Allen & Ginter has hit the streets and I have my box.
I had my regular dealer save me a box at the 'good' price and headed down this morning to pick it up. I had squirreled just enough away to pick up a box and to be honest, if it weren't for the fact the owner recognizes me I'd be scrounging for Box Blasters at Target like the rest of the proles who can't pony up for a case or three. I walk in the door and the table is already full of cards from opened boxes. A pile of base cards and a few relics were visible. I look over at the counter and - ACK! $120 a box?!? No, no, the owner said, I have yours back here at the good price. Apparently someone showed up from out of nowhere this morning and started to clear him out but he kept a stash for the regulars. I paid for the box and got out quickly before any more sharks came in for the feeding frenzy.
Of course, I wouldn't tell you I had a box if I wasn't going to share my pulls, would I? Of course not. But instead of an impersonal listing of all the inserts followed by the odds and percentage of the set received, I'm going to give you a pack by pack account of the break. With lots of scans of course, my 1024 meg image space limit is going to take a hit today. So as not to completely murder the systems of any dial-up readers, I'm splitting the box break into 4 parts and will separate the posts with some text-heavy checklist and short print lists. Assuming, of course, Topps blesses us with a short print list anytime soon. With no further ado, we'll pull off the shrink wrap and open up the box.
Woooo, the inside flap is pretty. the first thing I see is the checklist card, which didn't scan worth a flip (strange things are afoot with the Epson today) so I'm not going to bother to post it. If I get floods of e-mails demanding it I will, but it's really not worth it unless I fiddle with the settings to make it readable. Forget that, I wanna open packs!
The box topper is big... really big. It looks like I got a National Pride card instead of an N43 card. Which is good, because I kind of wanted one of the big cards for my box topper. Then again only N43s have autos or relics, but oh well. Time to rip...
Venezuela! Wow, such a pretty card. Abreu, King Felix, Cabrera and Santana is a nice bunch of players too. Looks like the background is Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall. This is a really good looking card. Now let's flip it over and see what I didn't win!
Nice selection of players here, although the only one I'll probably go eBaying for is #10 with Maddux and Smoltz. Ok, enough of this frivolousness, onto the PACKS.
Oh, look. A serial number underneath the packs. I shall scan it and post it, for I am insane. Besides, if this box ends up sucking it will serve as a warning not to use these numbers in tomorrow night's Pick Five drawing. Ok, where to start... Let's start with the first pack on the left side. Here it is:
Dude, I told you I was providing the full treatment on this box busting party. That includes wrappers. As wrappers go this is a good one. Distinctive, eye pleasing and well designed. That catcher is doing a lousy job blocking the plate though, he'll never get anyone out with fundamentals like that. Let's flip this puppy and check out...
The odds. The odds of me pulling a big hit from this box are 3,720 to 1. Never tell me the odds. Short prints are 1 in 2 packs. Good. At least I'll get 12 for the set then. Mini flags 2 per box, ARod home run crap 1 a box, a handful of A&G, SP and black Bordered minis per box, no mention of Caesars or Snakes. I'm confident I'll pull a framed original card. It's only 1 in 700 boxes or so. OK, time to rip away...
First card:
Jimmy Rollins. Not a bad start, Jimmy's one of the best shortstops in the NL. Just look at that follow through. Let's skim though the rest of the pack:
205 Jimmy Rollins
257 Curtis Granderson
Mini nno Denmark Flag
Dick Perez 2 Chipper Jones
57 Sean Henn RC
131 Nick Markakis
208 Nike Napoli
160 Frank Thomas
First pack's looking good... a few stars, a rookie and a Flag insert card.
Looks like the Flags of all Nations inserts are a way of chewing up a couple of minis per box. Who am I to begrudge artistic boobies, however? It's like, culture and stuff.
Thank goodness I got Chipper in the first pack. It took me forever to track down an Andruw Jones Dick Perez card from last year's set. Chipper's looking a little sunburned though. Time to start using the SPF 50 or you're looking at a trip to the oncologist in the near future. I do not like that 1/1 after the signature though. That's an invitation for idiots and swindlers to post 18 zillion "LQQK! ONE OF ONE!!1" auctions and clog up the A&G listings.
No, there isn't a sepia parallel in this set, you can calm down now. For some reason my scanner decided this card was black & white. Which is strange because I scanned the other thee cards from this pack in the same pass. I didn't catch it until I uploaded the pic and I'm too lazy to fix it now. Sean gets posted since it's a rookie card plus it's in the prime SP spot in the pack, right after the big thick 'no pack searching for you' card. Oh yeah, I'm feeling mighty good about this box!
Up next, the seven other packs on the left side of the box.
2 comments:
Thanks for the entertainment. I am anxious to bust a box too. You sound like you may be a set builder of A&G?
Thanks for the compliment! Yeah, I try to build sets of the Heritage sets Topps puts out. At least the commons if not the short prints. I barely got any A&G at all last year due to the fact I was broke when it came out and prices immediately skyrocketed to boot. I managed to get a few box blasters though. That's why I was looking forward to this set, I really like the design and I think this year's subsets are neat.
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