It's a weirdness I've never experienced because I wasn't alive in 1994, but...it's very weird having a moment in time where there's no baseball, but there's...cards on the shelves. Like, new cards.
It's slightly counterproductive. Successive card products being released for a season that's yet to start, and may be a little while away [had a dream it was pushed til September. The hell's the point of that? Snow-ball?].
And yet, I'm out in the aisles of a deserted Target to get some air, passing nonexistent other customers, and there are cards on the shelves. Gypsy Queen is out. Usually when Gypsy Queen's out, we're comparing the airbrushings on those cards to the real things playing their first round of new baseball. Now...we have nothing else to go by. The airbrush jobs are our reality.
So here's a blaster of 2020 Gypsy Queen, fresh off the shelf, adored by Philly hero (?) Bryce Harper. I'll tally up the airbrush jobs, and rate them.
GREEN PACK:
55- Trea Turner. I pull Trea Turner cards a lot.
267- Peter Lambert
300- Mike Trout. Well at least I pulled the big one.
15- Justin Smoak. Airbrush job #1- he's shopped into a Brewers uniform from a Toronto one. Not only that, it's a new Brewers uniform. You can see the patch and hat insignia slapped on, but it's not bad. 6/10
227- Oscar Mercado
Pack 1-
246- Brusdar Graterol, now on the Dodgers. Perhaps foolishly
66- Kirby Yates
286- Domingo Leyba [come and open the gate] [I don't care if it's an obscure reference i just watched that movie the other night and it's still great]
186- Evan Longoria BLUE BORDER NUMBERED TO 250. I have such weird luck with Gypsy Queen parallels. One time I pulled an Eddie Mathews mini #d to 199 out of retail. Coolest thing.
196- Mitch Keller
290- Tommy La Stella
Pack 2-
269- Jorge Soler, home run slayer and probable future bad Yankee investment
265- Sam Hilliard
115- Dustin 'Gingergaard' May
Fortune Teller mini of AARON JUDGE. GOOD GOLLY IT'S SOMEONE I COLLECT. YE GODS.
49- Brandon Crawford
118- Ender Inciarte
Pack 3-
134- Tim 'Taz' Anderson
257- Willi Castro. The other thing about GQ is they couldn't tell with Tigers were gonna catch on so they just made some educated guesses
169- ADAM OTTAVINO.
262- Andres Munoz
68- Randy Arozarena- airbrush job #2, in a Rays uniform from a Cardinals uniform. The uniform logo looks pasted in some points and adorned in others. The gloves are well hued though. 7/10
98- GERRIT COLE AS A YANKEE. Intriguing airbrush job (#3) this one, as he's not only in a Yankee uniform from an Astros one, but he's got a different, less wild back of the head, due to the Yankee freshening up rule. So they probably grabbed another Yankee scalp and put it on his, which is odd. Still, it works, and the uni is well hued to be blue. 8/10
Pack 4-
207- Paul deJong
5- Dom Nunez. Lots of Rockies rookies
63- Austin Nola. There's ONE Nola brother
109- Andrelton 'Simba' Simmons
259- Starlin Castro, Airbrush Job #4. This is a weird one, as it's a Nats uniform from a Marlins one. On the surface, it looks great, as it looks like a great uniform, which makes me think they pasted Castro's head and arm on there. I dunno if that arm tattoo is his. Very interesting. But, as for the airbrush/paste, 9/10
150- Cody Bellinger. The other big MVP to pull
Pack 5-
239- Nick Senzel
188- Matt Chapman
166- Max Scherzer. No shortage of star power in these packs
TAROT OF THE DIAMOND insert of Alex Bregman, aka THE JOKER. DAMN RIGHT. I like Alex Bregman as much as I like the 2019 film 'Joker'.
175- Hyun-Jin Ryu, airbrush job #5, which is an easy one, as it's Blue Jays from Dodgers. So, color is fine, uniform grey is fine, pasting is fine. Even the cap insignia looks natural. 9/10
264- Trevor Bauer as a Red, which is a welcome sight after UPDATE LAST YEAR DIDN'T HAVE IT.
Pack 6-
232- Aaron Civale
62- Dylan Cease. Curious as hell that he would have gotten the 5th starter job over Kopech. Very curious
86- Anthony Rizzo
215- Anthony Rendon as an Angel, Airbrush Job #6, Nats to Angels, which would have been a perfect airbrush job had it not been for a uniform air-ruffle that the Angels logo is pasted upon, which takes me out of it a bit. 8/10
191- Victor Reyes
180- Keston Hiura
Pack 7-
206- Christian Vazquez
52- Brendan McKay
229- Emmanuel Clase, traded to in the Corey Kluber deal.
271- Michael Brosseau. Still confused at Topps' insistence of calling him Michael. Like calling Castellanos 'Nicholas' and Boyd 'Matthew'.
249- Luis Castillo
282- AARON NOLA. There we go. Both Nola bros in the same blaster.
Not a bad blaster of this. I'm not the hugest Gypsy Queen fan, but this has some nice elements this year, and I got some nice pulls and airbrush jobs, 6 in total.
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