Joy of a Completed Inset Set - 2011 Allen & Ginter Step Right Up

Totally passed up the Bed of Nails card in a dime box and panicked when I realized my error. Luckily no one scrounges in dime boxes anymore and it was still waiting there for me when I was able to get back to the shop. Bonus Flower and Treasure card on the bottom of the page because I don't know where to put them in the binder.

Bonus Ginter Insert Question:
If I have one of the 2012 Sea Monkeys cards, and I don't bust it open to free the sea monkeys... am I committing genocide?

2011 Allen & Ginter Wantlist

Mischief managed. Ginter lists are up to date. Don't hold your breath for a 2012 list as I have under 100 total cards for that year. If you're dying to get rid of a bunch of '12 doubles I probably need 'em.

Updated 8/22 - thanks Cards on Cards!

Base
COMPLETE

Short Prints
compleeeeeeeete

Fishies!

Ascent of Man
COMPLETE

Oh, but Topps could put THIS card in a set

Minds that Made the Future
2
8
9
14
15
16
17
18
19
23
24
25
26
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38


Hometown Heroes (Have) ((not sure if I'm collecting this or not))
2
4
6
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
16
19
20
21
22
26
29
30
35
36
37
39
40
41
43
48
49
50
51
52
53
56
58
59
60
61
62
63
65
66
68
70
71
72
74
75
76
77
79
80
81
82
83
85
86
88
89
91
92
93
94
95
97
99
100

Boats and sketches are up for grabs if anyone wants 'em

Twelve 12s for 12/12/12 part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Here's the numbers, now here's the cards.

 Did you guess all of them? (ok so I cheated on Heyward)

Back on the YooToobz!

2011 Allen & Ginter cheapo $11.99 blaster. If all goes well you'll get another video by the weekend.



Warning: shaky video, bronchitis wheezing, excessive Ums, cussing like a sailor, multiple masturbation jokes, trashing on Heritage, serious pony infestation. Watch at your own risk.

Charlie Brown ultimately ended up happy with a fulfilling career

I will buy this card all day long

Last Friday I got in a nice groove of finishing sketch cards and putting together packages when the unthinkable happened. I RAN OUT OF BUBBLE MAILERS. Well, not completely out. I still have some larger sized ones and I've got tons of used mailers lying around cluttering up the joint, but new, fresh, virgin, unused 4"x8" mailers were all used up. All work and progress on catching up on my mailing queue obviously screeched to an immediate halt. I was able to hit the local card shop and pick up a fresh batch on Saturday. So now I have no excuse for not mailing out that stuff I promised you 6 months ago.

I was not able to scrounge for cards too much as I arrived at the shop right before it closed at 5:00pm. I did pick up a few cards out of the $.50 bin and one pack just so I could buy something other than mailers. I don't want the only decent card shop within 30 miles of me going out of business just because I only ever bought packing materials from there. This was one of the fifty cent cards.

Jason Heyward 2011 Allen & Ginter short print. For fifty cents! I already have this card as I pulled it out of my lone A&G Hobby box last year. It was the hit of the box, to be honest. I also may have bought one or two more of them out of dollar boxes along with the Glossy version off of COMC. But I had to get this one too. FIFTY CENTS! If there is one advantage to having my new-favorite-player-as-soon-as-Chipper-retires not meeting the ridiculously high expectations thrust upon him, it is that his cards are cheap as hell right now. He ain't but 22 years old folks... All you Braves 'fans' out there who are pissed off because Jason isn't Willie Mays yet just need to wait five or six years before he gets there. In a Yankee uniform most likely, but dammit, he'll be there.

I know what the set builders (the last remaining of a dwindling breed) out there are thinking... Dude! I need that to finish my set! Trade it to me! NO. MY HAYWOOD. HANDS OFF. Before you scold me for treating my fellow set-builders so shabbily, let me pass on some important information you may not have heard. Apparently short printed cards are no longer part of the base set so we collecting anachronisms don't need to chase them for our set-building needs. They're not part of the base set even though they are numbered along with the rest of the base set checklist because they are printed in lesser quantities than the actual base set and as we all know if a card is printed in lesser quantities it's an insert card and not a base card. Pay no attention to the insert cards from '90s Fleer sets that were printed in quantities that rival 1988 Donruss. At least this is what a certain Editor of the Hobby's most reliable and relied-upon source explained to me a couple of weekends ago. And by "no longer" I actually mean "never were" part of the base set because the definition never changed, it's just that us collectors had it wrong all this time. We had it wrong since the days of tobacco cards, but wrong we were. My October 2007 price guide says differently, but Winston hasn't gotten to that issue yet I guess. Short prints are not part of the base set and they have always not been part of the base set! To which I say....

THANK GOD. 

No more chasing after goddamn Heritage SPs. Allen & Ginter is now a hell of a lot easier to complete! Those weird skip numbered sets like Turkey Red and '06 A&G, well I don't even have to collect those abominations any more! and 2012 Archives? Well, that's a 241 card set. It's got Bryce Harper's rookie card in it and as we all know inserts cannot be rookie cards and if short prints are inserts and not base cards well then Bryce Harper's card CANNOT be an insert because it's a rookie card and if it's not a real rookie card then well that might hurt sales so it's a gorram rookie card because the industry needs this! Dammit, you selfish oaf, think of the hobby. It's not really short printed per se, just printed in slightly lesser quantities than base cards because it was added late in the print run and that's ok because Bryce Harper. I don't really care because I'm only collecting the 1-200 short set of Archives without SPs anyway.

I know what you're thinking now. "But if the definition of an insert card is that it is one that is printed in lesser quantities than the base set cards and the 2012 Bryce Harper Archives card was printed in lesser quantities due to being added late in the print run doesn't that mean the Harper card is really a short printed insert and not a legitimate rookie card per these new always been here base card rules?"

Dude.

That's a clown question, bro.

RUDY RUETTIGER IS NOW PONY

POST PONIES



Jeez, I really need to cut it out with all the poniez.

C-C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER



Thank goodness for ska.

Here's a message Rudy, you're now a pony! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

(I swear to Celestia that things will be back to normal on the blog this week)

October Card Show - Evolution

One goal I have at any card show: Find one interesting non-sports card. I usually find more than one, but one of them takes the crown as most interesting. This one killed two birds with one stone as well.

Everyone loves Allen & Ginter. Well, most everyone. I usually love Allen & Ginter, but since it looks more like a Fleer product than something from the 1880's this year my passion has run a little cold. Metaphorically speaking,  sure, I'll sleep with 2011 A&G -I'll even call her the next day - but no way in hell am I spending Christmas at her parents' house. I don't give a crap if it might be Nana's last Christmas, I got things to do. The one thing in that set that keeps drawing me back is the Ascent of Man insert set. Dang, that is a fiiiiine looking set. All them organisms... breeding and breeding and breeding some more... Natural Selection working it's sexy magic... ultimately ending up with over-evolved neurotic slobs obsessing over expensive images on flimsy card stock... Awww YEAH baby! That's the stuff right there. Maybe I can come over for coffee and dessert on Christmas Eve, baby... knock down some spiked egg nogs with Nana. Party a little bit. Does Nana swing?

The set is beautiful, the artwork is fantastic, the subject matter irritates my local school board, there is only one thing wrong with the 2011 Allen & Ginter Ascent of man set.

It's only 26 cards.

For the Math-impaired out there, that's one card short of filling up three pages. ONE STINKING CARD. It amazes and bewilders me that in an industry catering to collectors that there is not one soul in the entire company who ever thinks about these things. The entire reason there IS a collectible card industry is because collectors are obsessive-compulsive about their collections! We like things neat and orderly! Give us an insert set that fits neatly in pages! All we needed was one. more. card! Throw us a bone, people!

So I got my Ascent of Man cards in pages. A little too late actually, because all the cards I had for that set were unfortunately involved in a rather disastrous tea-related incident. I was able to contain the damage, some stickers ended up kinda warped and half of my 2011 Update Braves team set was lost. The Ascent of Man cards - while soaked - somehow ended up looking better in my eyes for some reason. While there was definite water - um - tea damage and there were slight stains on the back and the edges were all gnarled up, they still looked really good to me. That's true love right there. Even if I've de-friended 2011 A&G from Facebook, I've still got that old fossil Ascent of Man on my speed dial.

Now I have my freshly antiqued Ascent of Man set in pages, but I need something to stick in that 27th pocket. Why not a vintage card? See for yourself:

The perfect cap for a set about Evolution: a 1952 Topps Look N See card of Charles Darwin. I especially like the look on Charles' face. He seems to be thinking: "How did we end up evolving into douchebags in just 100 years?" (I've got an idea). Here's Charles all by his lonesome for your gawking pleasure:

Here's Chuck in all his creasy, scuffed, scribbled, beardy, gorilla goodness. Coincidentally, Thorzul just posted another specimen from this set recently. It's less scuffed and more screamy, but it's not as good as - well, no. It's way more awesome than this one. But it doesn't fill up my Ascent of Man set as well does it!

Ok, technical stuff. This is one of Topps' earliest Non-Sport sets and features a mish-mosh of famous people from Presidents to artists to military leaders to daredevils to scientists. There's even a Babe Ruth card in there for all you baseball nuts. The Rembrandt card is short printed for some reason. Artists always get short shrift. This mess on the back is the gimmick for the set, if you put some red 'paper' over the card you get to see what Chucky Evo was famous for. I haven't actually looked at it through some 3-D glasses (or just used a filter in Photoshop) but I'm certain that Charles was famous for that epic beard. He also inspired a Vonnegut novel too! So, bonus. Of course now I have to figure out what to do with the card from Collective Troll expressing wonder about our origins that used to be holding down the 27th spot in the pages. I still need 10 more cards for the set and it's gonna be hard to find 'em in pristine tea-soaked condition so I think it should be ok for a while.

2011 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 5: Packs 13-24

All righty then. After essentially dropping the blog because there was too much stuff to do and not enough time and I really didn't care anymore anyway, I returned triumphantly on a herd of Little Ponies refreshed and renewed. And then started 14 more projects that I'm already hopelessly behind on and I still have no time whatsoever for any of them.

BUT - before I start neglecting all of those new projects I need to knock out one old one just for my peace of mind. The blog started in December '06 but it didn't really get cooking until I opened my very first hobby box  of Allen & Ginter in the summer of 2007. Since then I have meticulously opened a hobby box every single year including the one where I had to mug an old lady of her Social Security check just to be able to afford one. What? That food would have just made her fat anyway.

My 2011 box break did not go swimmingly. There were two awful relics in the first four packs. I don't like the design this year. The product released right when I hit the peak of my absolute disgust with baseball cards.  I got through half the box and gave up. Now that I'm in a better place collecting-wise, I want to knock this off my to-do list. Who knows? I might even bust a hobby box of 2012 A&G next year.

What I have no interest in is scanning all those damn cards. Eff that with a rusty chainsaw. Instead, I spread out all the packs over my immaculately clean desk. The same one all the Macigks come from. Behold my workspace:

This gif is seriously the best thing to watch while listening to techno music. It goes with anything.

My camera phone is kinda crappy, so I took closeup photos of each individual pack for those of you with older eyes or ones with bad eyesight. I guess I'll list the cards in each pack too. You all are so needy.

Pack 13

Mini Tasmainian Devil
J-HEY SHORT PRINT!!!11!1!!
Cheryl Burke
Pedro Ciriaco
Xavier Nady
Matt Garza
Yovani Gallardo
Floating Fortresses Mary Rose

Rarity is as surprised as I was when I saw J-Hey. Short print, dancing queen and 2 inserts in one pack. Not too shabby.

Pack 14

Mini A&G Supernanny
Jeremy Jeffress
Mark Trumbo
Scott Kazmir
Hanley Ramirez
King Felix jersey
Hometown Hero Brandon Morrow

If you're female, is it a prerequisite that you have to be in a Reality Show in order to get in this set? Felix is the best relic BY FAR I got in the box but I'm not attached to it at all.

Pack 15

Mini Babushka Lady
Smilin' Stan Lee
Michael Cuddyer
Ben Revere
Chone Figgins
Marco Scutaro
Aaron Hill
HH David Price

THIS is how apathetic I was about these damn cards. J-Hey, Smilin' Stan and a King Felix relic and I still couldn't be arsed to write a post about these packs. Stan's become one of my favorite cards in the entire brand though. There's a spoiler to one of my 14 projects in this pic somewhere

Pack 16

Mini SP Alex Gordon
Jordan Zimmerman
Joey Votto
Josh Johnson
Curtis Granderson
Edwin Jackson Code Bullcrap Thingy
Ascent of Man Chordates
HH Dexter Fowner

Anyone figured out that code thingy yet? I haven't been paying attention. Someone e-mail Clay Luraschi*  "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE" you might end up winning...

Pack 17

Mini SP John Buck
Jeremy Hellickson
Ozzie Martinez
Nick Swisher
Ian Desmond
Neftali Feliz
John Lester SP
HH Josh Hamilton

I used that ruler in 9th grade! I used that sharpie to write the address on my Nightmares On Carboard package! I still need to post that trade package! I still need to post ALL my trade packages! I never throw out my scratch paper! Short prints, blah blah. Hambone's from Raleigh?

Pack 18

Mini SP Gio Gonzalez
Ryan Howard
Ricky Romero
Carlos Ruiz
Miguel Cabrera
Jayson Werth SP
Dallas Braden Sketch
HH Danny Valencia
Code Ad Thingy

Ponies, stickers, Knucksie, Braves stadium cup from 2009, 5-Hour Energy, mini SP, big SP, sketch. I'm including the mini SPs in my main set this year. They're more common than the big ones.

Pack 19

Mini Aristocratic Freeloader Nuptuals with border as black as their souls
Jimmy Rollins
Wade Davis
Jose Reyes
Miguel Montero
Elvis Andrus
Brett Wallace SP
HH Derek Lowe

Does Kate Middleton have a reality show? Give her time... I probably could have sold that mini for big bucks a few months ago, couldn't I? Drats. Derek Lowe is the new Kenshin Kawakami.

Pack 20

Mini Snake Charming
Annika Sorenstam
Jered Weaver
Carl Crawford
Jonathan Broxton
Pablo Sandoval
Ryan Ludwick SP
Floating Fortresses La Gloire

Hooray! An actual female athlete! And a snake charmer and a boat! I can't take photos for crap, can I? Can't blame this one on the camera phone. If you squnit, you can see my Jack Daniels shotglass and the place where bad ponies go.

Pack 21

Mini Tonto is not the second to last one of anything ever
George W Bush
Carl Crawford
Alfonso Soriano
John Axford
Shin-Soo-Choo
AOM Hominoidea
HH Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford hot pack. What the smeg does Tonto have to do with Penultimacy? Someone e-mail Clay Luraschi**  "PENULTIMATE DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS" and you might win the Ginter Code if it hasn't already been won. Not even going to comment on Topps' putting G-Dub and a monkey in the same pack. Too close to election season for that.

Pack 22

Mini A&G Clay Buchholz
Evan Longoria
Lou Holtz
Carlos Pena
Marc Forgione
Drew Storen SP
HH Adam Wainwright

I'm a FAN of Allen & Ginter. Waka waka waka! There's a blaster of the stuff in the upper left corner I never bothered to post either. Not doing this again most likely though. I'm not entirely sure that mohawk + rapidly receding hairline is a good look, but what the hell do I know. Oh yeah, when Adam Wainwright went down this year I wrote off the Cardinals. That's what I know.

Pack 23

Mini Lars Anderson
Andrew Romine
Jo Frost
Kendrys Morales
Jonathan Papelbon
Nelson Cruz
Russell Martin SP
HH Jerek Deter

Two Yankees, Two Sox and a Nanny. Oy Gevalt. An actual non-short print non-parallel mini found its way into the pack at least. Those peanuts in the corner were purchased at the Braves-Phillies game the last series of the year. I munched the last of them while creating this post. No more ballpark peanuts for 6 months ;_;

Pack 24

Mini A&G Dan Haren
Mini Toto has as much to do with Penultimacy as Tonto, nice one Topps. Buy a f@$&ing dictionary
Carlos Zambrano
Casey McGeehee
Heath Bell
Jair Jurrjens
Eric Sogard
AOM Homininae
HH CJ Wilson

Penultimacy isn't even a word

The missing mini from pack 2 or 3 or whatever showed up in here. I got a gorilla too! That box on the left is an Ashton VSG Torpedo cigar box. I got it for two bucks at a cigar shop in Alpharetta and it makes a fantastic pencil case. Nope, I don't really have anything more to say about cards. I guess it's time to put the set in a binder. And make a want list. And put the minis in my FrankenSet. DAMMIT. This post was supposed to get things off my To-Do list!

*Does he still work for Topps? I really haven't been paying attention.
** I really have no idea.

Topps Ganks Pictures From Wikipedia - #1 Gharial

I've been thinking about doing this since about 2008 but never got around to it. The time is nigh.

Topps totally swipes pictures from Wikipedia for their cards. So what? We all do that too for our customs. Hell, we don't even bother to find pics in the public domain. We just do a Google Image Search and find one that looks cool. So it's no surprise Topps does a little bit of the Yoink! now and then. Or actually, all the time, especially on non-sports subjects. Here's the first in a long, long series on this blog unless lawyers get involved. Then I'll just post it somewhere else because

2011 Allen & Ginter - Gharial

Topps Crockagator

Wikipedia Crockagator

2011 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 4: Packs 9-12

INSERT WITTY OPENING HERE

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE PLACEHOLDERS

Pack 9:

86 Greg Halman
277 Hank Conger
270 Kevin Youkilis
87 Colby Lewis
173 Mariano Rivera
342 Mike Pelfrey SP
AP5 Endangered Critters - Gharial
MMF30 Minds that Made the Future - Michael Faraday

Looking at the Rivera card makes me realize that I miss the borderless designs. Ok, fine. We have logos now. I should shut up and be satisfied.  I can't remember how much they are worth in actual Gint-a-Cuffery, but every time I pull a Mind who made the Future card it feels like 100 points. The Michael Faraday card should be worth 96,485.3365 points. The Gharial is an crocodile with a long skinny snoot that lives (barely) in India. There's apparently only a couple hundred of them left. The one on the card is not from India, though, it lives in San Diego.

Pack 10:

234 Chrissie Wellington
159 Shawn Michaels
2 Ty Wigginton
118 Rafael Soriano
61 Brian Roberts
35 Adam Dunn
99 Placido Polanco Mini
HH99 Hometown Heroes Andrew Bailey
Ginter Binder ad

I'm sad Chuck Woolery is not in this pack because Chrissie Wellington and Shawn Michaels would make an adorable couple. The Adam Dunn card is nice because before Dan Uggla started channelling the spirit of Joe Dimaggio, Dunn was the one free agent pickup that made Dan look good. Can ya believe that out of the 4 players on the base cards in this pack, Ty Wigginton is the only one worth a darn this year?

Did Placido Domingo make the Frankenset? YES. Bumped a 2006 Jeff Francoeur mini.

Ok. Several Braves fans just had an aneurysm. A Phillie bumps a Brave?? from 2006??? Well, here's the deal. On either side of Jeff are other 2006 minis. One of whom is Chipper Jones. So Jeff goes to the Braves box. Oh God, I've made a horrible mistake haven't I? FrankenSets are serious bizniss.

Pack 11:

40 John McEnroe
254 Denard Span
291 Grady Sizemore
102 Wandy Rodriguez
BHS-7 CC Sabathia
312 Cody Ross SP
UG5 Uninvited Guests - The Amityville Haunting
MMF4 Minds that Made the Future - Nicolaus Copernicus
Ginter code ad - 8:45 3:15

It seems like for every dud pack like the last one, there's also a loaded pack with three inserts and a short print. Nice to have a card of the troublemaker that got Galileo in so much trouble.  John McEnroe is raging he wasn't in the last pack because now he's shut out of this post completely. I'm not crazy about the sketch cards this year. The border is way too big and the sketches are cropped rather close. Why can't Topps just do one set a year with all original art and give it a minimal border so the artwork can breathe? They couldn't possibly screw an idea like that up. Amityville Horror was one of those terrible '70s things that messed my mind up so badly when I was a wee little child. My only memories of seeing that movie as a child is lots of flies and a really dumb scene where some kid gets his hand smashed in a window and the blood that came out looked orange. I was more disturbed that this kid bled orange juice than by all the ghosty stuff. GET OOOOOOOOOOOUT of the fridge and don't spill your Sunny D on the windowsill!

Pack 12:

298 Peter Gammons
247 Yadier Molina
145 Victor Martinez
134 Matt Cain
BHS-18 Highlight Sketches - Stevie Stressbork
323 Orlando Hudson SP
274 Stan Lee Mini Black border
HH56 Brett Anderson Hometown Heroes
Ginter Code ad- 9:41

Ok, raise your hand if you have a Peter Gammons card from 1993. The inserts are coming in clusters with another Sketch card of a player I don't particulary care for. This card is proof that Topps is half-assing their sketches now. The sideways Strasburg looks ludicrous. I was being cute and posting the time on the clock in the mirror for all the code card ads I've pulled, but I just realized that the time is backwards since it is in a mirror. This is why I don't bother trying to figure out codes. Namely, because I am an idjit.

It seems like every year I pull one black border mini card that I absolutely adore. Stan Lee is this year's Super Black Border Card. The question is not if this card makes the set.

So, which card just became homeless due to the Stan Lee black border card taking over its slot in the FrankenSet?

OUCH. This is a pain that shall linger. Braves box saves the day. Check out all the #274s in the set:

2006 Moose Skowron
2007 Tim Lincecum RC
2008 John Smoltz
2009 Josh Hamilton
2010 Nick Markakis
2011 Smilin' Stan

Damn, 274 is a power number in A&G, isn't it.