When 2017 Topps Gypsy Queen released, I read a bunch of hype on Twitter about how retail blasters were dropping the hot hits. Of course, if there are hot hits dropping, I want to be a part of it, so I devised a plan to go to Walmart and get a blaster.
You get all of the standard blaster box stuff, seven packs plus one extra pack and a guaranteed SP base card.
Here are the pack odds and NPN information from the side of the box. I am curious about how the Base Short Print cards fall 1:27 packs when you are guaranteed one in every 8-pack blaster? Maybe Topps has differing definitions for the 'Short Printed Base Card' on the front of the box and the 'Base Short Print' listed in the pack odds.
I scanned a few of the base cards, focusing on Astros, camo uniforms, and Johnny Cueto and Evan Longoria because they were a couple of other recognizable names in the stack. Andy Pettitte is a Short Print.
This blaster yielded two parallels, a Missing Blackplate of Wilson Ramos (1:12 packs), and a Missing Nameplate of Orlando Arcia (1:28 packs). There were also two inserts, a Fortune Teller card of Ryan Braun (1:8 packs) and a Portrait Art Reproduction card of Chris Sale (1:9 packs). Well, that was kind of underwhelming, in my opinion. The cards look nice enough, but there isn't much here. The obvious answer was to double down on this venture, so later I went and got another blaster.
This time I got three parallels to go with my two inserts and one SP Jackie Robinson card. The inserts are a Fortune Teller card of Robinson Cano (1:8 packs) and a Portrait Art Reproduction featuring Giancarlo Stanton (1:9 packs). The parallels are a Green Back of Jeremy Hellickson (1:84 packs), a Purple of Eugenio Suarez (1:17 packs), and a Missing Blackplate of Bartolo Colon (1:12 packs). I guess I did pretty well on the parallels, although I managed to avoid any big names on them. I guess the Colon is my favorite, even though it's the most common among them. I did see Suarez play when I was in Ohio last month, so I've got some connection there.
The Purple parallels are numbered, with the Suarez being # 083 / 250. The Green Back parallels are more uncommon, but without a serial number I imagine there won't be much interest in them.
Well, no big hits at all in those two blasters. I did pull an Aaron Judge base autograph on my third blaster attempt, though, so I guess you could argue that persistence pays off, or that Twitter isn't a great place for getting advice.
I like the look of this years set. I'm not one to buy reatail. Grabbed my Bosox set off eBay. The Judge auto sounds sweet
ReplyDeleteI am not typically a person who buys a lot of retail, but I go through phases, especially if I hear a product is hot or if I find a product I like that offers guaranteed hits in retail blasters (like the Topps WWE Divas Revolution or Panini's NASCAR offerings).
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