu RC checklist. I may have beaten that with this box!

I do a lot of selling on eBay and knew that Trout cards are pretty much the most popular of the current crop of players. I have no idea what this card will go for but I started the bidding at $40. Here’s the link to the auction – MIKE TROUT auto.

So, with my $50 gift card and whatever this auto sells for I pretty much got a FREE box of 2015 Gypsy Queen for two hours of my time at the MIA! Tatanka!

FINAL TALLY –

187 of 300 base

34 minis

26 inserts

1 AUTO redemption.

Here’s my WANTLIST if you can help me complete the set!

Thanks for reading!