3 Boxes Of Ginter, Just For Laughs

I've probably run it into the ground at this point, but Allen & Ginter has become my new flagship set.  After 2020, instead of rather blindly committing to build the Topps flagship set every year, with or without all the rather pedestrian inserts, I'm switching to Ginter, which for the most part has been much more enjoyable to break and collect.  Instead of more than one overbloated star card rehash, along with the annual old design redundant tribute, and 1000 base cards that seem to be 73% rookies and guys I've never seen and one or two super short printed legends that I try to trade for the couple I need for PCs, I'd rather build a nice 300 card base set with bunches of retired players, some diverse subjects, and some easy "short prints" that are actually obtainable, plus some regular- and mini-sized inserts that generally have several times the thought put into them.

So to complete my first trifecta of consecutive Ginter set builds, I got three boxes from my favorite Baltimore area dealer for about $20 off at the time.  And being so close, I got two day shipping for the regular price.

So here's what came out of the first box...

 

Nice box topper pull ... at least for someone.  I like Polar Bear backs on T2o5s, but Pete belongs with a Mets fan.

Continuing with the decent trade bait, only the Mattingly is spoken for here.  This is how I conmplete my insert sets, etc.  All minis can go!  (Except for Palmer, Mussina, Torre & Fisk if you have them!)

Cool selections in A&G back minis too.  Probably the best luck I'll have pulling Bichettes.  Dobbins shows up again later, and Pedro with the 'Spos (is that how you spell that?) is very cool.  Flipped Ms. Scurry from the futbol net to show the back.

And the black borders.  Gotta love the Cubs Fergie, but I guess Correa and Castillo probably carry more hype in the mainstream crowd.

REALLY love the Monster minis!  They have subtle glow-in-the-dark images too.  This is the best of the Ginter committee's imagination at work this year.  The other stuff isn't bad, but doesn't maintain the same level as the last three years or so.  The Safari ones seem to all be printed down and in to the right handed batters.  And the castles is a mini version of a similar regular size set I'm still working on from a previous year.

The regulation size inserts.  Can't complain about any of these.  Nice to have a catcher tribute set.  The Debuts are elegant and a mix of old and newer guys instead of the same old ones.  And the Longball Lores put some graphical power into a familiar theme.

Down On The Farm leads off a couple of the more mundane inserts this year.  These seem aimed at the school age crowd, which I don't have a problem with.  I'll trade for the rest of these, but I won't buy them.

Same with these rockin' inserts - Digging Deep.  OK, rare minerals are sorta interesting, but not really that photogenic that they should be on cards.

The full bleed postcard looking inserts that follow last year's effort History Of Flight, Reach for the Sky features skyscrapers, which are also a previous year subject, though I like these better.

2020 Ginter's most noticeable shift that I see is the number of comedians and writers who got cards.  In past years, they would be mixed in with athletes from obscure sports, racehorses, historical figures, and the occasional contest winner collector.  Guess this is "standup-routine-worn?"  More on this in a bit.

My best hit is what turns out to be the only framed mini relic out of all three boxes.  For once, I get a hit of one of the big name guys, though at this point, I imagine Vlad is on the downslope of his Hype Machine domination.   But still good enough for me.  I might be persuaded to trade him for one of my local teams or player collection guys.  I'll have to go over the list. 

And finally, Simone here was the first hit I pulled, and she was in the first pack.  In fact, all of my hits came in the top packs of all three boxes.  Kinda killed the suspense, but I'm not in it for the hits anyway.  This was also the only autograph I got out of all 9 "hits".  Funny thing, there is no list of the regular size autographs in either the database or CardPedia.  There are all the Dual autos, book cards and regular size relics, but no list of the autos.  

A quicker look at boxes 2 & 3 next time!

Impulse Engines Are Back Online

 Well, the ol' Collective drive system is still leaking plasma, but hasn't completely ceased running yet.  I've managed to go the entirety of September with one total post.  Like I said last time, it's not that my collecting interest is waning, it's just that my work schedule has been so random, and I've fallen into the routine of waking up, working, coming home (in the middle or at the end), and turning on "the news" (PTI) and whatever follows, and going to bed, repeating the same the rest of the week.  Hasn't been all dull and routine, with some side work here and there and keeping in touch with friends.

The purchases that I mentioned previously are all in now.  I have only put away a small fraction of the earliest ones, so I recorded the rest to show here.  It's a lot, so I'll at least finish the month with a few posts before it's all gone, even if they're the "Looky what I got" type that seems to be falling out of fashion lately.

I'll jump right in and show what seems to be the most anticipated one from my preview.

This came out of the package and I thought, "Did I get the wrong shipment?"

But when I opened it...

Ah Ha!  The 1976 Star Trek set!

I was very thankful for this purchase, not only because it was a great example of the set, but the price was a lot lower than a few previous efforts.  I had tried to submit offers to other eBay sellers, but was ignored multiple times.  One seller had it for $140.  I think I offered like $115, and didn't get any answer either time I tried.  No rejection, no counter offer, and no notice that the seller was away. Just crickets.  If you're not willing to deal with offers that aren't your full price, then don't put the option in your auctions, people!

This set is fully documented on the Database at the link above, so I won't scan and show my whole set, but here are some of my favorites.

Card #1, the shot of the Enterprise from the show opening sequence.  Each card has the little yellow Enterprise by the caption.  Guess they could've had a little figure corresponding to the subject that represented the crew, aliens, or other things kinda like '73 and '04 Topps baseball.

City On The Edge Of Forever - starring a young Joan Collins - was written by Harlan Ellison.  Regarded as one of (if not the) best episodes of any in the three seasons.

Parallel Spock from the Mirror, Mirror episode, one of my personal favorites.  Even as a conquerer, Spock has the cooler head and does what's right.  And the goatee just works...

The rare appearance for the "space suits" in what is my #1 episode, The Tholian Web.  The suspense just keeps building in this one.  The captain is surely lost and the rest of the ship is about to fall to hostile aliens.  Very well done show.

Here's the back of one of the cards.  Nice that they include the show title where appropriate on the bottom right.  Just wish the numbers were a skosh bigger.

Now that I have the set, I just need to find a good deal on the 22 stickers!

And just because I downloaded it to put on the outside of the binder, here's what a wax box looks like...

Found On The Side Of A Transwarp Conduit

Well, the ol' Borg cube has almost crashed and burned, but is still sputtering along at half impulse power.  Between the beginning of the school year adding volume and chaos to my job, and the pandemic allowing me to flex my schedule to avoid crowding the office (and waking up early), as well as the start of football (and subsequently fantasy) season, plus playoff 8-ball tournaments out of town (and 9-ball in the same place next weekend), my blogging time and energy have been diverted in several directions.  

My average is 11 posts a month - roughly three times a week - but August got only 5.  But a sudden positive development ~ many of those posts have triple digit readership.  Not sure if that's a result of recent Twitter promotion for my post on Covid-ized classic cards, or just bots branching out into other words besides "cardboard".  If it is Twitter, thanks to Fuji and any of the rest of you for spreading the word!

I have been very active on a couple different buying sites, though.  I'm awaiting a SportLots order that is just over 300 cards.  That was a binge to beat all binges.  I started with some cheap football and found a seller that had a ton of my want list hits for 25- and 50¢ each, and it just snowballed.  I came into some cash a little while ago, so I turned off any restraint I had this time.

I also have been perusing eBay as well, usually loading up a cartful from a seller that has a few things I'm looking for and then another bunch of singles for a buck a shot - then I end up comparing prices on Sportlots and finding a lot of them cheaper so I only end up with about ¼ of what I started with on the 'Bay.  I did find a bargain and used a rare eBay coupon to knock the price down another 30% on a non-sport set I've been making offers on that go unanswered.

Enough talk,  Here are some quick previews of what I have incoming.  These are just samples of the big batches that are inbound.

 

The Price We Gotta Pay, The Games They Play

Every time I look at the list of products for the current year on the TCDB, I get a little discouraged.  There seems to be more high end stuff each year, and more rookie-only stuff, and less regular current and classic player stuff.  Remember when most hobby boxes were less than $100 and anything over $200 was considered high end?  I guess at this point you have to be of a certain advanced age to remember that.  I decided to do a price survey and quickly classify the list of 2020 products.  (All prices are single hobby boxes on major online dealer sites.)

"Regular stuff"
2020 Topps Big League $30
2020 Topps Opening Day $35
2020 Topps Gold Label $95
2020 Stadium Club $120
2020 Donruss  $128
2020 Topps $128
2020 Topps Update $128
2020 Topps Gypsy Queen $220

Big League remains the cheapest product of anything that isn't retail-with-a-hobby-counterpart.  I would still guess that it is one of the more successful products Topps puts out, but not the most profitable.  

Gold Label was a surprise find in this category.  At less than $100 a box, though only 35 cards, it's not nearly as high end as I imagined.  Not sure if the auto catalog contains anything but rookies.  I'm not interested enough to find out.

After that, though, everything else is over $120.  Flagship Donruss and Topps are all at $125 a hobby box, even though Topps is reducing the amount of inserts put into each box.  Stadium Club is the only one at it's ideal price point.  And where does GQ get off going up over $200??

And of course, now everything is getting a shiny parallel as a separate product (except Bowman - see below).  Not to be outdone, the original shiny parallel separate set is now getting a parallel version - Chrome Black.  They're not bad looking, but like the original, is priced way to high above what I'd pay for it.

"Shiny Stuff"
2020 Donruss Optic $170
2020 Stadium Club Chrome $225
2020 Topps Allen & Ginter Chrome $240
2020 Topps Chrome $255
2020 Topps Chrome Black $350

And the worst idea of them all - Ginter Chrome.  Stop with the Retro Shiny!

And speaking of retro, that's still another category that is going strong ~ and should have some separate products added to it instead of being inserts in flagship.  (Looking at you, yearly "tribute" '80s bloated inserts!)  But I've been shouting that to the wind for a long time.

"Retro Stuff"
2020 Topps Heritage $98 - Best product of 2020!
2020 Topps Allen & Ginter $125 - My new regular build.  Not as excited about the inserts this year though.
2020 Topps Archives $130 - Put the auto's in Heritage or Flagship and halt this one, it's redundant.  Again, been saying that for a while too.

2020 Topps T206 $35 - 10 cards

The T205 thing is fine, except it's online only and is $3.50 a card.   Sorry Topps, I don't know when you thought this business model would work better, but we don't get it.

Then there's the other guys. Without the licenses.  So their stuff looks fine as far as design, but all the players look like they're in men's league softball outfits.

"Stuff with no logos"
2020 Panini USA Stars & Stripes $63
2020 Panini Diamond Kings $75
2020 Panini Prizm $150
2020 Panini Select $170
2020 Panini Absolute $185
2020 Panini Chronicles $250
2020 Panini Immaculate $350
2020 Leaf Lumber Kings $400

As Night Owl has documented, Diamond Kings hasn't evolved significantly in a few years.  I've been hoping it would morph into a design I really like and I'd get a bunch of it one year.  Still waiting.  The other stuff to me is converted baseball versions of football or basketball products.  (Wouldn't mind seeing Score baseball, but with a license.)  But anything after Absolute is exceedingly high end anyway.  Not sure how they pull that off without logos.

Bowman is the line that features players that are wearing logos, but they're just not of MLB teams yet.  Talk about products and inserts that need to be separated ~ Bowman has 100 cards in the base set, yet there are Prospects that are inserts - 150 of them.  AND, there are Chrome Prospects - that aren't part of the separate Bow Chro set, but are also inserts in the regular set!  My brain is fried...  Oh, and they're all more than $200 a box.

"Bowman"
2020 Bowman's Best $200
2020 Bowman $260
2020 Bowman Chrome $270
2020 Bowman Sterling $315
2020 Bowman Draft $400
2020 Bowman Sapphire $580
2020 Bowman 1st Edition $650

And, to gracefully segue into the next category, we have high end, which is also mostly rookie-saturated, and priced way above the average collector budget.  There are so many high end products now, there are several tiers.

<$100 (only one card per package)
2020 Topps Clearly Authentic
2020 Topps Archives Signature Series
2020 Topps Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition
2020 Topps Pro Debut $68 - 4 autos

$200 - $300+ a box
2020 Topps Inception
2020 Topps Tier One
2020 Finest
2020 Topps Five Star
2020 Topps Luminaries
2020 Topps Triple Threads
2020 Topps Museum Collection $320

$500+ a box
2020 Topps Dynasty
2020 Topps Tribute
2020 Topps Finest Flashbacks

2020 Topps Sterling $1000

2020 Topps Definitive Collection $1500

2020 Topps Diamond Icons $2000

And don't even start on the Transcendent Collection things at $21,000 a box/case/set...

So you have 18 high end products, compared to about six mid-range or so (Topps flagship, Opening Day and Update counting as one).  

I thought about calculating the price per card of each of these, but it's already past midnight.  Suffice to say that at least to me, the products put out today, while approaching the same counts as say, 1998 (52 in 2020 vs. 58 in '98) don't offer NEARLY the diversity that the older ones did.  If you don't follow the fads - in this case, shiny rookie mojo hits - you only have a few good choices.  And there's a price....

Which reminds me of a song...

These Things Just Keep Mutating!

If you love oddball sets, (and I think the majority of us - set collectors, anyway - do) then the 1987 Hygrade All-Time Greats is right up your alley.  It's a green bordered, 114 card set with some orange promos, and other oddball inserts.  And there are tons of variations.  Mostly hat logos cropped out of the front photos, with a few notable exceptions.

 
When my friend Stuart and I first completed this set, there were 24 pairs of variants with a third Duke Snider, making 49 cards in the Error/Variation list.  

The cropped pairs included Banks, Berra, Clemente, Cobb, Dickey, DiMaggio, Feller, Ford (w/jersey), Foxx, Gehrig, Grove, Hubbell, Kiner, Mays, Musial, BrooksR, JackieR, Ruth, Traynor (jersey), Waner, and Ted Williams.

As I mentioned before, Duke Snider has two of the same shot where his hat logo is cropped out, plus a third one with a different photo.  (With the new Blogger, I can't make these images the same size.  Stupid.)

Jim Kaat has pictures in two different uniforms.  The backs have different writeups.

The most unique variant is also the most prestigious player - Mickey Mantle.  He's got two completely different photos too.

Recently, we discovered that there had been two more additions to the list on the Database.

Tris Speaker's photo framed so his hat touches the border, even though it doesn't hide a logo.  (Oops, I reversed them in this image.  But you get the idea.)

And Frankie Frisch has a version that doesn't have the Cardinals logo across his chest.  I luckily had the logo version in my set and three extra of those without.  Can't believe I didn't notice the difference. 

And I suspect there may be more.  A closer look at some of my dupes finds that there are subtle differences even when they don't hide the insignia...

Check out the hat logo.  It's not a big difference, but the C on his cap is just off the top border in the first card, and just behind it in the second.  A closer view:

There are subtle changes in more of the Hygrades.  I think you may be able to make a whole set of A & B versions really. 

Kind of amazing, a 33 year old oddball set that keeps evolving.  That's why I love sets like this.

Famous Cards Updated for 2020