Cardboard Junkie

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 10

2009-07-14T19:40:00.000-04:00

ANDY HAS DIED OF ~~DYSENTARY~~ GINTERARY

At least he went quickly before I posted the other 14 packs...

268 Andy Pettitte
169 Kazuo Matsui
241 Trevor Cahill RC
228 Will Simpson/Archie Bunker
218 Bobby Parnell RC
272 Brad Nelson RC
LMT1 BIGFOOT
NP48 Jorge Cantu

BIGFOOT SIGHTING!!!!

No matter what else happens with this box, Bigfoot has made it a rousing success. I'm going to collect the magical critters set. I don't know how, but I'm gonna do it. The rest of the pack is pretty meh. Pettitte is nice but three rookies I've never heard of is not. Mexico gets some love in the National Pride set. The Will Simpson card has weirded me since I saw it on the checklist. Archie Bunker is NOT a horse.

He's right ya know...

Mini Mall pt. 4 - Cheapo packs

2009-07-14T13:47:00.000-04:00

I wasn't planning to get any packs at the flea market, but you know how that goes. The packs I got were all discounted however. I got two baseball packs at 35% off their original price but I'm saving them for video rips. I also got some A Pack To Be Named Later fodder for whenever I can find the time to start posting over there. One weekend I'm just going to lock myself in the basement with my laptop and write up about 50 pack rips all at once. You'll see the baseball packs in good time, here are the dregs I pulled out from the dime box:

1989 Topps New Kids On The Block JUMBO

You think this is bad? You have no idea the depths of my cruelty.

2000 Upper Deck Battlefield Earth

Bwahahahahaaa! I told you I got worse! The only good thing about this pack is that there are only three cards.

1999 Precedence Tomb Raider CCG

See, I'm not all that cruel. I am sexist, however, as I just want a nice Lara Croft card to add to my collection of pretty girl cards.

2001 BanDai Gundam M.S. War TCG - Endless Waltz

This pack has Japanese robots in it I think. Do we need more than that?

2005 Wizards of the Coast Codename: Kids Next Door TCG

The cartoon is nothing to write home about but there are 2 game stick-ahs inside so that's good, right?

Ok these packs all suck. BAD. So I also got a couple of these beauties:

1992 Panini Star Trek: The Next Generation stickers

If he had even one sticker album, I would have run to the bank and bought him out of these packs. There were no albums however, so I just got a couple of them at a quarter a pop. I will admit, I am an Original series Purist, but recently my undying loyalty to Kirk has been wavering a bit. I - I'm a bit nervous to even be admitting it, but Picard... Well, Caprtain Picard really is a bad Mickey Fickey. Sure, Kirk beat up a Gorn after his shirt got badly torn, but Picard had Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Dammit, Picard is every bit as cool as Kirk, just in his own way.

Oh God... what did I just say... Forgive me James, I'm sorry. You banged more green aliens than Picard ever did anyway so you're still cool to me...

Despite my newfound admiration for Picard, I'm not all that familiar with the NextGen series. For about a year or so every time I tried to watch an episode it was that damn one where they land on the planet of Annoying Zero-Tolerance Yuppie Scum and Wesley Crusher trips over a bush and falls into some stupid forbidden thing and gets sentenced to death and everybody freaks out and GOD I HATE THAT EPISODE. So I'll post a pack rip here, but I honestly haven't a clue what is going on with these stickers.

Here a dude wearing a suit made of moving pads stands on a transporter beamer thingy waiting to have every single atom in his body ripped apart at the speed of light, killing him instantly and flinging his spirit into oblivion while a perfect copy of his now soulless husk reappears on the planet surface below. While there, he remembers that he forgot his keys and calls back to the ship to go back and do it all over again. Serves him right for that suit.

In a very delicate diplomatic standoff, Picard faces off against the King of the Goofy Forehead Guys played expertly by the King of the Character Actors, Vincent Shiavelli. Picard is in danger of fouling up negotiations by gawking at Vincent's hideous suit, but deftly recovers by staring at his hideous nose job instead.

Yar goes back with Geordi LaForge to his apartment after a particularly succesful date for a little Reading Rainbow action and is dismayed to find the entire cast of Roots have dropped by for a visit.

Picard and Data spend an enjoyable evening playing a 26th century version of Operation.

If Worf didn't have such poor self-esteem he would be able to tell when the ladies were coming on to him. She wants to go out with you ya big dummy! No wonder he hasn't had a date since Stardate 2536.9.

What the hell? Did Yar just beat up a midieval midget? Pick on someone your own size you bully! That's no way to act at RenFest!

I'm probably completely wrong about these stickers but I don't care if the Trekkies get mad at me 'cause I like Star Wars better anyway!

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 9

2009-07-14T08:54:00.000-04:00

Check out the weirdly cut wrappers..

I love finding strange stuff like matching mis-cut wrappers in boxes I buy.

174 John Lannan probably -1 point

226 Ricky Romero

102 Edinson Volquez

48 BrighamYoung

225 David Price RC should be worth somethin

315 Andy LaRoche SP +5? points

242 Mark Teahen mini black border Too lazy to look up the point value, let's say +7ish

NP47 Ryan Howard NP

Price rookie... No one likes Ryan Howard... Too bad it ain't Adam... Sorry, just not in the mood to type about this pack. Maybe later.

I think it's Brigham Young messing me up. No caffiene, don't you know.

Three quickie contests

2009-07-13T19:34:00.007-04:00

It's the All Star break! The festivities! The majesty! The splendor! The really counting this time thing to cover Bud Selig's shrugging ass! The...

BOREDOM.

I'm sorry folks, I don't give a rat's patoot about this All-Star game. Don't even know why either. All I know is that if The Big Bang Theory isn't on tonight, I'm blowing something up. WITH LASERS.

However.... a lot of you probably don't share my crushing ennnui, so go over to Thorzul Will Rule for live coverage of the festivities and a contest!

Pick the Home Run Derby winner and win... something Brewerish.

That's not all, Punk Rock Paint is, um, well I don't know what the hell he's doing or even if he's still doing it. He's doing something though. You figure it out.

Finally, I seem to have inadvertantly won a contest on Dinged Corners. I wasn't really trying to win it, I just let logic and curiosity get the better of me.

SINCE I HAVE TOO MANY DANG CARDS IN THE FIRST PLACE...

I am holding my own derivitave contest based on their contest. Here's what you havta do:

GO HERE. LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY CARDS.

Now figure out what three cards I covet most in the order that I covet them. Post that guess in the comments.

Now for the trick.. Ever played Mastermind? For every guess made that is incorrect, I'll tell you how close you are. If you have the right card in the wrong spot, I'll give you an O. For every card that is in the correct spot, I'll give you an X.

For example: You guess three cards, #1 is completely wrong, #2 is in the right card in the right spot and #3 is the right card in the wrong spot, I would reply to your guess with an XO. You can keep on guessing, but you can't guess twice in a row or you'll be disqualified and not be allowed to guess again for 24 hours. Got it? Good.

Now guess:

and

from the cards on that page.

Winner gets something Allen & Gintery.

MrsTooth wins by correctly guessing:

#1 Beethoven Wood card
#2 The Silky Way
#3 YoYo Guy relic

Shoot me an e-mail and we'll work out a Gintery treat for you.

Thanks for playing!

Mini Mall pt. 3 - Nickel Braves: Mac and Chipper

2009-07-13T16:10:00.003-04:00

One thing the guy at the flea market always has is a cheap Braves box. I've seen it as high as 10 cents a card and during some blowouts at 2 cents a card. Normally though it's a nickel a pop, which is what is was this weekend. I usually take a cursory look through it, but often it's filled up with stuff I've already got like late '80s-early '90s commons. It had been refreshed with some new goodies though and there was lots of recent stuff in there. I started looking through for some cards I deemed to be worth a nickel when I discovered a wonderful thing:

CHIPPERS

Normally the Chippers are segregated in their own box, but not today. Everything was in the nickel box. I started scrounging and plunked down 4 bucks on the 5 cent cheapies. 80 cards is a lot for one post so I'm busting the lot into three sections. First up: Chipper Jones and Brian McCann.

Chipper Jones is my favorite player as everyone knows. Brian McCann is favorite 1-A, and in two or three years will be completely ahead of Chipper. There are literally thousands of Chipper cards out there but McCann cards are a little harder to come by. That's why out of the box, I left tons of Chipper cards but got one of every single McCann card I saw whether I had it already or not. Here's the haul:

2006:
Topps #362
Topps Updates & Highlights All-Star #UH258

2007:
Bowman #27
Upper Deck #265
Upper Deck First Edition #179

2008:
Topps #294
Bowman #61
Heritage #425

I'm kind of bummed that Mac is going to by himself at the All Star Game but he just keeps making the roster, doesn't he?

The Chippers were plentiful and I picked out 27 that I liked. I probably have some (most) of them, but who cares. Five cents for a Chipper Jones card! I should be arrested for stealing. Here are four I found interesting:

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends #81

This is one of my favorite sets of all time. The set was based on a Sporting News Top Players of All Time list and featured 50 Hall of Fame players and 50 comtemporary players with a few prospects thrown in for good measure. Chipper was ranked the #31st best player in the majors by Upper Deck in 1999.

1999 Sports Illustrated #98

Fleer's Sports Illustrated line are some really underrated sets. They're super glossy, have reasonably good photography and some really neat subsets. Too bad not many people know they even exist.

2002 Donruss Orininals #393

Donruss Originals was Donruss' entry into the retro craze. It crashed and burned like the Hindenburgh dive bombing right into Chernobyl. Donruss made a product featuring '80s designs (1982, 1984, 1986 and 1988), printed them up on really cheap cardboard (just like the originals) and then had the colossal gall to charge 3 bucks for 5 cards. The real insult was that Ted Williams puzzle piece cards were a hard to find INSERT. There obviously was no Orignals Two with the odd numbered year designs which sucks because those are my favorites.

2007 SP Authentic #1

I hardly ever buy packs of SP Authentic (foreshadowing) but I have to admit the design is usually very simple and clean. I really like the way this card here looks.

Here's the rest of 'em for completeness sake.

1997 Fleer checklist #494
1998 Pinnacle Performers Far and Away #143
1999 Collector's Choice #55
1999 Victory Big Play Makers #30
1999 Victory #32
2001 Fleer Tradition #70
2001 Fleer Platinum RC Team Leaders #459
2002 Topps Total Braves Checklist #TTC3
2003 Upper Deck #384
2003 Donruss #240
2003 UD Patch Collection #11
2004 Upper Deck Vintage #48
2004 UD Diamond Collection #8
2005 National Pastime #27
2006 Fleer Tradition #2
2006 Sweet Spot #15
2006 UD Artifacts #5
2006 Fleer #57
2007 Ultra #5
2007 Fleer #309
2007 UD Artifacts #36
2007 Upper Deck #261
2008 Co-Signers #023

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 8

2009-07-13T09:39:00.000-04:00

RED MOORE!

In a Braves uniform!

AAAWWWWWEEEESSSSSOOOOOMMMEEEE

3 Manny Parra
69 James Loney
194 Brandon Morrow
211 Kevin Millwood
128 Red Moore +2 points Negro Leaguer +1 Favorite team base card*
335 Justin Duchscherer SP +5 points
279 John Lester mini

NP45 Evan Longoria NP +4 points

RED MOORE: CARD OF THE YEAR

No card released this year can possibly be better than this one. None. Period. Just give it up now and start preparing for 2010. I'll talk more about Red Moore tonight as he is going to be given the honor of being the card of the week/month/year/decade/eternity.

* From commish: "A player will be identified with a team based on the uniform (jersey, hat, whatever) that is shown on that card." Braves uni, baby!!!

Mini Mall pt 2 - Minis from the Mini Mall

2009-07-12T21:45:00.000-04:00

I've got about two weeks worth of Flea Market stuff to post so let's get started. All of this stuff I'm about to show off I got from Sports Card Alley, which is probably the best dealer I've ever found. Tons of commons, boxes full of inserts, cases of relics and autos, packs galore, oddball stuff, full sets, even comics and Gaming cards. All for extremely good prices - nothing's jacked up here. I'm going to stick with the A&G theme just a little while longer and go with some 2008 mini cards I found.

I got all these from the same box which also had Topps205, 2007 Fleer and 2008 Goudey mini cards. I printed out a few checklists before I went, but the mini wantlist was sadly not one of them. So, I simply wiped out the box of all the A&Gs:

21 '08 A&G mini cards, all for the whopping price of 10 cents a pop. Five were A&G backs, the rest normal minis. I was hoping to fill in some pockets in my 2006-2009 A&G mini binder with these, here are the results:

Three cards were straight up duplicates. You have to expect that sort of thing when blindly picking out cards without a list though.
Three cards were 'upgrades' - basically ones where I had the normal mini and bought the A&G back in the lot.
Eight cards I didn't need for the set. I don't necessarily have doubles of them, I just already had better cards in my binder.
Three cards bumped out other cards from the binder. Remember, I'm building a mini set from 1-350 so if two cards have the same number one goes in the binder and one gets the boot. The booted cards were all from 2007: Carlos Guillen, Brian Bannister and Freddy Sanchez.
Four cards out of the original twenty-one filled up empty spaces in the binder.

A third of the cards went into the binder so I'm not unhappy with that. They only cost a dime after all. Gotta love the flea market!

Just Like a Mini Mall

2009-07-12T15:32:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-12T14:10:00.004-04:00

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

2009-07-11T22:29:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-11T21:07:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-11T17:00:00.001-04:00

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???

2009-07-10T19:11:00.002-04:00

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

...

Half the female population of Atlanta just committed suicide.

2009 Allen & Ginter Box Break: Pack 6

2009-07-10T16:07:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-10T12:17:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-10T07:49:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-09T21:18:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-09T16:17:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-09T13:17:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-09T08:17:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-08T22:13:00.001-04:00

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.

2009-07-08T19:10:00.000-04:00

Let the games begin...

Package from Joe - Part 3

2009-07-08T16:02:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-08T09:20:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-08T07:43:00.000-04:00

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...