Just Like a Mini Mall

This was Flea Market Weekend again, and I walked away with a very nice haul indeed. I hit two dealers. The kickass awesome best flea market guy ever who only comes to the market every other month or so and the baseball card museum guy who is there every weekend. I'm going to show off what I got slowly over the course of the week to give you all some breaks from the Gintermania.



Some stuff seen & heard at the mini mall:

My buddy Steve was back at the flea market for the first time in weeks after a long illness.

The Sports Card Alley dealer pulled a Hiroki Kuroda Rip Card out of a pack of '09 A&G. He didn't know what the heck to do with it, I suggested the flashlight cheat trick.

Some yahoo yelling out "Obama Yo Momma!"

The Baseball Card Museum Director showing off a bunch of photos he took during Spring Training 1974 that he took to a one hour photo near the ballpark and got them all signed that same day. I remember Ken Clay was one of the guys who signed, but I can't recall the rest.

One of the other dealers was playing a guitar every few minutes trying to sell the thing. One guy came up to him and requested "Clementine". There was then a five minute conversation with the guy trying to explain to the seller what the heck Clementine was and I wanted to scream "PLAY THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SONG YOU DOPE" so bad it hurt.

Another dealer had what appeared to be a complete 1992 The Wiz Yankee Legends set in full unripped perforated sheets. I was too scared to ask how much it was, but I looked at it longingly for quite a few minutes.

A quite impressive vintage poster of Bettie Page.

A dude who sounded exactly like Unknown Hinson. I seriously thought I was going to get to meet the King of Country Western Troubadours but alas, it wasn't he.

Here's the stuff I got from Baseball Museum guy:

More Fleer Basketball Stickers

FleerFan had a request for some more basketball stickers. I think I was able to complete a couple of sets for people today.

I didn't want to just get the stickers so I shuffled around the boxes in the store. There was a non-sports box full of crazy stuff including a Vaughn Bode promo card I wish I had bought now. I found a football grab bag that looked interesting but it's too early for football. Maybe in a couple of weeks. In one of the cases was an autograph of Gil Hodges which looked incredible. I found the 1979 Topps Don Sutton card I need for my set, but it was two bucks and had a crease. Then I saw this in the Phil Niekro section.

It is very rare that I see a Knucksie card that I've never heard of before, but this was one of them. It's black & white (obviously) is playing card size with rounded corners and has the braves cap and logo so is apparently licensed. It's a 1981 First Issue, but first issue what? Here's the back:

It's some sort of game card. this one gets you a double. I'm not sure what the 9 indicates but it probably has something to do with the gameplay. The card has a logo: Batter up! by Frank Daniell. I couldn't find anything about the card or set in my SCD catalog. I also tried Googling and Binging it and still didn't find anything about it. I did find a batting cage in Woodstock I hadn't kn0wn about before so it wasn't a total loss. It's still a pretty cool oddball card though. does anyone have any information on it?

Why old junk wax is very often better than new junk wax

Stale Gum, while on a mysteerious mission to Virginia, stopped off at a card show and had the choice of purchasing a box of 2008 SP Authentic or 1998 SP Authentic.

Chris Harris... chose wisely.



If you're interested, here's the complete list of autograph subjects from 1998 SP Authentic (with my judgment on whether it's Good or just OK)

RA Roberto Alomar (good even though I despise him)
RB Russell Branyan (he's managed to hang around the league an awful long time)
SC Sean Casey (the Mayor!)
TC Tony Clark (still in the league)
RC Roger Clemens (300+ wins is good with or without juice)
JC Jose Cruz Jr. (never lived up to Griffey)
DE Darin Erstad ( I will not forgive him for what he did to Estrada)
NG Nomar Garciaparra (Ok so I'm sentimental for the Tech grad)
BG Ben Grieve (He coulda juiced up with Jose and Mark, but didn't)
KG Ken Griffey Jr. (c'mon, it's Junior)
VG Vladimir Guerrero (Future Hall of Famer, hopefully with a 'Spos cap)
TG Tony Gwynn (Current Hall of Famer)
TH Todd Helton (Coors or no Coors, the man can hit)
LH Livan Hernandez (not a bad career for the Cuban)
CJ Charles Johnson (great catcher that burned out too soon)
AJ Andruw Jones (he'll never be what he once was, but could still make the hall with a few more productive years)
CHIP Chipper Jones (So intensely awesome, his card number is 4 letters!)
PK Paul Konerko (a better player than you think)
MK Mark Kotsay (not a star, but the guy can play)
RL Ray Lankford (ditto)
TL Travis Lee (well, he sure could play defense...)
PM Paul Molitor (Hall of Famer)
MM Mike Mussina (He finally got that 20 win season)
AR Alex Rodriguez (back whan he wasn't a douche)
IR Ivan Rodriguez (Top 5 all-time catcher)
SR Scott Rolen (he's had injury problems, but is still a pretty damn good player)
DL Gary Sheffield (I don't care what you think, a 500 home run hitter is good)
MT Miguel Tejada (May have destroyed Rafael Palmeiro's HOF chances with a B-12 shot, so I'm not sure if this is good or not)
JW Jaret Wright (I'm soooooo glad the Yankees overpaid him instead of the Braves)
MV Mo Vaughn (He was good back in the day)

Note that the worst autos in the set are probably Ben Grieve and Travis Lee. Now compare to Chris' pulls from 2008 SP, Brian Bocock and Somebody Petit. Ben and Travis at least were starters for several years. There ain't a bad auto in the bunch, just a few OK ones. Do your homework before buying boxes, sometimes the older ones are best.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 7

How the hell is Beardy getting 10-20 points on every damn pack? I smell a bearded rat, I do!

135 Jeff Suppan
167 Jim Thome
33 Florence Nightingale
172 Jarrod Saltalamacchia
294 Tim Hudson +1 point 82 Justin Verlander
209 St. Patrick's Cathedral +2 points
NP46 Carlos Ruiz NP

Huddy! Tim Hudson is my first Brave base card although I've gotten two National Pride Braves so far. Tim's Birthday is on Tuesday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Thome's card looks amazing while Topps has been leaning on that exact same pose by Verlander for about 4 years now. Time to take another picture, guys. When typing, I always forget the H in Saltalamaccia's name for some reason. There! I did it again! I pulled the Florence Nightingale card and my first thought was that Mary Seacole should get her own card too. I was also concerned about St. Patrick's Cathedral getting dinged on points since it wasn't a person, but I see nothing in the rules about it. This is good because I might have had to abandon this Gint-a-Cuffs thing had it gotton negative points "because what the heck are you going to do with that". Nobody steps on a church in my town! I've got a quandary now... I really want to put the Cathedral in my A&G mini binder but to do so I have to bump a 2007 black border Randy Johnson. I'm going to have to think about this carefully.

A correction

In a previous post, I incorrectly identified Jeff Francoeur with a card of Joe Charboneau.

This is patently ridiculous as Jeff has never been able to open a beer bottle with his eye and then drink it through a straw with his nose. I apologize for this error and now post the corrected card:

I mean, come on... I didn't even have the team right. How stupid of me. Sorry Jeff!

Hello and Goodbye

A warm welcome to the newest Brave, Ryan Church.

Also a sad farewell to the Natural, the Golden Boy, the Lilburn Flash.


You will be missed, Jeff. Your on base percentage, not so much.

What What WHAAAAAAT???

FRENCHY'S A MET?!?!!?!?!?!

...

Half the female population of Atlanta just committed suicide.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 6

More fireworks in this pack despite the coolest card getting dinged a point. This has been a pretty kick ass box to this point!


256 Jose Lopez
89 Elvis Andrus RC
65 Dexter Fowler RC
289 Milky Way -1 point despite utter coolness
34 Ryan Dempster
223 Scott Rolen Code Card Pending Commish Ruling

HHB6 Enron Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, Bamboozles And Shockingly Brazen Corporate Corruption That Screwed Up The Energy Industry, Completely Destroyed The Lives Of Thousands Of Stockholders, Employees And Grandmas, Damn Near Shut Down California And Cheated People Out Of Their Hard Earned Cash In The Name Of Unbridled Greed While The Federal Government Who Was Supposed To Be Regulating This Shit In The First Place Turned A Blind Eye To The Whole Fucking Thing While The Man Behind The Entire Sordid Affair Was Buddy Pals With Two Presidents Of The United States Who Also Just Happened To Have Deep Ties To The Oil Industry Funny How That Works Eh Hey Look American Gladiators Is On Go Back To Bed America The Government Is In Control You Are Free To Do As We Tell You +5 Points
NP50 Jair Jurrjens NP +2 points
Ginter Code Ad

Ok, some of you people don't like the Milky Way card. You actually really like, it, you just don't know it yet. Want me to prove it to you? Take a good look at the card. A really good look. Now look at the bottom left corner. Now check out the lower part of the galaxy, underneath the galactic core. Now you know that Topps left the light years map legend and several star labels in the picture when they 'shopped it from whatever middle school textbook image they ganked it from.

Now you have been Enlightened.

In other news, I really like the Elvis Andrus card. I'm kind of sorry he never got the chance to become a Brave, but I'm happy with Yunel Escobar so I can deal with it. I don't get these sports talk yobbos who keep trying to trade Yunel because supposedly Bobby doesn't like him blowing his top every so often. The dude can play and we got him cheap for the next few years. So what if he flakes every once in a while, the dude's Cuban, they actually get excited about playing baseball unlike a lot of the guys in the majors just cashing a paycheck. Dexter Fowler messed the Braves up last night so no scan for him. Dempster looks demented as always. The Jurrjens card is nice, too bad he didn't get the chance to play with the surprising Netherland WBC club. Then again he's kicking ass for the Braves this year so maybe that's a good thing. Jair would be an All-Star if the bats could have gotten him any runs.

As for that abomination of an insert, the only reason it's not confetti now is that conceivably there is a die hard Astros fan out there who might want it for their collection. There's one more of those things in this box, you have one chance to redeem yourselves, Topps.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 5

This pack was much better than the last one. Two new inserts pop up in this one.


242 Mark Teahen
91 Alex Gordon
97 Art Pennington Pending Commish Ruling
74 Matt Tuiasosopo RC
310 Old Faithful SP +5 points SP -1 point WTF
AGH23 Brad Lidge Baseball Highlights +3 points
NH35 Janos Damjanich National Heroes +5 poins
NP49 Max Scherzer NP

Good gravy, that Old Faithful card looks stupid. After a pair of Royals started off the pack, I got my second Negro Leaguer (nicknamed Superman!), a rookie with a very hard name to type, the tectonic version of popping a zit and a trio of inserts. Someone mentioned Max Scherzer's intense cards in a previous post. Well, his National Pride card has no lip biting, but he's got the thousand-mile laser stare going on. I would have posted an image but I was afraid the scanner would run away. The Brian Kong sketch cards look really dang good. This Lidge card reminds me of the Constipated Papelbon card from 2008 UD Masterpieces. I like this one a lot better. More joy, less crazy.

I love these National Treasure cards just for the cool history it exposes me to. Janos here was a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and was ultimately executed by the Austrians after the revolutionary government was overthrown. Oddly enough, while he is revered in Hungary, he's sort of the Benedict Arnold of Serbia. This is a pretty nice set, I might have to put it next to my Flags and World Leaders sets in my "I like these sets, but not enough to complete them" binder.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 4

The can't all be interesting, folks...

67 Ian Kinsler
217 Jorge Cantu
.---- ----- ----. ... .- -- ..- . .-.. -- --- .-. ... .

155 Yadier Molina
54 Carlos Guillen
13 Travis Hafner
318 Delmon Young SP mini A&G back +9 points
NP52 Daisuke Matsuzaka NP

How the hell is Yadier Molina in the All-Star Game and Ian Kinsler not?? I'm about ready to skip the whole thing this year. Decent pack here, but nothing to write home about. The mini short print A&G back gets me some pointage action though. Old Planter comes through again!

Ginter Checklist and Other Odds and Ends

I was feeling generous tonight so I scanned my Allen & Ginter Hobby Checklist at 400 DPI and posted it for you all. Click on the scans to see 'em up close. Save them and open them in an image editor and blow 'em up 400% sto get a really good look.

For those who haven't seen it yet, here's the Allen & Ginter Crack The Code advertisement card.

I love the beard on 19th century cryptologist dude.

The back doesn't say a whole lot other than the e-mail address to send your guess. Now what is this code thing anyway? It looks like this is:

This is a parallel inserted into A&G at 1:12 packs. My guess is those crazy alchemy heiroglyphics around the border has something to do with the border. Good luck with this one, kiddos.

It was pointed out that I didn't add up my Gint-a-Cuffs points last night. Well, that is true, but I spent all my time dissecting the box ephemera in excruciating detail. I've gone over it (and gotten some help from commenters) and here's what I came up with so far:

Box Topper: Cabinet Card

+8 points

Pack 1:

My Favorite Player National Pride

+6 Points

Negro League Star

Awaiting Commish's ruling

Pack 2:

bupkis

How the hell are Pujols and Howard not someone's favorite player??

Pack 3:

Adrian Gonzalez base

+2 points

Short Print (Guzman) and Mini Short Print (Baldelli)

+5 points (SP)
+7 points (Mini SP)

Short Printed Relic

+12 points (pending SP list)

For the record, I finally gathered the courage to touch the relic portion of the card and it's more rubbery than spandexy so I think it's a swimming cap and not a swimsuit. Maybe a wetsuit.

So, the total so far is 8+6+0+2+5+7+12=40 pending the ruling on Evans. I will try to keep up with the points from now on, but I'm not gonna lie, if time gets tight I'll post a rip without points before I don't post it at all.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 3

Pack three yielded the first hit, so I scanned all seven cards to celebrate. Now about that hit...

8 Matt Cain
258 Felix Hernandez
168 Adrian Gonzalez
330 Christian Guzman SP
AGR-LC Lynne Cox relic
303 Rocco Baldelli mini SP
NP51 Albert Pujols National Pride

The pack starts off with two great young pitchers. I knew Matt Cain would get it together one of these days, and now he's an All-Star. I also picked up my first two short prints after getting zippo in the first two packs. I am assuming that cards 301-350 are short prints, but I think it's a safe assumption as these are the first two cards in the 300's I've pulled period. The most fun I've had so far with the box is taking the minis and checking my binder to see if they fill a slot or can bump a card out of the book. Rocco fits nicely in between Brad Lidge and Victor Hugo on his page. So far I've been pulling stars right and left with my second Pujols in as many packs and the slugging Adrian Gonzalez. How he hits homers in Petco I'll never know.

Ok, I guess I have to discuss this now...


When I first pulled the card I saw it from the back and was all "Cool! A Relic!" Then I saw the name and I was all like "Sweet! A short printed relic!!" Then I looked at the front and saw what appeared to be a 12 year old girl staring at me and I felt creepy as hell. Ok, so she's not actually 12 years old, but that's what it looked like at least and it weirded me out. I've been feeling a bit squicky about seeing 16 year olds on the cover of Beckett and in Upper Deck packs and 9 year olds with autograph cards in this set and actually pulling something I thought was like that unnerved me. I'm actually really impressed with Lynne now that I've had a chance to read about her accomplishments (she swam in Antarctica?!?) but I'd prefer we leave the kids out of trading card sets now, thanks.

Allen & Ginter blog post clearinghouse - day 1

I don't have a lot of time to post right now so instead, I'll pick out some of the posts on other blogs about A&G that caught my eye.

The first pack I actually saw ripped was on A Pack to be Named Later. Not a bad pack either.

Now this is how a gimmick card is supposed to be done. Fun and silly, and doesn't screw up the set at all.

Card Cache (who I need to link when I get a minute) shows off another neat gimmick plus a few of the interesting A&G inserts that have popped up so far.

JD's Wild Cardz is trying to get together images of all the Ginter Code Parallel cards so there's a chance someone can actually solve the thing.

There's a strange illness going around, a few people have been stricken.

Beckett has a gallery of some of the tougher autographs from the set.

And finally, Gint-a-Cuffs is under way!

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 2

Due to time constraints, I'm going to do the box break a pack or two at a time until this weekend. I just don't have the time I used to. Also: five scans per post. No more than that. People who use Blogger will know why. Ok, here's pack 2:

198 Raul Ibanez
215 Jed Lowrie
160 Max Scherzer
71 Albert Pujols
30 Ryan Howard
80 Joe Martinez RC
126 Trevor Crowe RC mini
NP64 Francisco Liriano National Pride

Jeez, Pujols and Howard in the same pack. That's some serious firepower there. Plus Ibanez is having a hell of a year for the Phillies. Funny how they took so much crap from the pundits for signing Raul early for a lot of dough when guys like Dunn Burrell and Abreu were available for a long time and took less money. Who's having the career year though? It's taking me some time to get used to this set. After some minimalist design with lots of white space the past few years, the pastels are somewhat overwhelming. They look good, it's just taking me a while to get used to 'em. I really like the action shots in the set. They are a great contrast from all the posted portraits. The Max Scherzer card is very nice looking and the Pujols card is amazing. I'll bet that looks great on the mini card. I'm not sure who the rookies are and I'm too tired to look 'em up at the moment. Crowe did not make the mini binder cut unfortunately. A 2007 black border Carlos Beltran kept slot 126 I'll say this for Topps: they hit a home run on the National Pride set. I'll bet a few collectors eschew the base set and just go after the National Prides. .

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 1: Packaging, Box Topper and the Very First Pack

Yep, I got you all hyped up over the release of Allen & Ginter, teased my box and the first thing I'm going to do is scan all the packaging. That's just how I roll. The box top has a very familiar looking 19th century gentleman featured but I can't quite place him. I'll figure it out sooner or later. There's also a Mantle relic, Howard auto and Napoleon pube card on there as well. It's all very Allen & Gintery indeed (except the pube).

Here's the inside flap of the box top. Disappointingly, the preview cards are the same, but Old Planter makes up for the lack of originality. Both the inside and outside of the box top has a large warning about choking hazards. There must be an excessive amount of New York Mets cards in the checklist.

The front side of the box has a sheep on it for some inexplicable reason. Maybe the sheep is food for all the mythological monster inserts inside the box. At any rate it's making me want to play a round or two of Worms on the Gameboy. Yes, I still play my Gameboy, mainly because I have the Worms: Armageddon cartridge. As you can see, I got a little rambunctious opening the box up and trashed it a little. I guess I have to buy another box!

The sides of the box have familiar looking guy and the logo. All sides look just about the same excet for the picture on the left.

The back of the box hasplaying cards on it. You never know, this could have to do with the code. Just in case:

9D JC 9S
8C AS 8H

If this is a clue and it holps someone solve the code, please send a Dominique Wilkins auto my way.

Ok, the box bottom is one half legalese and I'm not even going to bother with that. The stuff you want is right here: Relic and Auto group listings. There's also the odds for pulling an N43 auto/relic card. Here's yer chances:

N43 Relic - 1:162 boxes
N43 Autograph - 1:270 boxes
N43 AutoRelic - 1:1,621 boxes

It sure ain't easy, but someone has to pull 'em. I scanned this bit at 300 dpi so if you want a good look, just click on the image. Let's look at the autograph groupings first.

There's only two groups: Group A (1:2,730 packs) and Group B (1:51 packs). You're looking at an autograph in about every other box there. Chris Olds wasn't kidding on that Beckett box break, there really are 8 different Michael Phelps autographs listed which is frankly quite ridiculous. There are only 8 other players in the group! Group B is sort of odd, as the usually short printed non-baseball autos are mixed in with the ones that people usually pull like Carlos Gomez and Alexi Casilla. I'm not sure what's going on there, but if there are short printed autographs it's a bit misleading to lump them in with the 1:51 list. The one card on that list that really messed with my mind was the Will Simpson/Archie Bunker one. First, I had no clue how a fictional character could possibly sign an autograph. I also didn't know who the heck Will Simpson was. Then I Googled it and found this.

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME THERE ISN'T A HORSE AUTOGRAPH IN THIS PRODUCT.

ON A MINI CARD NO LESS.

AAAAAAH MIND SNAPPED

Ok, enough of autographs, let's move on to the relics. Four groups here:
Group A: 1:100 Packs
Group B: 1:215 Packs
Group C: 1:39 Packs
Group D: 1:17 Packs

Group A appears to be the toughy one. That group has all the oddball subjects (horses and mascots and Phelps, oh my!) along with some high profile players (Pujols, Manny and Mantle) and finally a few low level names that no one will associate with being short printed at all. Tim Hudson and Casey Kotchman are in Group A, but I doubt they will go for a premium at all.

Group B looks like the Big Boy group with A-Rod Pujols and Ichiro with the stars and high odds (1 in about 9 or 10 boxes) but then you realize there's only eight subjects and one of them is Eric Gagne. Group C and D relics are the ones you'll end up pulling out of your box althought there's a good mix of superstars in there - Howard, Chipper, Lincecum, Vladdy, Prince, Wright, Longoria... There's a better than average chance of pulling a superstar relic out of an average box.

Oh, look. A serial number underneath the packs. I shall scan it and post it, for I am insane.

- the hell??

Dear lord, I got TWO serial numbers!

SERIAL NUMBER HOT BOX MOJO!!!

Here's the wrapper. You'll see plenty of these so let's not dwell on it.

Ah, this is what we want, the odds. The possibility of successfully pulling anything good if you're not a case breaker is approximately 3720 to 1. Never tell me the odds! Oh well, here they are anyway in order of "you'll have piles of 'em" to "fuggehtaboudit".

A&G Ad Back Mini Parallel - 1:5 packs
Baseball Highlights Sketches - 1:6 packs
Black Bordered Mini Parallel - 1:10 packs
Ginter Code Parallel card - 1:12 packs
National Heroes Mini - 1:12
Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, Bamboozles & Felonies That Destroyed The Lives Of Thousands Of People Mini - 1:12
Short Print Parallel - 1:13 packs
Creatures of Legend, Myth & Terror Mini - 1:48 packs
A&G Ad Back Mini Short Print Parallel - 1:65 packs
No Number Mini Parallel - 1:95 packs
Black Bordered Mini Short Print Parallel - 1:130 packs
Bazooka Ad Back Mini Parallel - 1:191 packs
Rip Card - 1:257 packs
Framed Mini Cloth Cards - 1: 278 packs
Framed Mini Printing Plates - 1:608 packs
Wood Mini Parallel - 1:2,780 packs
Cut Signature - 1:186,000 packs
Framed DNA Relic - 1:186,000 packs
Autos and Relics are detailed about and are overall 1:8 packs.

Or to put it another way:

A&G Ad Back Mini Parallel - about 6 per box
Baseball Highlights Sketches - 4 per box
Black Bordered Mini Parallel - about 3 or 4 per box
Ginter Code Parallel card - 2 per box
National Heroes Mini - 2 per box
Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, Bamboozles & Felonies That Destroyed The Lives Of Thousands Of People Mini - 2 per box
Short Print Parallel - 2 per box
Creatures of Legend, Myth & Terror Mini - 1 in 2 boxes
A&G Ad Back Mini Short Print Parallel -about 1 in 3 boxess
No Number Mini Parallel - about 1 in 4 boxes
Black Bordered Mini Short Print Parallel - about 1 in 4 or 5 boxes
Bazooka Ad Back Mini Parallel - 1 in 8 boxes
Rip Card - about 1 in 11 boxes
Framed Mini Cloth Cards - about 1 12 boxes
Framed Mini Printing Plates - 1 in 25 boxes
Wood Mini Parallel - 1 in 116 boxes
Cut Signature - 1 in 7,750 boxes or 1 in 146 cases
Framed DNA Relic - ditto

Overall, expect about 25 total inserts and parallels per box not counting normal minis, one per pack National Pride cards and short prints. Oddly enough there is no odds for short prints on the pack. I'm hoping they are still 1:2 packs, or the joy of building this set is going to be greatly diminished.

Here's the full checklist that is included as a box loader in every hobby box. If anyone has a spare checklist from 2006, I could use one. The print is tiny, and quite frankly my eyes are too tired to be staring at it tonight. I will be focusing on a couple of interesting things in it in a future post. The one thing that I was most interested to see was the replacement for the Bernie Madoff card. Card #2 is now "Alabama Changes Value of Pi". This made me smile broadly.

Ok, now for the goodies. Gentlemen, I introduce... THE BOX TOPPER:

I got a Cabinet Card. Getting a cabinet card basically means you didn't get an autorelic, but I'd never get one of those anyway. The past three years I've gone back and forth Cabinet, N43, Cabinet. Looks like I'll be getting a 2010 N43 card next year. Let's see who I got:

Now this is a nice cabinet card! The Declaration of Independence featuring the autohor and most recognizable signer. This card would have come in handy for Fourth of July! I'm happy with this, here's the back featuring the Historical checkist:

The set also has the Constitution, NATO, the South surrendering and my favorite, the Space Race.

Ok, I promised it... Here's my very first pack of 2009 Allen & Ginter.



134 Jered Weaver
52 Aaron Hill
173 Francisco Rodriguez
57 Frank Evans
85 Jason Jaramillo RC
249 John Higby
15 Alfred Nobel mini

and one more...

NP7 Chipper Jones National Pride

Can't do better than Chipper in the first pack. One surprising thing - The National Pride cards are not thick like last year's states cards. They are like a normal card. Maybe they aren't decoys this year but are a one per pack insert? You'd still need over three boxes to complete the set. I'm loving the fact that Negro Leaguers are in the set. Frank Evens is shown in a Birmingham Black Barons uniform and also played with Chattanooga, Detroit, New Orleans and the Kansas City Monarchs. Alfred Nobel is a cool mini and the first 2009 card in my 06-09 A&G mini set, bumping Jeff Francoeur out of the binder and into my Braves team set. And say what you will about oddball characters in A&G sets, that John Higby yo-yo champion card kicks ass.

Damn, I love this set. Twenty three packs to go!

It's heeeeeeeeeeere.

Let the games begin...

Package from Joe - Part 3

Here's the third part of the package from Joe. This is the coolest thing, so I saved it for last, but part two needs a photograph since the item is not scannable and I don't have time for that now so I'll save that for later. There's logic there somewhere, trust me.

Ok, so I was going to watch an episode or two of The Venture Brothers last night, but I got waylaid by all the new Allen & Ginter auctions on eBay. While I was looking through the new stuff I started checking out the DVD cover art. The Series Three art is incredible, they made the whole package look like an Atari 2600 game cartridge box. Series Two has a nifty noirish comic book art feel to it. I opened up the case and this fell out.

.........

Stunned.

No words.

I know what a certain subset of cynical people out there are thinking... You're looking at it all askew because it's not certified and there's no sticker on it and and acronym or two didn't give it a stamp of approval and it's not cut up and plastered in a cut auto card. Well phooey on you cynical people.

I don't know if it's real, I don't care if it's real. because as far as I'm concerned...



UPDATE: PROVENANCE!!!!!!!!!1

(see comments)

I have to do something really special with this now. I mean, the man is like my spiritual guru.

The most ridiculous card to come out of an Allen & Ginter Pack - Day 1

I have very little time to do this (no time, actually) but I feel it must be done. The most ridiculous/expensive card to come out of 2009 Allen & Ginter as of 7:00am Eastern this morning is....

YUTO MIYAZAWA AUTOGRAPH

An autograph of a 9 year old guitar player. And you were all mad at Beckett exploiting Bryce Harper. Is the card worth it? Check out Yuto on Ellen and decide for yourself.

Package from Joe - Part 1

Cinci Reds Cards Joe sent me a package containing the second and third season of The Venture Brothers. I had gotten him hooked on the show and he sent the DVDs to me since he had watched them already. If this wasn't generous enough, he sent some other goodies in the box too. Included were 12 2008 Topps Chrome cards:


Wooo! Chipper! I've got a ton of Chrome already but... wait, what is this?



Hum! Well that's a pretty timely thing to be getting right now! I have no clue where Joe found 'em, but I now have 12 Braves chrome cards with The National convention logo on them. Sweeeet! lncluded is our only All-Star:

And the Big Three!

Very cool and very unique stuff from Joe. I look forward to his 2008 Topps Chrome National Convention Cincy Reds team set post.

But wait there's more...

Important poll and assorted A&G stuff

Ok. First things first.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to pick up my box of Allen & Ginter from the hobby shop. However, while I'm there I think I'll pick up a couple of packs of Topps Magic Football just to see what they look like. I will obviously be obsessing over the A&G first, but I will be posting the Magic packs as a palate cleanser in the midst of my Ginter feast. Now, I need your input on something very important:

What song should I post from YouTube to accompany the Magic Football pack?

That Old Black Magic - Louis Prima & Keely Smith
Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf
Magic Man - Heart
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic - The Police
Magic Johnson - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Magic America - Blur

If you have a better suggestion, post it tonight and I'll think about it. Any suggestions without "Magic" in the title will be deleted forever. Unless there's an overwhelming concensus I'll put up a poll tomorrow morning so you can vote on it.

Ok, A&G case breakers have been hard at work today and here's some interesting stuff:

Negro Leaguers Willie Williams and Herb Simpson have an autogaph cards in the set. I love this. The more Negro League player autographs there are in packs, the better I like it.

The Ginter Code is going to be a real pain to crack. How do I know this? The code cards are PARALLELS.

Great googely moogely the silk cards look good.

If you haven't checked out the black frame cards yet, do so. They're nice.

Finally Travis sent me this pic of a Jordan Schafer No Numbered mini card:

Holy crap. Topps serial numbered them! Waaaait a minute. This is Travis. He's been known to bamboozle people from time to time. Trust, but verify.

HOLYCRAP! They did number 'em! This is the part where I complain about eBay being PayPal only now. Dammit. Oh well, I'll most likely have a box of my own tomorrow...

2009 ALLEN & GINTER CHECKLIST REVIEW - The Rip Cards

Note - no images for this stuff. Maybe later when case rips start happening, but I don't have the time or the energy to mess with mockups right now, sorry.

I've never actually pulled a Rip Card from any set (other than '98 Zenith at least) so I don't know the joys of ripping open a $150 dollar card only to get a mini exclusive card of Alex Rios. There's a first time for everything though, so may as well go over the ones on the pre-sell checklist.

There are no less than a hundred different Rip Cards you can pull, and I think they several different numbered versions of each. I'm not sure how these will be numbered though so you'll have to do your own research on this.

Now as for the checklist. There are several Braves in there, which are the only ones I care about. They are:

• Tim Hudson
• Yunel Escobar
• John Smoltz
• Derek Lowe

No Chipper or McCann which sucks. Pat Neshek gets a Rip Card though, probably because Topps wants him to buy a few dozen more cases. Now inside the Rip Card is one of four types of mini cards: Mini exclusives, 1/1 Wood exclusives, Dick Perez sketches and autographed cards.

Exclusive cards:

There are 50 mini exclusives numberd 351-400. In years past they have had a slightly darker card stock than the normal minis. It's a pretty nice player selection including Chipper Jones, Brian McCann and Nate McLouth cards I will never own. There is also a Wood parallel of these cards that are all 1/1s. I've never even seen one of these in person but they are supposed to look incredible. I'll have to pester Night Owl to let me have a close look one of these days.

Mini autographs:

These are the cards autographed in Red ink, I believe they are numbered out of 10. Thge checklist appears to be the same as the normal framed autograph list, meaning you can rip open that card and pull a Billy the Marlin signature. That's when I reach for my revolver...



Dick Perez Original Sketches

What you see is what you get with these... each mini card has an original sketch from Hall of Fame artist Dick Perez. The checklist does not match the Baseball Highlights sketch cards so I don't know if you can see any of these sketches anywhere else. That's a shame, since I like Perez's artwork and there's a Yunel Escobar and Nate McLouth sketch I'll likely never see now.

Rip cards in the past have usually run at least a Franklin apiece but if you're diligent and don't mind a lesser player you can find good deals on ripped cards on the Bay. Besides, there's a chance you could pull one, right? It happened to Thorzul, it can happen to YOU.

2009 ALLEN & GINTER CHECKLIST REVIEW - I'VE BEEN FRAMED

Framed cards, that is. This is where the bulk of the three guaranteed 'hits' per box will come from. Mini cards with an autograph on them or a little bit of bat or jersey embedded within. Then the mini card itself is encased inside a plastic frame so it is the traditional 2.5 by 3.5 inch card size. The checklist for both as with all A&G sets is a mix of baseball players and non-baseball players. I was going to gank a couple of images off of eBay to show of this year's design, but eBay is sort of bare right now. I guess the early auctions were a fluke and the case breakers haven't geared up yet. Maybe today... You can see an auto card here. The nice thing about this year's design is that they actually put '2009' right on the frame to differentiate it from the 2008 version.

The Autographs:

These are always extremely popular as they are all on-card and there are some obscure subjects in the checklist. The baseball list is ok, it has a few big names like Longoria, Braun, Howard and Big Papi, but most are guys like Justin Masterson, Scott Olsen, Denard Span and Conor Jackson. Guess which ones will be short printed? I'm bummed because the only Brave on the list is Jeff Francoeur, who also had an auto in last year's set. Get someone new Topps!

Usually the non-baseball subjects are shortprinted to 200 or less so expect these to sell well. The biggie this year is Michael Phelps. The rest of the non-baseball auto subjects (with two exceptions I'll discuss shortly) are to me at least fairly obscure. The only three I recognize at first glance are Cat Osterman, Steve Weibe and Apolo Ohno. There are a few To Be Determined slots open and anything on these pre-sell checklists are subject to bait and switch without notice anyway so maybe some more recognizable signatures are in the works. Hey Topps! Get Crystl Bustos on an A&G card! Guys dig the longball!

Now to those other two subjects: One filled me with ecstasy, the other with agony. Let's get the bad news out of the way first:

BILLY THE MARLIN HAS AN AUTOGRAPH CARD IN THIS SET

That's right, a mascot autograph. Dear God in Heaven, why. Ok, so it's kind of cute, and Topps will get lots of blogger keystrokes (and the resulting publicity (like this right here) from idiots like me) complaining about such a mind-numbingly daft gimmick card. Worse than that, I now know that I am doomed to pull this stupid card. If I sold my car and used the proceeds to buy a, um, pack or two... of A&G... wait, let me start over. If I sold my house and bought a few cases of Allen & Ginter I know for a fact that I would pull only Billy the Marlin autographs for I am a schlemiel. Damn you Topps, for cursing me with this card!!!

Ok, enough angst, there's the good card:

DOMINIQUE WILKINS HAS AN AUTOGRAPH CARD IN THIS SET!!!

NIIIIIIIQUE! YEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!! I LOVE NIQUE! THIS IS AWESOME!

Phooey on Michael Phelps, this is the premier hit in this set.

The Relics:

There's a ton more relics in the set than autos, obviously. A few players even have two or even three different versions, most likely a jersey and bat variety. I'm not sure what the third one would be, maybe a patch? Here's the list of multiple versions:

• Ryan Howard (2)
• Rocco Baldelli (2)
• Ichiro (2)
• David Wright (2)
• Albert Pujols (3)
• Manny Ramirez (3) (jersey, bat and needle)

Again, take the list with a grain of salt (especially the needle card). Braves (and Hawks) are all I care about:

• Tim Hudson
• Chipper Jones (yess!!!)
• Casey Kotchman
• Yunel Escobar
• Nate McLouth
• DOMINIQUE WILKINS

Let me just say this now: if any of you reading this pull a Nique relic (or auto) I will reward you handsomely for it. there are very few cards in my collection I wouldn't trade for an A&G Nique, so keep me in mind, please.

The non-baseball relic list is very similar to the auto list, and probably just as short printed. Billy the Marlin is sadly on the list again which raises questions... Did Topps lure Billy into their offices to sign the autographs and then MURDER him so they could cut up his Marlin costume for cards? *shudder* The thought is too horrifying to contemplate. Think I'm kidding? The last relic on the list is #AGR-PBR. Bones. That's right, BONES.

Ray, there's no doubt anymore. This is real. Topps is murdering mascots. They're chopping them up. They're putting them in relic cards. Ray... this is Walter Billy! AAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaHHHHHHhhhhHHHHH!!!111!!!!1!1!11!


I'm afraid of this set now. The allure of a Nique autogamer is too strong though, I must rip a box, no matter the cost to my eternal soul.

2009 ALLEN & GINTER CHECKLIST REVIEW - The Inserts

There are five (well, six) different insert sets in 2009 Allen & Ginter. Three (four?) mini inserts and two (I think) normal sized inserts. Let's break 'em up into minis and normals and take a look at 'em all, shall we?

Mini Inserts:

WORLD'S BIGGEST HOAXES, HOODWINKS AND BAMBOOZLES

This mini set consists of twenty cards featuring famous hoaxes and is found 1:12 packs. This is the set with the 'pulled' Bernie Madoff card, which wasn't so much a hoax as a felony. We'll see what happens with that one. Apart from that bit of bad taste, the rest of the set looks pretty fun although Topps mistook several criminal acts and outright frauds with a hoodwink. For example, The Cottingley Fairies is a somewhat ingenious hoodwink. The Piltdown Man was out and out fraud. The Turk was a pretty clever bamboozle, while DB Cooper was a criminal act. A fascinating and mysterious criminal act, but not a hoax, woodwink or bamboozle. Now, Spaghetti Trees, THAT'S a proper hoax! But the Runaway Bride was just plain stupid. Still, overall a pretty nifty set.

NATIONAL HEROES


This is the mini set for all the history buffs out there. Forty cards feature a legendary figure from forty different nations. These are 1:12 as well, but there are twice as many as the hoaxes. There's a few people in there that everyone knows about like George Washington, Gandhi and Joan of Arc, but the really fascinating ones are lesser known. William Wallace you might be familiar with, but how about Haile Selassie? Mustafi Ataturk? Simon Bolivar? Marcus Garvey? These are all interesting people in their own right. The fun in collecting this set is just looking up the stories on all these people.

CREATURES OF LEGEND, MYTH AND TERROR

THIS is the mini set I want to collect. At 1:48 packs it's ain't gonna be easy but I'd rather have this mini set than the base set to be honest. I've always been fascinated by monsters and horrors and cryptozoological nightmares and this is FULL of em! I saw the Kraken card on eBay and it's AWESOME. The Invisible Man card is cute (and an awesome template for making custom cards) but the real fun stuff is the critters! Dragon! Grendel! Cerberus! Werewolf! (There! There wolf!) Sphinx! And my favorite... CHUPACABRA! My two time league winning fantasy football team (now defunct, alas) was named the Chupacabras and if I ever gear 'em back up I have have a trading card for my team.

INVENTIONS OF THE FUTURE

This is the stealth set we all knew was coming and which popped up in the Beckett break. I'll bet my Braves Binder that these have something to do with the Ginter code. Oh well, it's at least not as stupid as Team Orange.

Normal Sized Inserts:

NATIONAL PRIDE

Every year Topps makes this set that much harder to complete. These cards are this year's thick relic decoy cards that come one in every pack without a hit. That's cool and all, they're really nice looking cards. But why is there 75 of them?? The decoy set was 30 cards in 2006 and 2007, 50 cards with last year's 50 state theme and now 75. To put it in perspective, since there's 24 packs in a box and three hits guaranteed, that's 21 of these in a box. You buy three boxes and even with perfect collation (Ha! right) and you are still a dozen cards short of the set. I mean, good lord, it's getting so you have to bust half a case to have a chance anymore, you know? Oh well, here's the Braves in the pre-sell checklist:
Chipper Jones (United States)
Yunel Escobar (Cuba)
Jair Jurrjens (Curacao)

BASEBALL HIGHLIGHT SKETCH CARDS

Twenty-five cards make up this set which looks like Topps' answer to UD Masterpieces. I'm not sure of the name of the artist, but it's not Dick Perez. The checklist is very star studded and includes Greg Maddux and Chipper Jones. This seems to me to be analogous to the Greatest Victories set from last year, only without the non-baseball stuff. Hopefully they aren't too difficult to come by, this would be another really nice set to complete.

There might even be another insert set lurking, as Dangerous Sharks popped up out of nowhere last year along with Team Orange. I guess we'll just have to see...

NIIIIIIQUE!

I found an image of the 2009 Allen & Ginter Dominique Wilkins on the Bay so I swiped it and posted because I LOVE IT.

I'm perplexed that they airbrushed the "Hawks" off the uni, but it's 'Nique dunking, how cool is that? I have a feeling that once I get this in my hands it will surpass Torii for Favorite A&G Card. Bummer it's a short print, I wouldn't mind wallpapering a room in this card.

2009 ALLEN & GINTER CHECKLIST REVIEW - The Box Loaders

As usual, Allen & Ginter has two different types of box loaders to collect. And as usual, Topps is stingy as hell and only gives you one per box. Here's what is on the pre-sell checklist:

Cabinet Box Loaders:

(2008 version)

Topps has been including these cards that are a hybrid of original Allen & Ginter album pages and 19th century cabinet cards as boxtoppers since 2007. Like last year, half the ten card set is of baseball players and the other half is os political figures. Mini card sized pics of four subjects are included on each cabinet card. The baseball subjects focus on the World Baseball Classic, including cards for The Netherlands, Cuba, The United States, Japan and the WBC winners. Who won the bloody thing, anyway?

The Politics ones are more complicated. One consists of the leaders of the United States, Italy, Portugal and Canada in 1948. There are two featuring statesmen from the Revolutionary war, and both have Benjamin Frankin. The final two feature adversaries. The Civil War themed card had Abe Lincoln and U.S. Grant matched up against Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee. Finally there's a Cold War card with JFK and LBJ staring down Krushchev and Brezhnev.

N43 cards:

(2008 version)

N43 is the American Card Catalog number for the original Allen & Ginter set that featured Sporting Champions in a larger format. This insert has been in every single A&G release since it started in 2006. It has also had Ryan Zimmerman in every set, and no Chipper Jones. So when I downloaded the checklist the first thing I did was check the N43 list.

CHIPPER'S IN!!!!!!!!!

RYAN'S OUT!!!!!!!!

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

(now if we can just fixt the All-Star selection travesty)

That's all you need to know about the checklist anyway, I'll post it later once it's confirmed.

Along with the normal N43s there are autographed and relic versions. There are ten relics listed in the checklist including 5 MLB players (A-Rod, Manny, Hamilton, Utley, Vladdy) and 5 WBC participants with the highlight being Yu Darvish.

The ones that people really want are the autographs though. The BIG one is the Michael Phelps autograph. This appears to have replaced the gimmicky dog autograph and Bigfoot tire track cards from last year. I still wouldn't be surprised to see some stealth ridiculousness in there like an Obama dog pawprint or a card stained with the tears of a Madoff victim. The rest of the autographed N43's are more straightforward mix of established stars (Longoria, Wright) and hot prospects (Joba, Bruce).

Then of course you have the autogamers, five cards with both an auto and relic attached. This is a solid list (it better be with the odds of pulling one): Howard, Papi, Wright, Longoria, Braun. The autos and relics are extremely hard to get so if you plunk down your money for a hobby box, just relax enjoy your cabinet card of Harry Truman.