2018 Allen & Ginter Box 4-8 Recap

Boxes one through three were pretty good to me. Since I got my case a day later than I thought I would, I actually didn't have time to open and really appreciate the rest of the boxes until this past week. Here we are though with all the fun highlights from the middle portion of the case! I stopped at box number eight because I'm reserving my historically lucky box number nine for Ginta-Cuffs. Hopefully that'll work out again!

Clearly, these were not the only two blacks minis from these five boxes as you get two to three per box, but these were definitely the highlights. A far cry from the first three boxes, but still happy with these.

It's not often that I highlight A&G back minis, cause I kinda hate them, but when you pull both of your favorite team's premier rookies in the same box, you get a bit excited.

Skipping straight to the autos here with nothing super special. Two rookie autos is pretty nice with Bader getting a significant amount of playing time this year and Fried being one of the Braves better pitching prospects.

Can't say I was all that excited about this Matt Olson auto, but I also don't think I've seen this guy even take an at-bat. The A's aren't a team we see much of up here in New England too often. That said, this kid is both young, and seems to have quite some power.

The first of (probably) two rips cards supposedly contained in the case features Evan Longoria. I'll be ripping this on video later this week and hopefully we'll see something good pop out.

Here's the last of the 'special' hits from these five boxes with the Altuve framed relic. In the past few years, you can pretty much expect to hit two boring full-sized relics along with one other hit per box. Whether that hit ends up being a rip card, auto, or framed relic varies among boxes, but that's generally how these boxes map out and these five were no exception.

Speaking of boring full-sized relics, here they are! Not too much to write home about. Also, notice anything? These are almost all baseball players with Paige Spiranac being the only exception! That's a bit frustrating!

My first Brooklyn back mini of the case is a Washington National. Bleh.

This is super cool! Here's Topps' mystery gag for Ginter this year. You can almost see it if you look really close at the border on this mini, but it's slightly textured. In fact, the entire back of the card is slightly textured and that's really the only way you can tell that you just pulled something special; you feel it. 

This mini glows in the dark! From what I can gather, these seem to be roughly case hits, and even though they aren't actually numbered, they're probably limited to around roughly ten copies per subject. I'm relatively happy with the Stugotz pull, as he's one of the few overblown radio hosts that I slightly appreciate. Just the fact that he is an ESPN employee that is highly recognized makes me happy as well.

Finally, one of these boxes was a hot box where every base card in the box was instead a glossy parallel. We got the two hyped Braves rookies again!

Hey, rookie hot box! :D No Ohtani unfortunately though. 

These cards are interesting. As I mentioned, they're glossy in nature, not foil like last year (which I happen to have liked a lot better). The background is adjusted to this dark gray color, which is alright I guess, but I like the look of the standard base card better. The rarity and completionist in me is truly the only thing that attracts me to these... and yes, I will be building this set, so send me your extras. :p

My two favorite 'objects' from this year's set featured on glossy parallels. These are far cries from the inanimate objects we've seen in past sets which I'm slightly angry at.

Finally my favorite player alongside the game's best player! I was so sad when Newcomb missed out on a no-no last night by one strike. You could tell that he was utterly exhausted coming off that mound... I guess 134 pitches will do that to you. Of course, Winkler comes in and has to spoil the shutout as well.

Not too bad for five boxes. Pretty "standard" if you will, but I certainly not upset at the results! More to come!

2018 Allen & Ginter Box 1-3 Recap

Here's a nice big long run down of what I found in my first three boxes of this year's Allen & Ginter.

This year's base cards. They're fine. I really like the border of this design. The nameplate, the background, the old style filter on the picture... all tried and true. The papery, scroll effect on the bottom is a little much though. I keep wanting to peel the card up and find out what's underneath.

One other thing to note is the three different colored borders here. They seem to be the only border colors throughout the entire set (grayish, brownish, and turquoisey). I would assume the border colors are consistent from card to card, but you never know with Ginter... I'll have to check my dupes once I start getting them.

Here was a little dilemma I came across yesterday. This was the only horizontal mini I pulled from the three boxes. Note how the image is entirely different from that of the base card. Very confused.

All of this year's full sized inserts. These last two are of the larger 50 card variety, thought the moons and baseball equipment easily win my votes for favorites. Note that I have absolutely zero clue who Tzu-Wei Lin is... my guess is that he was chosen for this set simply because he's from Taiwan. 

Here's the mini inserts in this year's Ginter. These also happen to be the first one's I pulled from each set. That means Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown wins Contest #4 for guessing 2 out of 6 correctly! Congrats buddy!

Side note: I announced the winner of Contest #3 earlier in the week on video. For those that didn't watch; congratulations to Greg of Night Owl Cards!

I actually really like all of these inserts. The first three for the subject matter. The postage required set is not really something that would typically interest me, but the execution from the few cards I pulled so far seems quite good. I didn't initially think I would like the hot peppers set, but it's so off the wall that it has since grown on me a bit. Finally, I adore the design of these flag cards. I loved the cards from the original 1880's, from 2009, and these are going to be no different. There's just something about flags that I really appreciate.

Some full sized relics. Meh.

Two Mets autos and a Mookie. The Strawberry is kinda cool. I can't remember the last time he's had a certified autograph.

A NNO mini parallel of The Rocket.

Some REALLY nice black minis.

Oh, whoops... I skipped the nicest black mini. Did I win the lottery?

Here's one of the three box toppers I pulled (the other two were baseball players). According to the checklist, these are limited to 500 copies. Even still... I'll be chasing this set. They're pretty.

And finally, the highlight of the first three boxes. These black framed autos are either numbered out of /25 or /10. I'll be redeeming it, just because I want to see it in hand. After that, I don't really know, though I'll probably hold onto it. Side note: Topps is telling us to get better at MATH.

Definitely a great start.