(For a full listing of all Wax Heaven reviews, click HERE)
When I returned to collecting in 2007 all anyone wanted to talk about was Allen & Ginter. By the time I was able to find a Hobby box ($185 at B.C. Sports) I felt like I got a kick in the gut. Sure, the cards were nice and there was not a sticker autograph to be found but for that outrageously inflated price, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
That bad taste remained in 2008 when after one lone retail blaster I decided to skip Allen & Ginter altogether. Everything looked identical to the previous year’s release and I was still seeing the same boring relics being pulled, along with autographs of subjects who did not deserve them.
This year has been a tough one for baseball as we have been hit with many less than desirable products. As usual, the Allen & Ginter hype began early but would Topps be able to wipe away my memory of the B.C. Sports’ criminally insane price of ‘07 A & G?
Below is my review of 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter.
Design: A
Almost perfect, this year’s design is a welcomed change from previous A & G releases. The base cards feature amazing photography/artwork, the black border parallel looks unbelievable and the Brian Kong sketches work well as an insert.
The only reason A & G didn’t get a perfect “A+” is because of the framed “hits”, which now too need a makeover of some kind. It will be a challenge but if we see Allen & Ginter in 2010 it would be best to try something new for relics and autographs or do something new with the frames.
Price: B
You are going to get close to 200 of the best-designed cards of 2009 from $90-$100 dollars, along with your guaranteed three “hits”. The only way to save Allen & Ginter at this price point is to increase the size of the relics an inch or two. I wouldn’t be so disappointed with a Bill Hall bat relic if it were an above average size.
Pulls: A-
I scored an on-card autograph of a Negro League star, a decent-looking relic of Chase Utley, and Mike Cameron. It certainly could have been a lot worse. If you’re all about “hits” this box was right up your alley, considering I also pulled a hand-numbered mini.
Overall: A
Perfect design, well-done parallels, sketch cards, and on-card autographs make Allen & Ginter easily the best baseball product of 2009. It’s treading on dangerous ground by not changing up the relic and autograph design and including some not so interesting subjects in the non-sports checklist but aside from that Topps could do no wrong.
P.S. – Not a single Andrew Miller pulled!
(thumbnails lead to full-size scans)
I was able to get 6 boxes of this stuff which was against my better judgment. I will be posting on my site what I pulled and I will say that some of the cards have a harder pull rate than apparently listed on the wrappers. Overall I was pleased at the cards and there was no damaged products at all which is a first for me with Topps.
You know you have to give that Red Moore card to dayf, right. I mean, you just gotta. To keep that from him would be terrible, who knows what he might do?
Yeah, did you see his reaction to when he pulled a base card of Red Moore. Give it to dayf, I mean, he nominated the base card for card of the year!
not bad, love the Red Moore card.
Mario – no mention of the Ginter code…is that because I cracked it yesterday??
Hoping to hear from Topps this morning…I’ll keep you posted.
Did you pull a Steve Wiebe?
I have a Andrew Miller mini I can give you.
picked up a case and got 2 rip cards #’d/50
dont know if i should rip one and keep the other or rip both!
Are you able to see throught the rip card, as was the case in 2007?
It was the hologram sticker for autographs that you could see in the 2007 Allen & Ginter by holding the card up to the light somehow. I pulled an autograph last year out of a rip card (Matt Kemp 2/10 – red signature) and there was no hologram sticker on the back of the card. I’ve noticed that Topps did not put hologram stickers on the 2009 Topps Finest autographed cards either. It looks like Topps has stopped the practice of authenticating its autographed cards with holograms. I doubt that Topps would start again with rip cards in A & G so without the hologram, there would be no way to know if the card inside is autographed.
A few people have posted rip card “live” rip videos on YouTube. Looks like they surrounded the mini card with black cards on both sides so that it can’t be seen using the light trick.
Does anyone know if the low-numbered rip cards have better minis? Or are you just as likely to pull a rare mini out of a #/99 rip card as a #/5?
no TSW, i think there the same. Mario, do you why that mini card is numbered to 50? is it a short print or what?
Not a bad set for the baseball cards, but I always have a hard time dealing with the non-sports cards in these sets, such as Florence Nightingale and Electron