queen me! and has anyone seen my adrian gonzalez mini?

i recently participated in the 2013 topps gypsy queen group break at andrews baseball cards blog, taking the dodgers (of course).  the only card that i knew for sure i would be receiving after the break was an adrian gonzalez photo variation mini.  turns out, that card didn't make the trip, but these did.

clayton kershaw dealing aces

this reminds me a bit of the 2000 pacific invincible aces inserts.  just in that they both play off of the playing card concept.  i went crazy for invincible that year.

here's the one card i was really hoping to get in the break - sandy koufax no-hitters insert

too bad there weren't four of them in the set!

as for the base, i received a bunch of dodger southpaws - kershaw

koufax

paco rodriguez

and chris capuano

plus rightys josh beckett

and don sutton

it's nice to see sutton in this set.  and thank goodness he's a dodger and not an astro or a brewer.

here's aj ellis

andre ethier

and adrian gonzalez, regular sized

the only mini that was in my mailer was this duke snider

so, for the team set, i was just duke, matt kemp, jackie robinson, and hanley ramirez short.

my random team was the padres, and one of the two cards that fell my way happened to be this hall of famer

if there's no steve garvey card to be had, the next best padre is tony gwynn.

thanks for hosting the break andrew - and if anyone comes across that gonzalez mini, please let me know!

now, i had also purchased a couple of stray packs of gq and wound up with a few nice (dodger) cards.  here's a play at the plate collisions insert of buster posey

with hanley ramirez sliding in.  speaking of hanley, here is his base card that eluded me in the group break

and here is the duke snider base as well

plus jackie robinson!

my pack purchasing skills were right on the money.  i guess that matt kemp base card will be the next one added to the nefarious 9 when a spot opens up.

i also pulled a kershaw white bordered insert

not sure if that is a target exclusive insert or not.  i didn't expect to go after gq this year, but after seeing some of the inserts and sutton on the checklist, i gave in.  i'm mostly glad i did.