2024 A&G Box 1 of 3 - I Can See How This Will End

Welcome to my only annual new product opening!  Now and then I might jump into Heritage or Stadium Club, but Allen & Ginter is by far the most consistent purchase that I'll make year to year.  Of course, that no longer includes flagship.

Took me a bit to decide how many boxes I wanted.  I like the design this year, but it's not my favorite, and the inserts were decent, but not quite as exciting as some previous years. I settled on three boxes, and sent for them the day after they came out.  Consequently, I think I paid an extra $10 a box.  But anyway, let me know if you think I got my money's worth.

We'll start with the box topper, and then open the top pack on each stack from left to right.  

A Diamondback to start.  Not encouraging, though I do recognize this guy from Heritage.  Can't tell you much after that.

First pack - A "scratch rub-and-sniff" mini (these really work!), a Star of the (Westminster Dog) Show, and four base cards.  A mix of non-sport and baseball players that is a big part of the appeal of this set.

You may have noticed something different about these base cards.  

Yep, they're the shiny Silver Hot Box Parallels.  This whole first box is this flavor of semi-shiny.  I'm glad the design has some color and structure.  It contrasts with the frame well, so these are pretty decent looking.  But it gets me thinking - this is part of a trend that I'm not a big fan of.  The Shiny is taking over.

More on that in a bit.  First hit now - Nice Johan Rojas mini framed auto.  These are really distinguished looking.  The border is a bit ornate, but it goes well with the card design.  I won't be going for the whole run, however.  There are a couple of my player collection guys in the checklist, though not as many as previous years.  The biggest chase of this year's A&G for me is the new quarterback phenom in Washington, Jayden Daniels.  

Next hit! (All three hits came side by side by side in all three boxes.  About halfway down the stacks.)  Numbered out of 199.  Do I rip it or keep it?  Pffft.  As if I could ever go very long without finding out what is inside.  I developed a method of opening these neatly without shredding the outer card a few years ago - see it here.  Let's see if I can execute it well again. 

High number Cubs guy.  Hmph, OK.   But there is one slight problem....

Hacked it a little deep on the extraction.  Split the lower ¼ of the mini.  Sealed it with a bit of glue, but it'll be a throw-in to whoever wants it.  So much for my fancy technique.

A few slip-throughs, but the outer card is reasonably intact.  Will look OK in a top loader or binder page.  Will alter my technique the next time I get an opportunity.

The mini inserts for this box.  Rather basic, really, except for the Got The Itch's, which are really cool and do provide the sensory experience of the smells depicted.  Those are probably the only ones I'll pursue.  

I did some research on every A&G insert so far, to see how many times they repeated topics.  Flags have now been done three times - Mini Flags, Flags Of The World, and Flags of Lost Nations.  One of seven categories that has been used thrice.  Dogs are another (which I'll excuse).  The whole list is huge, and I'm not sure how to present it in a meaningful but not massively verbose way.  Let me know below your thoughts and level of interest.

The player minis - first two columns are regulars, the third is the A&G backs, with two black borders and a Chrome.  Again, more shiny creeping into the main components of this set.  I will say they do look nice, but a modern shiny finish on an antique themed set is really contradictory in my opinion.  Doing it in Heritage is bad enough, and those are just from 50's and forward, as opposed to the 1800's.

These are the bulk of the trade bait that I use from Ginter....they are all available.  Once I get close to finishing the 2012 Gypsy Queen black minis, I may jump into an A&G design at some point.  It will have to be a new design - trying to go back and start an old one would be futile, I'm sure.

I like the full-sized inserts, especially the doggies.  The Sister cities is cool, but I'd love to find out what makes two cities decide to bond like this.  Guess I could Google it.  I expected the Buzzin's to be minis, but they're nice full size.  Collation was great on all these throughout the three box breaks.

These are the coolest inserts in the set this year and maybe in the last several, if not of all time.  "X-Ray'd" images of Oregon Zoo animals are printed on high-gloss stock like real X-rays.  My pictures don't do these justice.  And the brand labeling is very subtle.  The back text is a little small for my taste - at first glance I thought the bullfrog (lower right) said Bulldog.  Image made sense for either one. 😄

The extra-shiny base from this all-shiny package.  Each box had three regular Chromes and one refractor.  Some good names here, though I defaulted to Boomer Wells the pitcher from '87 to '07 and not this dude.

You might be wondering how to distinguish the Hot Box silvers from the Chromes.  I got Clayton in both, so he can show us the difference:

The silver Hot Box ones give more of a rainbow reflection, but don't have much of a mirror finish.

The Chromes are not as prismic, but you can see yourself in the borders.  There are no Chrome logos on the front or back of the cards.

The fourth flavor of shininess is the Silver Filigree.  I got lucky and got one of my main PC guys in that and a mini as well.  You can see the ornate decoration in the border of these.

In what turns out to be the third hit in this box, I also got an Orange refractor numbered to 25 of the "other" Bo.  The color blends very nicely with the frame and interior.

So we're a third of the way through.  Thanks for slogging through until the end, I know it's a lot of images.

In closing, I'll sum up by saying I don't regret collecting this set.  But I can see the end of the road if things keep trending the way they seem to be going.  If A&G creativity wanes and is replaced by multiple forms of shiny parallels, I'll drop Ginter like I did flagship.  It feels like that will take a long time to happen, so I'm not worried yet, but this hobby caters to the easier things rather than the creative and innovative that take more work to produce. 

Do you prefer shiny baseball players, or more variety of subjects and inserts to make Allen & Ginter the set that it is?

Real Value

This card could be priceless!

At least every couple weeks, I go back and read my blog posts from past years.  Or I'll check the stats page and see which posts people have read in the past week.  It's always a very random sampling - I'm guessing it's what people are Googling and being led to, I'm not sure.  But anyway, today this post was in the list.

It was the last part of a list of items that originated in this post from Off Hiatus Baseball.  It's an adaptation of a 30 day music challenge that appeared on Twitter.  I completed my list in three posts.  And then I put this at the end:

That's what the most important thing about this hobby is - the connections we make.  The searching, finding, obtaining, cataloging, storing, admiring, and completing are all fun, but the trading, buying and selling, and discussing cards with other people, plus meeting the players depicted [on them] is the time to be valued most.  That personal value of a card is what drives the hobby.  It's not the dollar value, it's that it reminds you of a time with your Dad, or your friends, or witnessing a great ball game at the stadium, or home on TV.  That real-life experience of family, friends, and heroes is the actual benefit of hoarding these little cardboard slices.  They are merely colored and pressed paper, but what they can represent to an individual is a wide range of memories, feelings, and happiness.  And there's no such thing as too much of that!

Keep in mind that this was three years before the COVID boom.  I don't remember writing this specifically, but I think it sums up why I love these little slabs of cardboard so much. 

(The other reason has to do with the psychology of addiction to some degree, I'm sure.)

Let me know what you think....

Extra Protection

Made a quick purchase the other week to reduce my want list of T205 New York Giants (how many of you have want lists like that?).  I had to laugh at the packaging.  It may have survived the recent hurricanes.  Kudos to seller Toppsaholic for protecting my investment.

Outer white paper wrapping.  Folded and sealed securely.

That was around a box section folder and wrapped in another box section sleeve.

Which contained another cardboard envelope layer...

With a bubble mailer inside of that...

Wrapped in two slab bags...

...was the final product.

This is the "W. A." variation of Latham's T205.  The more common version is "A. Latham" on the back. 

Now I'm down to four for the team set.  Of course, Mathewson is one of them.

Adiós El Tiante (part 2)

Luis Tiant was my favorite baseball PC player.  He passed away on the 8th at the age of 83.

Here is everything I have of his that isn't really a plain standard card.

I've got a bunch of these Sportscaster game cards of my PC players.  One of these days I'm going to have to plow through all the listings to see which ones I'm still missing.  They aren't necessarily listed by player - like this one - so it's a bit tougher to research.

These Linnett portraits are a little smaller than the Sportscasters.  They are very colorful and very '70's.

This Metallic Impressions is from 1993.  I just got this one last month or so.  Actually got two of them - bought one and got one in trade around the same time.  Might work out if I can trade it for the other four PC guys I need from that set - Blue, Bonds, Foster and Lolich.

Also from 1993, the BAT card from UD All-Time Heroes.  Technically, this is the base card.  There are no other kind in the set.  I always think these are an insert from the 1994 set, but I'm wrong.  The whole deal in '93 are these derivatives of the old T202 Triple Folders.

One of the seven PC guys in these 2024 Oversize '75 box toppers from Heritage.  I still need Guidry and Tenace to finish them.  I wish Heritage did more with retired players, but I guess that's what Archives is. 

Speaking of which, here are two autographed Archives cards.  But these are just in-person signed, as opposed to the officially sanctioned flavor with the bigger stamp - like this one.  I didn't remember these were what they are until I pulled them for this post.

Here's both sides of the same situation.  The one on the left is an encased and serial numbered issued autograph.  The one on the right is a base card with an IP auto.  That one was probably cheap.

Here are two more recent officially issued signatures.  The Prizm is a bit over the top gaudy - must have also been cheap or I might have passed it by.

Surprisingly, this is the only jersey I have of Luis.  I don't strive to pile these up for most of my PC's except for the few I'm going for supercollector status with.  Nice looking card though.

And finally, a quadruple dual jersey of Boston's finest numbered out of 75.  You could argue I need a second one for my Fisk collection.  I would say that it's too bad that Dwight Evans and Cecil Cooper weren't the other two players featured.  Then I would have 100% player collection guys on it.  Oh well, I like Rice & Lynn too. 

And that wraps it up for my Tiant collection.  Hope you enjoyed. 

A lot of my PC's started when I had a few cards of the same player and I just liked him.  Tiant was definitely one of the coolest dudes to play the game.  He was funny and kinda badass at the same time.  Plus, he was a loyal and caring family man, as you could see in the program about bringing his parents to America.  I appreciate players much more when they're good people too.

Adiós El Tiante (part 1)

Just a day after I posted about my favorite football PC player's birthday, my favorite baseball PC player passed away.  Luis Tiant was 83.

This 6" x 9" MLB photo decorates the cover of the first of nine binders that house all my baseball player collections.  Luis' cards are right up front.  There are 13 pages from the binder and several other things, so I'll split this into two posts since there are 27 images.  

Here is everything I have of his so far....

It all starts with the personalized IP autographed 1965 Topps rookie card.  Somewhere I had a picture of he and I when I got that signed, but I can't find it.  Not a great shot anyway and he seemed like he wasn't enjoying himself that day.  I just started the '65 set, so I'll need another one at some point for that.  

Found one of the '69 Topps highlights with his signature on it too.  Don't think it was very expensive.  Going through my collection to make these scans, I realize how bad some of these vintage cards are as far as centering.  That '66 is terrible.

The second page is a 9-pocket mini sheet with several inserts and oddballs.  (The bottom slots are empty so I cropped them out.)  A '69 Topps transfer, the regular and OPC deckle edges, a Dell photostamp, a Milton Bradley, and the '70 Kellogg's.  

The O-Pee-Chee versions of the '69 League Leaders cards begin page 3.  As a rule, I put Topps first, then Hostess and Kellogg's, then any others after that.  That changes in 1980 when Topps is no longer the dominant company.  The middle card is a Kahn's.  It might be '70, but only fits in the middle page slot sideways.  There will be a bunch of odd-sized items later that live in the odd-size binder, but that Kahn's just didn't have a good spot in that one, so it stays here.  And those '70 "Supers" aren't really super-sized.

The next page has holes - mostly for OPC versions.  Tiant has no '72 cards.  He was injured and spent significant time in the minors in '71 according to the back of the '73 cards.  I left a slot open for the OPC ERA Leaders below the base card, and for the '74 OPC below the base Topps too.  It works out better to show the pairs this way with an odd number of pockets. 

More from the '75 design later.  That SSPC is such a funny shot.  It looks like he's thinking "If this fool doesn't take the picture and get out of my way, I'm gonna sock him in the mouth!"

More OPC's, a cloth sticker, and a '79 Burger King that is like a Traded card.  Ya gotta love the pairings of the late '70's Topps & OPC's when a player changes teams.

Here's where the order switches.  All companies are in alphabetical order now.  I stuck that little stamp from '83 with the Donruss.  It's actually in a folded penny sleeve draped over the card.

Now it gets really diverse.  Senior Leagues, Swell, Line Drive, Minor Leagues, and Action Packed.

Moving on to post-career issues.  Ted Williams, Upper Deck, Fleer, etc.

Lots of reprinted images in this section.  Archives, Fan Favorites, Retired Signature, and the more uncommon Shoebox Topps issues, among others.

Now the finishes get more fancy then the photo selections.  I'm sure there are a lot more out there that would expand this part of the PC.

More retired player sets, more repeated pictures.  I think there are even more parallels of those Absolute Heroes.  I'm sure I'm still looking for the pewter '06 Greats.

And finally, you have the Topps Chrome Anniversary premiere edition and all the parallels, along with a few of the other issues from around the same year.  The base and Mustaches card are online exclusives.  The Archives '75 isn't what I was talking about before.  This year's Heritage box toppers are even nicer.

Had one straggler stuck on the back of the last page.  Didn't want to start another sheet just for one card.

Stay tuned for part two - all shapes and sizes - plus the mojo hits and a non-card item or two.

Happy Birthday To My #1 PC

Just glanced at the TCDB database home page and saw that today is Priest Holmes' birthday.  The former Ravens & Chiefs running back turns 51.  

I collect anything I can of his, mostly because he won me fantasy football championships in back to back years in the early 2000's when he led the NFL in touchdowns.  

And he's a pretty decent character guy too.

I've got a large binder of his cards, a two row box of jerseys & autographs, and a whole shelf full of McFarlane figures, mini helmets, oversize cards, plus posters, a Fathead, and more.  I probably don't rank real high as a Supercollector (though I'm #1 on the database) since I don't have too many 1/1's. (If I was writing this at home, I'd show you my stuff. I just grabbed these images off the internet, but I have most of the cards.)  If you'd like to see all I have in depth, let me know in the comments. 

Birthday Trifecta

I try not to pad my posts with a lot of this kind of thing, but I couldn't ignore today's particular situation.  Today marks the birthdays of not one, not two, but three lovely ladies.  I celebrated this before in 2020.

Monica Bellucci, star of two Matrix movies, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Malèna, Tears Of The Sun, The Passion of the Christ, and many more, turns an unbelievable 60!

Lacey Chabert, who has graced many productions from the Hallmark channel in the last several years after grabbing the spotlight on the Party Of Five tv show, turns 42.

And the former Nanny and current president of the Screen Actors Guild, Fran Drescher is still looking good at 67!

At least I'll get two posts in this month.  (With only a few minutes to spare!)