2022 A&G Final Review

Got my base cards sorted Friday.  Ended up with about 37% duplicates from three hobby boxes.  Seemed a bit much since I need 88 to complete my set and had triples of several.  But, I'm much happier that the inserts really didn't duplicate.  I can live with having to find base cards.

I find it amusing but somewhat disappointing that Topps skipped two numbers in the base set (167 and 181) and then duplicated two numbers in the short print range (337 Juan Gonzalez/ Manny Ramirez and 344 Lou Piniella / Luis Castillo - the latter two are not marked as SPs).  Who knows if this is a gimmick or just incompetence? 

Other than the high base double rate, I didn't end up with many SP or insert dupes.  Had ten extra SPs (that inludes two Manny's) and five inserts - three Pitching a Gems (Verlander, Greinke and Berrios), a Nurses' Day, and Joe Morgan Banner Season.  

Like I mentioned, all my player minis are available.  As are the two box loader jumbos I got that you might not have caught on the last post.  Vlad Jr. and deGrom were the ones I pulled.  I might try to do the N43s, since I blew away the odds and pulled a Jeter!  If I can find Judge, Trout etc. for cheap, I'll go for it.  

There are a lot of food-themed inserts this year.  I'll finish them, but they don't excite me as much as the Baseball Lexicon and Time Out! minis.  The Famous Rivals, like the above Jersey vs. Everyone (now that's funny) even included two of the Get That Bread sandwiches in the list.  Which I would say was a bit much.  They got Yankees/Red Sox, but didn't include Dallas/Washington (or any of the other NFL matchups), Republican/Democrat, USA/USSR Cold War, Notre Dame/USC, Duke/UNC, Ford vs. Chevy, Coke/Pepsi (ok, trademarks), or any of the other hundreds of college, soccer, political, social faceoffs that are recalled much more than many of their choices.  

And I won't even speculate on the Special Days they appear to have made up in their offices.  There are only about four of those that seem legit actual holidays.

These Inside The Park minis are nice looking, but most of them look the same - a landscape with mountains and trees, so they're rather indistinguishable without squinting to read the names.  And there are 32 of them, which I think lends to the theme this year of baseball terms in real life - there are 32 ballparks, (Editor's note - hmmm, there are only 30 - never mind).  That feels like too many.  Unless I find most of them really cheap, I'm on the fence on completing them.  I only got four of them out of all three hobby boxes.

Didn't get any Still Searching's - mystery creatures of lore, or What A Steal!'s - famous theft attempts.  These could be retail exclusives.  I won't know unless they sell blasters for $20.

Hit me up if you need some base or player minis.  I still have some from the last couple years A&G sets too.

Got In Early On The Ginter

Just opened three boxes of 2022 Allen & Ginter, which will probably be the only new product I buy this year (or many of the following years.)  I like the base design a lot, and some of the inserts are really original, but those are the ones that are harder to pull, apparently.  It's nice that some of the insert sets are only 10 cards, and the biggest one is only 50.

Here's a couple shots of two of my boxes right after opening.  At least you can get an idea what all the different things look like.  Don't worry, I have closeups and scans of all the hits.

Unfortunately, the shots of two of these laid out so you could see the names of the inserts came out like this:

This one came out OK...

But anyway, each pack generally had six base (or five and a short print), a mini, and an insert.  I got worried in box #2 when a few packs came out with less:

A few had one or the other between the mini and the insert...

But then in the last box, I got a few bonus cards in some packs.  I counted the full size inserts from each box, and they were all around the 23-24 count range, so it all works out in the end.  I was afraid I was missing a hit, but got three from each box too.

As usual, all my player minis are for trade.  And now, here are the hits...

Got a bunch of Yankee-centric stuff in these.  I have a Yankee collector that I trade with regularly, so he gets first dibs.  Might keep the Rachel Balkovec jersey, she's an historic manager in the minors.  Have no idea who the Twins pitcher guyer is, but was cool with Captain Cheeseburger.  Bonus points for no white swatches.

Acuña came out first.  It's a nice bat piece.  Reminded me of the Stadium Club auto I pulled a few years ago.  Then I got the "other" Rivera. (stay tuned for more on that).  Ended with a bang with the Senior Yastrzemski.  That's definitely a keeper!

Ended with Hosmer, Verlander, and the big time Rivera.  (Only one better would have been the coach of the Commanders for me, but not likely)  Again, no white swatches and some very big names.  I could part with all these for the right ones.  Looking for Autos or GUs from Fisk, Palmer, Bo Jackson and Malika Andrews.

I have my insert wants posted on my site, but haven't yet set up the magnifier and sorted my base and SPs.  Those card numbers are microscopic this year!

I'm looking for all parallels and minis of Lou Piniella from this set.  He's the only player collection guy in it this year.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Collecting, ripping and hunting!

Ginters & Other Goodies From Greg G.

Was at a card shop over by Baltimore today, and when I came home, I had some bonus cards in the mail from Greg (Night Owl).

Four 2021 Allen & Ginter short prints to bring my list down to the three that no one will ever get.

A Steve Garvey insert to 2008 Donruss Threads.  

A Bull Shark insert from 2008 A&G that has an imprint of a binder ring on it, but you'd never know it from how it looks in my set binder.  Can't even tell....

And finally, two bonus Nationals that usually get filed with their sets, but in the case of the Big League black & white parallel (numbered to 50!), there is no set to put it with - from 2022 at all so far.  I'll stash him somewhere...very nice card of probably my favorite National who's still playing for them.

Thanks Greg, I'll get the stuff I picked up for you out ASAP...

Well, At Least Dusty Won

In celebration of the World Series Championship, here is my Dusty Baker collection, since he (and maybe Trey Mancini - who I had forgotten was on that team), is the only one I'm happy for.

Pardon my streamlining the scans by leaving them in the pages.  I blacked out the empty slots and a few areas of annoying shine. 

That rookie is one of three I have - one for Dusty, one for Baylor's PC, and one for my '71 set.  Got most of them back when they were $8 or so.  Remember, in my binders, O-Pee-Chees come after Topps base cards until 1981.

My collection is pretty basic for a lot of his playing career.

'81 gets fun with Fleer Sticker, Topps Scratch-off, and Squirt, which has same basice back as Topps flagship.  I also have the full bottle hanger version of the Squirt.  I didn't get either one with the drink initially, but I do really like Squirt soda.

 

Here's the full panel Scratch-Off (with Vida Blue, another PC), the '84 Donruss Action All-Star, and the Squirt hanger.  (Not to scale, of course)

Perma-Graphics 'credit card', and his first and only Kellogg's.

The first of many Tiffany versions in the last slot.

Double shots of Traded and Tiffany here.  The '85 Traded has the bright back like the Tiffany's, but it's not shiny on the front.  I may flip the Topps A's with the OPC above to get three in a row.  Something might push them forward eventually.

Several nice pairings on this page.  The '86 Donruss is an in-person auto that I picked up somewhere cheap.  Always love those Mother's Cookies.  Everyone seems to have more of these than I can ever find.

And now we jump into post-career cards.  These pages are always a bit volatile when I find things from the years in between.  Definitely want the '06 Greats parallels...

This is the only useful place for parallel inserts like this black bordered Rivals from Hometown Heroes, since they're just annoying if you're collecting the regular set.  I don't usually try to cram more than one mini in a slot, but Dusty's are so far between, I don't have enough to quite justify a 15-pocket page...yet.

Although these Golden Age minis may help when I get more sets of all five for the other PC guys, then I'll take 'em out of the oddball binder and put 'em with each player.  The backs are in reverse order.  The Hindus are easier than the Monos, and the Croft's is the tough one.

The last player page.  These are some of my most recent pickups.  The one next to the '78-ish X Super 70's is the Aaron Judge authored set from this year.

The rest of the unusual issues.  All-Star program stamp and three (consecutive?) years of Dodger Police cards.

And now the manager cards.  Those Micros fortunately sit well with their regular-sized counterparts and don't cover up too much, especially oriented like this.  I wouldn't try to put them in a slot by themselves unless it's a 15-pocket mini page.  Oh, and another Mother's...

Subtle parallels in the early 2000's. 

I had the two Ginters together on this page, but had recently rearranged them and just left space for other parallels in between the '04's and '06's.

Heritage is the saving grace for manager cards in this century.  The last '64 design is a black back.

So that's what I have.  

At least the Astros did something right:

As If I Needed Another Player Collection

It doesn't take much for me to collect a guy. (It's even easier if it's a girl, but that doesn't happen often.)  So after a bit of quick research, I decided to add another player to the long list of "I want everything".  

Back in the day when I started most of my PC's, I just happened to have a few of the same player that weren't part of a set build (I was only a few sets in at this point), and thought "he's cool" - in the binder(s?) he went.  The consequence of this is that there are a few guys that I look at now and think "If I need to sacrifice a couple of these, he's one of them."  I only have real attachments to about a dozen or so out of the 60+ PC's I maintain.

Edwin Jackson is the newest draftee to my player collection team.  He technically supplants Royce Clayton, because I collect them for the same reason - modern player that has been on several franchises over his career.  Jackson has now set the record at 14 teams.  Clayton had played for eleven, which was the top total before Edwin.

The 39-year-old right-hander last pitched in the major leagues in 2019 with the Detroit Tigers. More recently, he helped Team USA capture a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics last summer.  

Along with the Tigers, Jackson also made stops with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Devil/Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres, Baltimore Orioles, Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays. 

His career accomplishes included an All-Star appearance in 2009 with the Tigers, a no-hitter in 2010 with the D-Backs and a World Series title in 2011 with the Cardinals, a three-year stretch that perfectly captures his nomadic career. He finishes his days as a pitcher with a 4.78 ERA and 1.47 WHIP across 412 games (318 starts). He struck out 1,508 batters in 1,960 innings.

Above are the five base cards that I happened to have in my extra stuff.  I thought I had seen several of his cards as I have been sifting through "The Hoard", but I probably sent them off to Cubs collectors or in set chunks.

I should be able to find his basic cards pretty easily.  Often he is limited to Topps flagship, Update, and maybe Heritage, GQ and Upper Deck flagship aside from his rookie year (2003) where he's in just about everything, but as a dreaded rookie.  

He's also got a lot of rookie autographs too, and since I'm not much of a rookie collector, I figured I'd see if eBay had a good batch to give me a head start.  

Boy, did I hit one!

Thanks to eBay seller sellwhatIfind, I got 27 cards, broken down into

4 Unnumbered RC's
6 #'d RC's, as low as /10
2 Auto/Relic RC's /22 and /150
14 Autos- 13 RC 1 non rc #'d as low as 16. Almost all under /100
1 1/1 Rookie Printing Plate

And I offered 3/4 of the asking price and was accepted!

This 2003 Just Minors is sticker-sealed in a top loader so it doesn't scan perfectly.

2003 Elite Extra Edition die-cut /100.  I like how they stamp across the sticker.  A lot of these have that feature.

'03 Flair Future Fame, Fleer Genuine Upside and Fleer Authentic Ticket To The Majors.  Some of the higher serial numbers of the bunch.

These two '03 Leaf Limited Phenoms are both shiny silver, but the rainbow shiny Silver Spotlight scans bluish.

Pairing these two low numbered ones throws off the chronological order.  Anyway, we have the first of many 2004's, Fleer Authentic Club Box Ticket to the Majors - this time /25.  Jumping ahead to '05, this Diamond King gold is /10.

Cyan Press "Proof" Plate 1/1 from Fleer Classic Clippings.  Had to use a magnifier to find that on the front. 

At some point I'll look up which particular Flair parallels these are, but for now I'm just basking in the low-numberedness.  I kind of like the parchment paper that the one auto is on.

The second Fleer Genuine [Insider] Upside in this lot.  This is the 2004 flavor bronze base version.  There aren't actually other color or gold/silver parallels, just "Reflections" /99.

This '04 Fleer Platinum Inscribed looks more like a minor league issue until you find the Plat logo.

Still more Fleer, this one Sweet Sigs Platinum Autograph, in EJ's case numbered to 22.  I always go back (or in this case forward) to the 2007 Sweet Spot Classics autos that are famous for fading.  Glad this one hasn't done that.  Probably looks worse in the scan.

A trifecta of Playoff Honors, which I just started as a set not too long ago.  Will need another one of these base cards.  

More fancy '04's.  Studio auto and two from Skybox Limited Edition, nice die-cuts.

Two of the few regular base.  I figure you probably know what the backs looks like...

Besides the printing plate, this is the biggest hit of the lot.  The one swatch + auto - Donruss Prime Patches from 2005.

The Mirror White and Gold auto flavors of 2005 Leaf Certified Materials.  These scan real nice.

And finally, the UD Trilogy Generations Future Signature numbered out of 35.  It's really faint right above his nameplate on the front.

So howzzat for a jump start?  I actually made a graphic checklist for all the base cards that he has thinking I'd just go for the regular stuff to show all the different teams.  But after finding this auction, I guess I'm a supercollector in the making.

I think I remember seeing Edwin live at a game in the outfield before first pitch.  Can't recall what game it was.  I thought it was cool that he played for both Washington and Baltimore.  That's why Pete Richert is one of my PC's.  

What inspires you to start a player collection?