2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini Box Mini Variation

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Year: 2015

Card Set: Gypsy Queen

Card Number: 21

Card Type: Mini Box Mini Variation

This year marks the 5th year for Gypsy Queen and Robin has been featured in the base set of four of those year, 2012 was the year he wasn't although he did have relic cards in the set.  This year marks the third time that he has been featured with a mini variation card in the set as well.  These variation cards are only found in the mini boxes in hobby boxes.

The image isn't terribly over used, but just a quick look though some of his recent cards shows the image was used in last year's Supreme autograph cards and this year for his Finest Generations insert and Tier One - Clear One's autograph card. 

Clearing up some confusion with Panini's 2015 Cooperstown.

I've been trying to sort out this year's Cooperstown offering from Panini.  Robin has quite a few cards to chase in the set and as I've been watching stuff on ebay I've become more and more confused with what card is in what insert set.  But I have been able to piece some stuff together.  Mainly from using the backs of the printing plates which actually list the set the card is in.

Robin has 3 cards that all look like base cards.

At first I wondered if they were variants, because they all are numbered 82 and from what I've seen all have the same backs.

Then I found this..

 which had a back also listed.

So now I know that the card with Robin swinging is in the HOF Chronicles set.  One down.

Next I did some looking around I did find a printing plate with Robin holding his HOF plaque, but it didn't have an image of the back, so I looked though all the printing plates I could find and I found that images of players with holding their plaques or giving a speech or some other induction activity were in the HOF Induction set.  So I reasonably deduced that this card was in the HOF Induction set.

 Not to be confused with the Induction Images which are foil board and Robin's card is #26 in the set like the one below.

That leaves us with one card which I can reasonably say is the actual base card to the base set.

So in summary

Base card

HOF Induction insert card

HOF Chronicles insert card, this one happens to be the red parallel version.

Induction Images insert, the card that actually says Induction on it.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion if your collecting Robin or another player with the same problem.

2010 Topps Update Bat Barrel Manurelic

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Year: 2010

Card Set: Update Series Baseball

Card Number: MBB-156

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Manufactured Bat Barrels

Card Attributes: Manurelic bat barrel, serial numbered

Serial Number: 63/99

I figured why not follow up a manurelic with another manurelic.  This one comes from the 2010 Update set.   I won't repeat my tirade about manurelics from the last post, but I will say out of all the different manurelics Topps has put out these Manufactured Bat Barrels are my favorite.  They came in 3 different flavors.  I blogged about the black version in May this year and there is also a pink version number to just one.  

I just like the look of the card. The bat barrel is huge, the card think, in hand these look great.  Add to that that even the base card here is fairly rare, numbered to only 99.  That's not something Topps does very often with it's manurelics.  The set itself is pretty large with over 175 subjects to pick from.  Heck the Brewers even have 6 subjects in the set including Paul Molitor. 

2012 Topps Series 2 Team Rings

Year: 2012

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Series 2 Baseball

Card Number: GTR-RY

Card Type: Insert Manufactured Relic

Insert Set: Gold Team Rings

Card Attributes: Manufactured Ring

Manurelics.  I'm not a huge fan.  I really don't like that Topps considers these one of your hits when it advertises one auto and two relics on it's jumbo boxes.  This isn't a relic, it's a manurelic and it's not the same thing.

But there are some manurelics I like more than others.  I really like the manufactured bat barrels from a few years ago and I like this one too.  The reason I like it is because it's such an oddball, at least to me.  The image used isn't new and the back of the card is pretty sparse, but the actual ring manurelic is pretty neat and the card is fairly hefty and thick.  And it features my favorite player so....

2002 Topps Tribute Milestone Materials relic

Year: 2002

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Tribute

Card Number: MIM-RY

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Milestone Materials

Relic Type: Jersey

Card Attributes: Jersey Relic

Nothing to really get excited about, at least now.  Back in 2002 this was the bee's knees.  A nice shiny thick stock card with an actually game used relic.  Not an event used, game used for what that's worth.  Single color swatch and unnumbered the early 2000's marked a time with Robin's, and other players, jerseys were being cut up by the truck load for cards like this.  Still a nice card from the Cadillac of sets at the time.  I do like of the M shaped opening for the relic window.  Beats a plain square or circle.  Seems card makers are now just getting back to openings for their relic sets, you know besides Triple Threads.

1991 Star Stellar #30

Year: 1991

Card Manufacturer: Star

Card Set: Stellar

Card Number: 30

Card Type: Base

I just realized as I look through my post queue that I really need to start scanning more pre 2000 cards to post about.

So I'll feature another one of Robin's cards from Star's Stellar issue.

Card 30 features Robin's World Series stats.  The Brewers went to the World Series in 1982 losing to the Cardinals in 7.  It's the closest the teams ever come to winning it all.  Of course the 1982 team was pretty awesome.

By even the standards of the day Star's card issues were pretty amateurish, but they did feature some of the best stars of the day and we get a bunch of cards that feature Robin. And if the back of the card is to be believe there are only 500 copies of this card.

1977 Hostess Twinkies Single Cards

Year: 1978

Card Manufacturer: Hostess

Card Set: Hostess Baseball 

Card Type: Base Hostess Singles variation

The third and final Hostess Twinkie card in my collection.  I think this is also the last year Hostess had this variation.  As you can see it's very greased stained.  I know that unused cards exist, but it was hard to pass up the deal I got on this card years ago.  Of course the card was used as part of the packaging and the Twinkies sat directly on the card.  I'm not sure if these cards came in other products like cupcakes and snoballs, but even if this card had been trimmed down you can tell it's the variation by the black bar on the back.