What to Buy: Part 3 - Topps Allen and Ginter

Third up, the massive hit for Topps this year, Allen and Ginter. Based on a card design from the 1800s, this set not only recongises baseball players, but other prominent sportspeople, politicians and actors etc. It also has an insert set of Flags of the World. This product has apparently been huge in the states, and heaps of people are way into it. These boxes go for about $100 to $120 US. This is perhaps attributable to the huge demand for these cards.




I have to say I am not all that fussed by the base set. While they are obviously going for the traditional Allen and Ginter look, I am not a huge fan. It doesnt have the same appeal as a beat up old raggedy 1887 card:


Part of Allen & Ginter's big deal is that they produced cards across a whole range of things and people. These honoured famous military figures, sportsmen, and 'American Editors'! This is kind of cute I guess, but not really what I want in a set, I'm in it for the baseballers, not the history lesson.


So in the 2007 Allen and Ginter, rather than getting a card in a tobacco packet, you get a box of 24 packs of 6 cards. The breakdown includes:

• 2 Autos, Relics, Printing Plates, A&G Originals or Rip Cards per box
• there are 274 veterans and 31 rookies in the set
• there are also 25 'Historic Figures' and 20 'World Champions'
• Dick Perez original 1/1s - 30 in all, available in the Rip Cards
• 30 Allen & Ginter autos hand numbered to 10 in red pen
• 40 mini cards that can only be found in Rip Cards
• Parallel Mini cards printed on Wood - only found in rip cards, all 1/1
• inserts: one per pack out of 'Mini Flags' (50 flags of the world, 1 in 12 packs); 30 Dick Perez sketches reproduced (1 per pack); Cut Signatures featuring ten world leaders, all 1/1; framed auto cards (at least 60 competitors from the base set, including 30 non-baseball players, on mini cards framed to the standard size); framed relic cards including 15 non-baseball players; bought back original A&G cards framed to the standard size; box loader (1 per box) can be 1 of 15 original style N43 cards, a relic N43 numbered to 25, a N43 auto numbered to 10
• a whole heap of other crazy mini inserts and others I cant be bothered with.

Therein lies my problem with this set. Too much. Too much in the way of crazy inserts. Too much in terms of non-baseball. Too much to make it possible to collect them all. Too much of a gimmick. I dont care about a Bruce Lee card, or a George Washington DNA card. Sure they may be great rips because they will pick up a ton on ebay, but it is just boring to me. Is it just over-hyped? I think so, and I think it is a bit artificial in terms of collectability.

This is something that irks me about cards at the moment. Companies trying to make things collectable. To me things should have an attraction based on some personal connection to the card. Popularity should be related to a personal feeling towards the subject of the card, not simply liking something because it is popular, or because it is a short print. I am more of a set collector I think, and even if I dont end up collecting a whole set, I like to be able to do so if I want to. And I want the cards to be related to baseball. Not to politics, or acting, or flags! Allen and Ginter seems to way out for me I think.

So, I think I have made a decision.

NO!!! to Topps Allen and Ginter. Certainly not at more than a hundred bux a box.

What to Buy Part 2: UD Elements

Next up for consideration is Upper Deck's Elements:

These boxes are going for about US$75 at the moment, and you get 15 packs of 3 cards. So looking at about $1.70 per card. They are bloody great looking cards, I already have a couple of singles I picked up off ebay.

According to the release notes, each box contains 3 mini-boxes of 5 packs. Each box will contain 1 autographed game used, 1 autograph and 1 memorabilia card. They have some crazy different card technologies. Each mini-box features a different technology.

The first is 'foil board', which contains 42 cards on foil board, 42 rookies, 'Essential Elements' Memorabilia cards (1 per mini-box), dual, triple and quad elements cards falling 1 per case on average. There are also Elemental Autographs featuring 2, 3 or 4 signatures. And of course there is the 'snowball's chance in hell card' the 1/1 printing plates.

The auto cards look pretty sweet, and if lucky enough to hit one of the multi signed ones, you'd be cheering. There some awesome looking cards, with top players signed on them. There are 'multis' with Hanley Ramirez, Tulowitzki and others, Jeter, Ramirez and Tejada, and Cal Ripken and Jeter. Representing the Padres are Kouzmanoff and Peavy.

Mini-Box 2 is called 'Lt Fx Technology' and features 42 base cards, 42 rookies, and elemental autos falling one per mini-box. Despite wasting about half an hour on google, I have been unable to find out exactly what the heck 'Lt Fx Technology' is. Anyways, I shall move on.

Mini-Box 3 is PETG technology (google tells me this is something to do with polyethylene-terephthalate). It is pleasing to know that if the cards are shit, they will make excellent use in many shop fitting and display applications, including industrial guarding and machine covers! Awesome! Topps is still using chrome, but UD are leading the way in cutting-edge, useless card material. I want to see someone come out with some titanium cards, or maybe even kryptonite! But I digress. The mini-box 3 contains 42 base cards on PETG, 42 rookies as well, some 'clear-cut elements' and parallels, PETG auto/memorabilia cards numbered to 350 or less and rare 'elements patches' foil numbered patch cards falling 2 per case on average.

This all sounds pretty good to me. By this time i am really liking the look and the sound of them. The whole 3 mini-box thing is a bit of a gimmick I think, but it sounds kinda cool. I havent been able to find too many reviews though, so I dont know what the deal with that is. There are a few mixed reviews on the Beckett forums, but the negative reviews seem to be mostly from Topps lovers, or UD haters - however you want to class them. I am not a Topps lover, and am open minded about UD. While I didnt really love the UD Series 1 cards this year, UD Goudey was pretty awesome.

I like the look of these cards a lot more than the co-signers. The checklist seems a bit more favourable to my tastes too. Hmmm, food for thought.

What to buy?

I am trying to figure out how I should spend some extra cash I have come into. I have about $200 and want to buy some box(es). I'm going to look at a few that seem ok, and compare them on a number of factors here, then I will decide what to buy and start breaking.

So, the criteria will be

• price
• number of cards/price per card
  likelihood of good hits
• look of set.

First up, 2007 Topps Co-Signers:

This box goes for $69.95 at Dave & Adam's Cardworld. Recent ebay purchases have been for between $50 and $80. Each box has 12 packs of 6 cards. So at $70 a box, it works out to be about a buck per card.

There are 3 autos per box, including 1 co-signer auto, and you get 9 parallel cards numbered to 275 or less per box. So you get 5 base cards per pack, and then 1 parallel/auto each pack. The set is 100 including veterans and rookies, and 18 additional young stars appear in some parallels too.

The commons look a bit boring:

The checklist for the base set has all the regular stars you would expect. 200 to collect, so would need a few boxes to get there.

The list of autos is not too bad, could possibly hit some dodgy autos, but there are plenty of stars on there too. Lots of crappy autos up on ebay going for less than 5 bux. Plenty of good reviews on the net though, and with the numbered cards being one per pack, and the guaranteed autos, they seem to be a pretty good, fun product.

Might keep an eye out for some cheap prices, just to make it really worth it.

MLB Box Break - 2007 Ultra

Broke a box of 2007 Ultra the other day. Nice cards. The photography is real nice, and the borderless design looks real fresh after staring at stacks of Topps 2007 cards. I think I like this design a lot better than the Topps one. I remember the Ultras I had in the early 90s looked good too. I think my biggest complaint with these is that it is pretty hard to read the players full name and details at the bottom of the card. But they do actually have the position shown on the front, which I like.

So we got 6 packs, 5 cards per pack.

Commons


Jeff Francouer, Tim Hudson, Josh Beckett, Jermaine Dye, Grady Sizemore, Matt Holliday, Justin Verlander, Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez, Brad Lidge, John Buck, Rafael Furcal, Justin Morneau, Tom Glavine, Carlos Beltran, Eric Chavez, Jamie Moyer, Pat Burrell, Greg Maddux, Raul Ibanez, BJ Upton, Rocco Baldelli, Mark Teixeira, Nick Johnson







Rookies

Mike Rableo, Jay Marshall



Parallels

Vladimir Guerrero Gold Parallel



Inserts

Miguel Cabrera Faces of the Game

Cal Ripken Jr Iron Man UIM-33

Ryan Braun (MIL) Lucky 13 RC

They look good

I like that

And there are only 200 in the set, tempting to buy some more and try and complete it. This was a fun break cause the cards are so good to look at. But with only 5 cards a pack and 6 packs in this box it was over pretty quick!

MLB Box Break - Upper Deck Artifacts 2007

Picked up a blaster box of Upper Deck Artifacts off Ebay. Not a bad looking set, has a bit of an archaelogical sort of desert/pirate/indiana jones type feel to it.

There were 8 packs with 5 cards per pack, but somehow I ended up with 41 cards... and I scored a few nice hits. Ended up hitting 40 out of the set of 200, with no doubles, a couple of ok rookies, some Padres cards, and an Artifacts Apparel Gold Edition game used card for Khalil Greene:



Also hit the A-Rod common:



and a Kevin Kouzmanoff rookie:





All in all it was a pretty good box. Its something different I guess, and with only 200 cards in the set, it seems pretty easy to get the full set.. at least compared to the Upper Deck Series One Set. Maybe I will pick up a few more boxes and see how I go.

bustin boxes

i got a couple of boxes in the mail this week: a hobby box of 2007 Topps Series One baseball, and; a Jumbo Hobby box of 2007 Topps Series Two. I have already cracked a hobby box and about 10 blaster boxes of Series One, and this was my first Series Two. I was hoping to complete the Series One set, go close to the Series Two set, and maybe get some nice inserts. here are some of the highlights:

Alex Rodriguez Gold Parallel #1908/2007

Joe DiMaggio and JFK Distinguished Service Cards

Daisuke Matsuzaka Rookie Card and Japanese Variation

Craig Wilson and Paul Konerko Season Highlights

Overall, a bit disappointing. Out of all the series 1 boxes i have opened, the best cards came from the retail blaster boxes. the guaranteed game used and relic cards in the series 2 box were a bit of a let down, but i did get 304 out of 330 of the base set, and some nice looking inserts:

the first post - a renewed interest

One of the main catalysts for my recent explorations of the internet has been my renewed enthusiasm for baseball card collecting. Back when it was the cool things to do in the early 90s, you could actually go into a store here and buy a packet or (gasp) even a box of baseball cards. There was a great chain of card stores called "The Card Shaq", and you could even buy boxes at department stores like Grace Bros! Now, since the bubble has apparently burst, there does not seem to be a single physical card store in the whole state! And those on the net all seem to be heavily focused on basketball, which was never my sport of choice. So, that left me to explore the mainly American sites to scratch what became quite a significant itch. I don’t know what it was, perhaps I am going through a quarter life crisis and want to relive the golden days of my youth? Maybe that’s also why I have taken to wasting hours playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 as well?

Anyways, I found a dealer for my habit in ebay, and ordered a few blaster boxes of Topps 2007 Series One baseball. This series apparently generated a lot of publicity and gained popularity through an “error” card featuring Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees, with George W Bush and Mickey Mantle air-brushed into the background. However, none of this excitement was heard in my neck of the woods.

Although the cost of shipping these little treasure troves of goodness from half a world away was enough to make me think twice, I was relieved to find that the magic of opening fresh boxes and packets has not been lost, even though it was more than 10 years since I last cracked a pack of 1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice. The smell. The sharp edges on the cards. The excitement of trying to pull a great card. Even my girlfriend got drawn in by it all. After a short while and with packets lying everywhere, she pulled this beauty:

A Hanley Ramirez Season Highlights Auto. With a Beckett value between $10 and $25, this quickly became the pride and joy of my so far quite unimpressive collection, and perhaps Hanley will be someone I try and collect more of in the future. His stats at the moment are pretty impressive, and he is in the top ten in MLB for batting average, hitting .333.

After enjoying blasting through six blaster boxes I then invested in a hobby box to try and hit a few inserts, and complete the set. While I didn’t hit any inserts as good as the Hanley auto, I did get a few nice A-Rod cards, some Distinguished Service inserts, and I almost finished the set. And yes, I got the Jeter card!

So to finalise my first real post, here is my want list to complete series one before I move on to series 2. If you are interested in trading send me an email.

TOPPS 2007 SERIES ONE BASEBALL
6 – Edgar Renteria
7 – Mickey Mantle
36 – Gregg Zaun
81 – Ian Kinsler
163 – Dave Roberts
170 – Chien-Ming Wang
275 – Greg Maddux
281 – Chris Narveson (RC)
301 – Derek Jeter (GG)