Red Hot Zistle Trade

A quick Zistle trade, as tired as I am with Parallels (I know that seems weird from a guy that built a rainbow last year), I love the 2014 Topps Red Hot Foil parallels, so when two Rockies were offered up, I jumped at the trade. Nolan Arenado is quickly becoming a favorite, after winning the Gold Glove as a rookie in 2013, he is looking as good or better in 2014, and his bat is starting to heat up. Rex Brothers has crazy closer quality stuff, but can be a little wild. I am really looking forward to filling up a page with these.

I Guess 20 Bucks Doesn't Get You Much Anymore

A few ill advised purchases from the LCS, options were limited as they were sold out of Gypsy Queen, new Bowman hasn't hit Hobby stores yet and. My baseball options were limited to 2014 Topps Flagship, 2013 Bowman and 2013 Bowman Chrome, even their supply of 2013 Bowman Draft has run out. I needed some supplies and didn't feel right spending 4 bucks and leaving so I decided on a sampling of hockey, I was told Fleer Showcase was selling well so I picked up a 9 dollar pack along with a 9 dollar pack of Between the Pipes. The Showcase pack looked big, but it contained the largest cardboard plug I have ever seen, it was at that point I noticed the it said 5 cards per pack on the wrapper. Pretty disappointing for $2 a card. The base cards are kind of ugly and nothing about them says "high-end" to me. It was kind of cool to pull a Chara while listening to the Bruins game 5 win on the radio though. The insert is a Metal Universe of Vladimir Tarasenko, it didn't scan worth a crap, but looks awesome in person, If they just made a Metal Universe set, I would probably pick up a box.

Ryan McMahon Bowman Black Collection Auto

Another addition to the Rockies Bowman Black Collection McMahon. I picked this up during the winter and am pretty happy I did, because his prices have been going up pretty fast. Starting 2014 as a 19 year old in the South Atlantic League, McMahon has hit 8 home runs in his first 19 games with a 1.129 OPS.

Acetate Appreciation: 2001-02 UD Ice Hockey

One of my favorite modern hockey sets, Ice was released by Upper Deck starting in 1996, with 2001-02 being my favorite. The 151 card base set does a nice job of showing of the clear features of the card, while not losing the basic card info with stats and player details.

Chris Kelly: Bruins Stanley Cup Auto

I really wanted all of these to be in Bruins jerseys, but guys like Chris Kelly don't really get certified auto's anymore. This is the only certified autograph that Kelly has, and it didn't set me back much so it's a worthy addition to the collection.

Kelly was traded to Boston by the Senators in February of 2011 and helped the Bruins win the Cup playing in all 25 playoff games with 5 goals and 8 assists.

2014 Gypsy Queen Trade/Want List

2014 Gypsy Queen Wantlist

Updated Dec 4, 2017

Base and Short Prints
Complete!

Mini Photo Variations
Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez

Mini Black
9 Nolan Arenado

Mini Red
9 Nolan Arenado

Mini Sepia
9 Nolan Arenado

Relics
Jhoulys Chacin

Autographs
Troy Tulowitzki

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For Trade

Base
2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 36, 37, 40, 41, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 83, 85, 97, 103, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 117, 118, 120, 124, 128, 130, 133, 139, 140, 141, 144, 145, 147, 150, 154, 156, 160, 161, 162, 170, 172(x2), 186, 188, 192, 193, 196, 199, 200, 202, 206, 210, 211, 214, 216, 217, 218, 222, 224, 240, 242, 243, 246, 252, 256, 257, 258, 259, 262, 265, 268, 272, 273, 274, 276, 278, 280(x2), 287, 289

SP
313, 325

Mini
7, 19, 35, 54, 118, 139, 151, 176, 198, 200, 263, 270

Mini SP
312, 348

Mini Sepia
Pujols

Mini Photo Variant
50, 126, 150(x2), 170, 172, 200, 202, 235(x2), 238, 250, 304, 311, 328, 334, 339

Framed Blue
Mark McGwire, Mike Schmidt, Buster Posey

Dealing Aces
Cliff Lee, Sale, Teheran, Verlander, Wacha

N174
Bryce Harper, Kershaw, Ripken, Max Scherzer(x2), Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Puig, Miguel Cabrera

Glove Stories
Rizzo, Bryce Harper, Carlos Gomez, Puig(YP), Puig(YP2)

Debut All-Stars
David Ortiz, Longoria, Felix Hernandez, Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Paul Goldschmidt, Yu Darvish

Autographs
Carlos Martinez, Jeff Locke, Jake Odorizzi

Framed Mini Relic
Mike Minor, Jeremy Hellickson

2014 Gypsy Queen Box 2

While the second box was not nearly as exciting as the first box, it was still pretty good making for a really fun two box break. The highlights being a Buster Posey reverse negative card and a Matt Williams red autograph numbered to 49.

2014 Gypsy Queen Box 1 Results w/ My Best Pull Ever

The first card I pulled was a Deion Sanders, I cannot stand this guy, I get enough of him in football season, please keep him out of baseball sets. Now, with that out of the way, I really like this years set, reminds me a lot of the 2011 set, just fancied up a little. The one complaint that arose is that while sorting, the card numbers are in perhaps the worst place possible, almost dead centre in the middle of the card back. Here is a breakdown of Box 1 of 2.

174 base cards, 58% of the 300 card base set, with no dupes (this still boggles the mind of my 12 year old self who almost finished two sets of 1990 Pro Set before having to trade to finally get a stinkin Mike Vernon card).

They Are Here!

My annual 2 boxes of Gypsy Queen, results to follow.

My first BGS card is a pretty nice one.

One of the newest cards in my collection is one of the nicest, 2013 Bowman Draft Jonathan Gray autograph. This card had a pretty long road to get into my hands. First I bought the redemption card on December 1st for under 30 dollars shipped, and had it sent to my COMC account. After having them redeem it, I had them send it BGS for grading, it then returned to COMC with a very nice 9.5/10 grade, and finally, today, it arrived in my PO box and is a part of my collection. I just hope I don't jinx Mr. Gray and end up adding this to the box of disappointment with a large selection of Drew Pomeranz and Alex White cards.

Canadian Trading

It's always nice when a trade doesn't have to to cross international borders, this was the case with the latest Zistle trade with fellow Canuck Olerud363.

 The highlight for me was 3 Gypsy Queen short prints, leaving me 9 short of the 350 card set.

Jumping on the Card-Gen Bandwagon

Judging by the amount of blogger posts featuring cards from the Japanese Sega Card-Gen set, I'm not the only one who picked up a few off the bay a few weeks ago. I limited myself to 3, the most expensive being the Brad Hawpe from 2010, my first from 2010 and the second highest "Star Level" I have, behind the 2013 Todd Helton. Christian Friedrich become my lowest card with only one star, a young lefty who has battled injuries the last couple seasons, but someone I still have hope for. Casey Blake retired during spring training of 2012, never playing in a regular season game for the Rockies, the completionist in me needed this card as it's the only one that lists him with Colorado.

Eddie Butler Bowman Black Collection Auto

Another addition in the quest for the Rockies Bowman Black Collection team set, this one comes from the Bowman Inception line and just like the rest this is on-card and numbered to 25. Eddie Butler along with Jon Gray are the Rockies top pitching prospects, Butler started this year in Double-A Tulsa, so his MLB debut might only be a few months away. He entered 2014 as the 26th ranked prospect in baseball according to Baseball Prospectus.

A Zistle Hockey Trade

 More set help for my 2013-14 Upper Deck Hockey coming from Zistle. How can we not start with Saint Patrice. It's kind of funny how the face of franchise is from Quebec, home of the hated Habs.