2011 Topps Finest Carl Crawford Finest Moments Jersey/Autograph

It's way too early in the season to give out awards, or speculate about things that are going to happen at the end of the long and grueling baseball season.  However, an early candidate for the Comeback Player of the Year honor has to be Dodger's outfielder Carl Crawford.  I was a pretty big Crawford fan back in Rays days and picked up quite a few of his cards.  He also played for the Durham Bulls in the early 2000s.  Crawford was a nice player during his time Tampa offering a little bit of pop, a little bit of speed, and he even flashed some leather every once in awhile too.  However, I was shocked when the Boston Red Sox signed him to a 7 year/142 million dollar contract.  Nice player, but not sure he is $20 million a year great.  Anyway, Carl Crawford did not live up to the hype in Boston and was dumped on the Dodgers doorstep last season.  Along the way, the price of Carl Crawford cards fell off a cliff.  I am not complaining.

2011 Topps Finest Carl Crawford Finest Moments Jersey/Autograph

Ninety-Nine percent of the Carl Crawford cards that I own are Rays cards.  Some are actually Devil Rays cards, but that's okay too.  I was really trying to avoid any Crawford cards as a Red Sox, but for less than $5 this card is a great value.  Especially given that Crawford has started off the year well for the Dodgers.  Currently he has a line of .392/.446/.569.  I fully expect him to cool off and probably hit a few more gloves over the course of the year, but a hot start and a clean slate in Los Angeles might be just the thing to get Carl Crawford back to his numbers pre-Boston.

2013 Topps Tribute Carlos Gonzalez Autograph

I am really impressed by the cards in Topps Tribute this year and decided to pick up a few for the collection.  The Tribute line started back in the early 2000s and featured high-end cards with great on-card autographs.  The formula was simple, but this product was always one of my favorites to pick and choose a few nice cards from every year when it hit the shelves.  My favorite Topps Tribute card is this Sparky Anderson autograph from the 2003 version:

2003 Topps Tribute Sparky Anderson Jersey/Autograph

Of course, Topps decided to tinker with something that was a pretty good formula and started putting sticker autographs, redemption cards, and last year's weird encased cards.  Luckily, Topps went back to the roots of the Tribute brand and made this year's cards much like the original releases of this product.  Seeing a few of the cards on Ebay, Facebook and Twitter pages, and a few blogs prompted me to haul a nice autograph in for my collection.  However, after checking out the Cardinals autographs included in the product I decided to reach out for something a little bit different.  Sure, I will go back and pick up a Lance Lynn and a Matt Adams autograph, but for the moment it can wait.  This week I went with a CarGo card.  

As you can see the design of the 2013 Tribute product is very similar to the 2003 version minus the jersey relic.  However, this is a great card and I am happy to add it to my collection.  Oddly, as many cards as I own, I do not own a Carlos Gonzalez autograph.  I had a Donruss autographed rookie, but traded a long time ago and have not touched his cards the past few years.  Really impressive player and a great autograph to add to my collection.  

Complete Set: 2013 Topps Gypsy Queen

At some point at the beginning of the year I made a promise to focus on and show more completed sets on this space.  I started off great with my pursuit of a few cards for my 1998 Topps Tek set, but quickly got stuck on a Jason Kendall card.  Funny how one card got me side-tracked, but I recently landed the card which quickly reminded me of my goal.  No ADD or anything to see here.  In the meantime, I have actually finished a few sets, but have not posted the results on here yet.  Today is my first, in what should be, a long line of posts this year showing off a completed set.

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Adam Jones

This is actually the third completed set I have finished from the 2013 baseball card releases behind the Topps base set and Topps Heritage.  Gypsy Queen is a 330 card set with 250 base cards and 50 short prints.  There are variations among the base set cards, but I did not get into finding all of the variations and super short print variations.  Not this year.  I actually did not open a hobby box of Gypsy Queen, but started out with a pair of Blasters I bought myself for Easter and then traded for one large lot of cards and bought a few smaller lots.  In the end, it is a nice looking set and a welcome addition to my big closet of cards.  Here are a few highlights from the set:

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Lou Gehrig Mini 

The mini cards have been a big hit for Topps over the years and the Gypsy Queen set is full of minis.  I did not actually complete all of the minis yet, so I do not truly have a master set, but I am not gaga over miniature cards.  I always like picking up a few of these for every set, but the only mini set I ever finish every year is the Topps base set minis.  There are a few other insert sets in Gypsy Queen that I like besides the minis.  

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Sandy Koufax No-Hitters 

My favorite overall insert set in Gypsy Queen is the No-Hitters insert.  The cards have a nice design and they highlight different no-hitters thrown over the years by pitchers from yesteryear and current Major Leaguers.  The backs of the cards feature the details surrounding the no-hitters.  I was a little bit disappointed that the Jose Jimenez no-hitter against the Diamondbacks in 1999 was not featured, but Sandy Koufax is cool too.  I would also recommend the Glove Works, Collisions at the Plate, and Sliding Stars inserts sets too.  Really well done.  

So what's my favorite card from the entire Gypsy Queen set: 

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Collisions At The Plate Yadier Molina 

This Yadier Molina card is really sweet and I was excited that Topps gave him an insert card.  Look around, they are seriously lacking.  Anyway, at first glance I thought this card might be from last season when Molina has quite the collision at the plate with the Pirates Josh Harrison.  However, that collision took place in Pittsburgh.  The card shows Molina wearing red catchers gear, which he wears at home, and the Pittsburgh player has a road uniform and is wearing the jersey number 19 and not Harrison's 5. After doing some research into the collisions of Yadier Molina I found this picture:  

The card fits the picture to a tee and actually took place during Molina's rookie season of 2005.  The Pirates player is current Cardinal (my least favorite one) Ty Wigginton who was tagged out on the play.  I am happy that Topps gave Molina an insert card, finally, and showed a cool play.  Glad a stumbled across this card and helped me finish up the Collisions at the Plate insert set.  

2012 Topps One of One Letter Patch Evan Longoria "G"

This is going to be one of those posts where I am going to go ahead and let the card do most of the talking.  It does not happen often, but I love this card and it has been in my collection only a few hours. Today's card hails from the second series of the 2012 Topps set and features a patch from the jersey of Rays third baseman, and former Durham Bull, Evan Longoria.  I love unique patches and this definitely qualifies as such.

2012 Topps One of One Letter Patch Evan Longoria 

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

2011 Leaf Valiant Yasiel Puig Autograph

I had several cards I could throw up on my blog today, but I am feeling like doing a new prospect card today.  I missed Opening Day for the Durham Bulls, but managed to make it to my first game of the year yesterday afternoon.  Sure I miss living in a Major League city, but the minors are really fun to follow and see some of the really good players before they get up to the big league.  I will do a post in the next week or two on a few of the players on the Bulls, but I will at least share my view of the game with you before I get into my card for the day.  

While I am pretty convinced that the Durham Bulls might flatten most other minor league teams this year (seriously-not being a homer) the most intriguing prospect in the minors belongs to the Chattanooga  Lookouts in the form of outfielder Yasiel Puig.  Puig is a Cuban and defected from the Cuban National Baseball team sometime in 2012 ending up as a resident of Mexico.  He became a free agent and signed a seven year contract with the Dodgers.  Puig played in the lower minors last year and hit for average (.354) and (.634 slugging) with 5 homers in 23 games.  Leaf managed to put him into their Valiant release last year and he was even included in the autographs.  

2011 Leaf Valiant Yasiel Puig Autograph

I managed to snag a green version of the autograph, in a trade, which is the most common.  This spring Yasiel Puig did everything he could to make the Dodgers and basically hit the cover off the ball during Spring Training.  The Dodgers sent him to AA to start the season, but he is hitting over .500 with power.  It's the first week of the season, but it will be interesting to see what becomes of Mr. Puig as the summer continues.  I had a chance to see a glimpse of him during a televised Dodgers Spring Training game and it was hard to get a read on how good he was with my own two eyes.  However, it would not shock me if the Dodgers are in contention that Puig will be the teams de-facto trade line addition to help push the team into the playoffs.  

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Matt Carpenter Autograph

I've busted a few packs of Gypsy queen and posted a few pics to my Twitter page, but this is going to be a set that I put together through lots and trades.  The Gypsy Queen product looks really nice this year, but I always pick a couple products every year to either skip the base set, or I assemble the base set without sinking a ton of money into wax.  Gypsy Queen is always a pretty easy set to assemble without busting much wax and if you follow some of the better case breakers on Facebook and Twitter the word on Gypsy Queen is that it is extremely uneven in its distribution.  Meaning I could buy a box and get a huge percentage of the set along with some really cool hits, or I could end up with tons of dupes and a Tommy Hanson jersey card.

Nit picking a set off of lots, trades, and Ebay purchases does have some serious advantages.  First, it's easy to assemble the base set for at least half of the cost of the hobby box.  Second, you get to control the hits that you get to put in with your set.  Being mainly focused on the Cardinals with some interest in a few other teams, I decided to make my first target for the Gypsy Queen set the autograph of utility player Matt Carpenter.  The lesser known of the Carpenters on the Cardinals played a valuable role on last year's team as a rookie and has never had a certified autograph.  So, here's the card:

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Matt Carpenter Autograph 

So, here's the problem with picking out single cards to target in a set.  Most Topps sets now have a soft release date.  Sure, Topps maintained that Gypsy Queen just released last Wednesday, but I also bought myself two blasters and put them in my Easter basket the Sunday before the product released.  The release dates that Topps gives to retail and hobby stores have become more of a suggestion than an actual hard date.  So, early last week before the official release there were only a few Matt Carpenter autographs floating around Ebay and COMC.  Several ended north of $25 which is ridiculous given that Matt Carpenter is a 27 year old second year player with no starting job on the Cardinals.

When the product officially released last Wednesday the secondary market sites slowly started seeing an uptick in the number of Carpenter autographs.    Luckily, the uptick in product available allowed the prices to slowly come down below $10 and I was available to pick up a copy of this card from super case breakers Brent and Becca.  The important thing to remember as a collector, when a product first is released, to pick out the cards that you want from the product and stick to a price point.  If you think the card should cost $20 and it is selling for twice that amount, chances are that in the long wrong you will be right and you will be able to get the card you want for the price you want.