2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Part 1

I haven't seen too many blog posts about this set but I don't mind getting my comments in early. First, I like the set although I'm not in love with it. It is much better than the new 'retro' sets Topps put out last year such as National Chicle and Topps 206. Much better. It's still not as good as Allen & Ginter but if Topps was going to go forward with 2 retro sets, I'd like to see Gypsy Queen and A&G. A&G is mainly posed players with no backgrounds. The Gypsy Queen cards are mainly action shots with backgrounds. I think they complement to each other.

I bought 4 rack packs for $8.99 each. I bit pricey at $0.44/card considering there were no hits in the packs. The rack packs had 3 6-card regular packs and a "bonus" pack inside. I'll give a run down on the distribution between base cards and inserts at the end. Here's what the base cards look like. The pictures are clearly photographs made to look like paintings. Unlike A&G, the pictures are more realistic and kind of gritty. I like that. They are finished on the front but no gloss. No foil. The backs are plain white with no finish, much like the Topps 206.
There are 350 cards in the set, with the last 50 being short-printed. I pulled one short print, the Lou Gehrig card.
There are a number of old time players from a number of eras included. There do not seem to be any non-baseball player cards. Thanks for that.
I only pulled two Astro cards, but at least I got my current favorite Astro.
I only pulled one Phillies card. I think this is a good picture of Lee.
Other than Astros and Phillies, I only pulled 4 cards of players I collect, Ichiro, Jones, Pujols and BJ Upton.

The "Bonus" pack had these cards.
The green border is actually a frame with silver foil. These are not listed on Beckett.com, at baseballcardpedia.com, or on Topps sell sheet. They appear to be parallels of the regular cards. They were in a clear cellophane wrapper with 3 to a wrapper.
10 0f the 12 were old timers. I like this Ozzie card.
This card is called a "Framed Paper Parallel". The gold border is a frame with gold foil. They are serial numbered to 999. One of the cellophane packs had this in addition to the 3 green framed cards.

Of the 72 cards (not counting the framed cards) only 41 were base cards. There were 12 mini parallel cards (including 2 Red Gypsy backs). There were 4 "Future Stars", 5 "The Great Ones" (1 dup), 1 "Home Run Heroes", 3 "Wall Climbers", and 4 "Sticky Fingers" (one dup). At basically 10 base cards per rack pack it would be pretty difficult (and expensive) to build a set (even excluding the short prints) by buying rack packs. Oh, and by the way, I also got two checklist cards which, even though they are not part of the base set, were counted as one of the 6 cards in each pack.

I like the set but I won't be buying much more of it. I'll pick up a blaster if I see one and try to get the Phillies and Astros on eBay or through trades. I'll make another post with the inserts and minis when I get them scanned.