2012 Topps Gypsy Queen - First Look

Although I ordered a hobby box on eBay, I couldn't wait and bought a blaster and a rack pack over at Target today.  I'm sure I'll get several posts out of the hobby box. I haven't looked for anyone else's posts so you'll get my unvarnished opinion.

I really liked last year's Gypsy Queen, which is why I decided to buy a hobby box this year.

What's different? The front and back designs are much more ornate than last year. I like the background color of the front better (last year was a sickly pea green color). The backs are more sepia than the stark black and white of last year. I like it as much, maybe a bit more than last year.

I'm always happy if I pull a Mike Schmidt card from a blaster. Last year, the regular sized cards numbered 301-350 were short prints. This year the full sized cards are numbered to 300 and 50 of them have short print variations. There is supposed to be a variation of this Schmidt card. I pulled 8 cards which are supposed to have short print variations but I don't know how to tell them apart from the regular cards. This really don't like this sort of thing. I'm OK with the SP VAR but really, some help with the differences. Maybe if I pulled one I'd know somehow. This is one of the reasons I'm not a set collector.

You can't have a retro set without mini cards. The minis are numbered to 350. It looks like the cards from 301 to 350 are duplicates of players in the first 300 but maybe not the SP VARs from the full-sized cards. More confusion.

You can't have mini cards without color and back variations. The fronts come is regular, black, sepia and green. I only pulled one green.

Last year there was just one back variation, the Gypsy Queen. I pulled just one of these. This is Bob Abreu.

This year they also have the "Straight Cut" back. I pulled 2, Bob Abreu (again) and Drew Stubbs (pictured). You probably can't see it but this is card #328. There is also a Stubbs #165, Presumably with a different picture. Stubbs is not one of the regular sized cards identified as having an SP VAR.

I actually pulled a relic from the blaster. Last year there were only 20 full-sized relic cards, giving you a shot at collecting them all. I've managed to get 13 of them so far. This year there are 62 of them so we can forget about completing that set. Last year's full sized relics featured a different player picture than the base card. I didn't pull a Sandoval base so I don't know if it's different.

The rack pack yielded 3 of these. This card has a paper frame. There was something similar in last year's set. There is also a blue (numbered to 599) and a black frame (one of one) available. Neither beckett.com nor baseballcardpedia.com acknowledge this paper framed variation. In keeping with the set in general, this card is more ornate than last year's card with more silver foil. It's hard to see, but the border is a gold color with flecks.