Gypsy Queen represents a fresh start to a tried and true formula

Depending on which blogs you read every day, you may have noticed that this year's Gypsy Queen release from Topps is getting slammed by a great many people.  "It's too much retro...it's just like A&G...do they have an original idea at Topps anymore?" 

I read those blogs sometimes too.

But if I could take a minute to offer a counter-opinion to the matter, you may find that there is still reason yet to be a fan of a new release like Gypsy Queen.

Card collecting - or rather card collectors - seem to come in and out of the hobby for differing amounts of time.  Myself, when I got back into the hobby, Allen and Ginter was really the set to build.  I'd never heard of A&G before.  When I left the hobby just a couple of years earlier, Diamond Kings was the retro/art set that garnered the attention.  So here I was looking at a really cool retro set in A&G that had it's own lingo and fan base.  I had no idea what a mini card was, and didn't know that a parallel set even was a thing.  So I bought a box of 08 A&G, and came woefully short on getting anywhere near building a base set, an insert set or a mini set.  I had no idea how to assemble enough cards to even begin to break a hidden code.  In short, I missed that train.

And yet, A&G continues to remain one of the must-build sets each and every year.  Especially for the crowd that has 'been there, done that' from the start in '06.  And even if a guy like me wanted to get in on A&G now, that is from the beginning of the line, it's nearly impossible.  A box of 06 A&G online right now sells for well over $200 at this point.  So basically, the first set that brought back the line to life is now unreachable for me. 

And not to mention that I also missed the boat on T-206 and Obak.  So there's all this great retro set building going on, and if you didn't get in at the start, you'll never have a chance to really build every set that has been released.  And if you know a set collector....well, you know set collectors.

Enter Gypsy Queen.  Right now, this summer, we'll all get the chance to start in on the ground floor of what looks to be a promising baseball retro set.  Maybe it isn't better than Ginter.  Maybe it isn't as popular as the other established sets.  But it resets the game for the rest of us who want to bang our heads against the wall chasing unadvertised SP's, crazy insert sets, mini cards, and relic sets that may include Babe Ruth poly-fiber Under-Armor relics.  We just want to be like everybody else.

And someday, when the 2011 hobby boxes of Gypsy Queen go from $100 a box to $250 a box, we can smile knowing that we got there first.

And besides, if these scans that have been released stay true to form, it kind of has an HD retro look.  Hard to explain, but it's pleasing on the eyes.  I'm in.  I need a good baseball set to work on until the '63 Heritage gets released anyway.