2016 Gypsy Queen Retail 3 Pack exclusive framed pack

 Found as a bonus in the retail hanger 3 packs these blue framed exclusives look very snazzy.  I still liked last years Pearl White retail exclusives better.  You can already see the first player I got, lets check out the rest of the pack.  Only the first 100 cards in the set get the framed treatment.

2016 Bulls-I-Toy Angry Birds

 Bulls-i-Toy, pronounced Bullseye, you may remember them from the metal Superman vs Batman metal cards that were featured on here a few weeks back.  They also make a lot of those gravity feed toys you see at the supermarket checkouts and take up valuable space at the retail like the erasers and dog tags.  But they also make a few trading card sets.

The Angry Birds card set includes 54 base cards, 9 Foil cards seeded 1:2, and 9 pop up card seeded 1:4.  The backs of the base cards make up a puzzle and there are 6 puzzles to make.  The cards are numbered, very tiny, on the fronts.  Lets see what I pulled.

 I ended up with a foil card which you can't tell from the scan.

2016 Topps Marketside

Cards issued with food used to be as prevalent as the sprinkles leftover at the bottom of a bag of pink Mother's Cookies circus animals, but the concept is all but extinct today. Fortunately, Topps decided to do something bold and package a special set of cards with a certain kind of food. Unfortunately, it happened to be with Walmart frozen pizzas. I picked up an unopened pack of the stuff on Listia. I'm not too good to eat frozen pizza, but talking me into a trek to Walmart is another story.

50 - Justin Verlander - This design could be a rejected insert concept for the base set, but that's saying something for food issues. We're used to seeing guys with airbrushed caps hawking deli meats.

40 - George Springer - Exciting young ballplayer.

28 - Sonny Gray - It's a bit woeful to be an A's collector, but they at least were represented in this small 50 card set.

As you can see, the backs are nothing to write home about, but again - not bad for a freebie tossed in with your frozen dinner. I didn't end up with either of the two Cardinals from this set, so I could see trying to snag a pack again just for fun. I'll stay out of the Walmart aisles, though.

It's also worth mentioning that the pack came with a card containing two pretty quality coupons on it for Topps products. Hopefully they can be redeemed at the other big chain store that sells cards.

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen

One the same trip to Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage, Alaska that I pulled that fantastic Aaron Nola card I featured in my last pack, I also picked up a pair of Gypsy Queen packs.  Again I had Don's grandson pick the packs for me.  Nick has been pretty good luck for me in the past and well out of the two packs this was the best one.

First up my lone Brewer and love him or hate him he's still the face of my team.

It's nice to see a Schwarber rookie pulled, too bad out his luck this year with the torn ACL.

I do love the mini's I was unfamiliar with Refsnyder here.  Turns out he's Korean, but was adopted by a Californian couple when he was 5 months old.  Currently he's playing the Yankees AAA team the Rail Riders.

And smack dad in the middle of the pack was this bad boy.  Not too shabby pulling the 2015 Babe Ruth Award winner and World Series pitcher Wade Davis.  Not a bad pack at all or a bad trip to the card shop.

2016 Panini Diamond Kings - One of my best hits ever!!!!

I feel pretty blessed living up here in the great white north.  Anchorage has two great card shops.  My wife had a date with her girlfriends Saturday afternoon so it was just me and my son for most of the day.  I decided to head down to Don's Sportscards to pick up a couple packs and check to see if there any deals to be had.  I ended up getting a couple cheap autos and relic cards off Don's drop board and picked up a couple packs of Diamond Kings and Gypsy Queen.

I'm not going to exaggerate this pack had what is one of my best hits of all time.  So I have to thank Don's grandson Nick for picking the pack out for me. Alright lets see what was in the pack.

The overall design is as good as a non-licensed product can get.

Got one of the three Brewers rookies in the set.

Drum Roll.....























While I would have loved a more seasoned well established player pulling a Super Prime One of One Studio Portraits dual patch auto of up and coming Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola was still pretty breath taking.

2015 Topps WWE Heritage $1 Packs

My Dollar Tree store had 2015 WWE Topps Heritage $1 packs the other day and so I picked up two. They give you just three cards per pack but it's a nice option if you want to check out a newish product for not a lot of money. 

As the front of the pack says, these cards are done in the style of the 1985 Topps design and as I'm staring down the late Bam Bam Bigelow, I'm realizing that I may have to play the "are they still with us?" game with each card. Best known for his unfortunate head tattoos, Bigelow died in 2007 from a drug overdose.

The backs are neon green and I mean so neon green that it makes it difficult to read the biography information at times. 

The Bushwhackers were one of my favorite tag teams when I was a kid as their gimmick was at about the perfect speed for an eight year old. Amazingly I'm happy to say both Bushwhackers are still with us as they looked in rough shape in the 1980's and they were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015.

The end of the first pack one gives us Davey Boy Smith a.k.a. The British Bulldog. Another one of my favorites, I remember his famous match against Brett Hart in the old Wembley Stadium. Unfortunately, Smith died in 2002 from a heart attack attributed to steroid use.

Pack two starts out with two Divas who aren't really Divas anymore. Since the Diva Title has been remade the Women's Title at Wrestlemanis, these cards are a little out of date already. Brie Bella is of course my favorite of the three women and and with Nikki hurt long term, I am glad to see Brie getting some of the spotlight and winning her match at Wrestlemania 32.

Lastly, we have the Rhythm and Blues tag team from the late 1980's, made up of the Honky Tonk Man and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. They were managed by Jimmy Hart and fought the Hart Foundation in Wrestlemania V. Both wrestlers are still with us and making trips around the wrestling convention circuits.