Two Special Robin Yount Cards

Like many collectors and baseball fans, I follow baseball artist Gypsy Oak on Twitter. I learned Gypsy Oak was a good person soon after I followed him because nearly immediately after I followed him, he sent me two JPEGs by DM that he said I should feel free to use for my avatar:

If ever you have a reason to try to curry favor with me, this is a good way to start. The Yount art looks a little off to me, if only because that uniform should be that beautiful powder blue -- almost Carolina blue, actually. But that is being super picky. Both of these are truly art.

About a week ago, Gypsy Oak tweeted out a happy birthday to Robin Yount using a wood engraving of Robin. I literally said "Wow" out loud to myself and immediately asked GO whether the engraving was for sale and, if so, for how much. He sent me a DM and told me he would sell it to me for $9, and that included shipping.

That wood engraving is now one of the coolest Yount items in my collection:

The only cooler item in my collection might be the Baseball Card Breakdown card of Robin on his motorcycle in 1982, and that's cooler because of my personal tie to that day. This is, however, a very close second.

But this post is about two special Yount cards. That's because GO added in a free gift for me -- a gift that has a value of at least one penny, but for which GO asks $9.95 on eBay:

Using the very art that he sent to me last year, this card is super cool. 

Now, 1978 wasn't exactly Yount's best season in the majors. In fact, thanks to an injury and some waffling about whether he still wanted to be a baseball player, Yount missed the first several weeks of the season. During that time and as is well known by now, the Brewers had a guy whom they had drafted just one year earlier out of the University of Minnesota who filled in for Yount and became as much of a fixture as Yount became -- Paul Molitor.

My thanks go out to Gypsy Oak for the free gift and for being a great artist. It's pretty cool to have art from a guy whose art -- in collaboration with Paine Proffitt -- hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame!

Let's be clear though -- Gypsy Oak is a much cooler Gypsy than Fleetwood Mac's Gypsy. At least in my book.

You See Your Gypsy (Queen), from Crackin' Wax

By now, I'm sure most of you have heard that Prince Rogers Nelson has passed away at the age of just 57 years old. He played his final shows here in Atlanta at the Fox Theatre just last week, and I didn't even realize he was playing in town until I'd heard he'd canceled the shows due to some health issues. Heck, I didn't even realize that he was 57 years old already.

Prince guarded his music very closely. Unlike most artists, whose music is fairly freely available either on YouTube or Spotify, Prince is difficult to find. Most videos on YouTube either have no music -- just images -- or some awful cover or worse. 

I have to admit -- after Purple Rain, I paid attention sometimes to Prince, but I really didn't listen to him. I remember loving songs like "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" when I was about 11 or 12 years old. Then, a couple of years later I bought Purple Rain in one of those Columbia House album grabs. You remember them -- "Get 10 albums for the price of 1" was BMG's gig, and Columbia House required more purchases after.

Interesting side note: 3 million of the 13 million copies of Hootie & The Blowfish's Cracked Rear View were purchased through Columbia House.  Seriously. Humorously enough, Columbia House has re-emerged as to sell hipsters vinyl as a subscription service -- and it's "Coming Soon!"

Something that is now out is Gypsy Queen. I am not going to pull a Night Owl and tease a song title without giving you the song. So, here's Stevie Nicks in her pomp:

To see my Gypsy (Queen), I decided to sign up for another Crackin' Wax Charity Case Break with Topher & Literal Quirk (though LQ was out or ill that evening, unfortunately). Christopher always keeps the break moving, answers questions, banters with those present and chatting on YouTube, and otherwise tries his best to make watching someone open up 12 boxes of cards interesting.

If you're interested, here is the break.

Since the fearsome twosome are both originally from Wisconsin and are still Upper Midwesterners, it is fun for me to hear their accents as they go through the boxes. They sound a lot like the people I grew up around.

Anyway, enough unconnected chatter. Here are a few of the base cards:

The Yount is actually a short print, so there was only one of that card in the entire case and, therefore, I still need to get one of them to complete my team set.

Meanwhile, for the normal Brewer cards, I got either 6 or 7 of each.

I have to admit that I actually really like the design this year. The red lettering pops off the card and is a clean look. The borders aren't obnoxious either. They aren't too dark, and they aren't too boring. And, the player names are reasonably easy to read as well. I'll admit it -- I'm a fan of this set. 

Now, I'm not going to go crazy and try to collect a complete set or anything, mind you. But these cards are just artsy enough to appeal on that level and they look different from previous incarnations.

Good job, Topps.

My Brewers slot also netted me some minis, including two that are serial numbered parallels.

The Segura is serial numbered to 50. Domingo Santana -- who is showing good patience at the plate this year while giving the Brewers a true right fielder and, further, being only 23 years old -- is a purple mini parallel numbered to 250. The Braun is just the regular version.

I have to admit that I am a bit miffed about Topps's decision not to have any Brewers autographs in this year's set. The only Brewers' hits available are a "Laces Around the League" Ryan Braun (serial numbered to just 5), and a Ryan Braun "MVP Minis Autograph" (serial numbered to 25 with a 1/1 black parallel). 

Thankfully, the folks at Crackin' Wax recognized that, so while I put a $20 down payment for the case break in, I actually got a partial refund to reflect the truer, more accurate value of my slot.

I like it when people do the right thing -- though, to be fair, it would have been fine if my refund had gone to charity.

Many thanks go out to Topher for running the break -- and y'all be sure to follow him on Twitter as well!

Even though it will probably gone quickly, here's the best song to sum up losing Prince -- another Minnesota icon: