Three New Gypsy Queens

The calendar of baseball card releases has been a little bit of this year.  The initial release of the year was the first series of Topps was followed a few weeks later by the release of Topps Heritage, but the second wave of releases this year (Gypsy Queen, Tribute, and Museum Collection) have all been bunched together much closer making it a little bit harder for to judge what cards they need to pursue for their collections.  To further complicate the close releases is the fact that many of the signers in the sets are the same.  Well, at the ones in Gypsy Queen and Tribute.  For example, the Cardinals autographs in both sets include Matt Adams, Lance Lynn, and David Freese.  Hmmm...

In the meantime, I am going to hold back a little bit on picking up hit cards from some of these sets until I get a chance to look at all three products and figure out where to best use my best trade and monetary resources.  However, I am still working on picking up a few smaller hits from Gypsy Queen and Tribute until I see Museum Collection in two weeks.    In the meantime, I spent less than $10 to pickup three relic cards from Gypsy Queen.

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Alex Avila Jersey Card

First up is a jersey card of Tigers catcher Alex Avila.  This is the regular relic card from Gypsy Queen. The card has a unique creme colored jersey which I thought was interesting for a piece of Tigers jersey.   While the Tigers do not keep a creme colored jersey in their rotation of regular jerseys, they did break out a set of creme colored throwbacks to play the Pirates a few years ago.  The Tigers have a Negro League throwback day almost every year and in 2009 paid tribute to the 1920s era Detroit Stars.

I also managed to add two Gypsy Queen jersey cards of Cardinals outfielders Jon Jay and Matt Holliday.  Both cards are the framed relic cards from the set and feature grey road swatches.  I really like the black frames around the cards.

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Matt Holliday Jersey Card

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Jon Jay Jersey Card