Ginter has been good to me.

I like Allen & Ginter, it is pretty apparent I guess. What I am finding out however, is that Ginter has a soft spot for me as well. It started to come to my attention with my two rip cards that I pulled from hobby packs recently. But the final straw that got me to say, "ahh I love you too Ginter." was this Strasburg Mini I just pulled from a Target retail pack.

Sending cards 2010 Week 1

I can't believe that my first regular season attempts will be going out in mid July, but here they are.

Garret Anderson

Mr. Anderson (not played by Keanu Reeves) was a staple for the Angels organization for a while, and was there when I started following them in 2002 (due to my moving to Los Angeles, not so much because of the WS win). This would be a nice additions, well, they all really are.

Melky Cabrera

I actually am sending this one, because I also wanted to send the following card.

Melky Cabrera

I pulled it from a National Chicle pack and thought it would look great signed.

Chris Young

Mr. Young was one of the first cards I attempted when I started this blog. I want to retry. My first attempt may have been handicapped by a could of things. First, I printed the letters from my computer, rather than handwriting them. Second, I had sent the first attempt to Mr. Young when he was demoted to the minors.

How Topps got me stuck on National Chicle

A while back, with Allen & Ginter still not out yet, and 2010 series 1 completed this new product caught my eye at a my local Target. Topps National Chicle.

Hmm. "All-painted series," I do like this genre of cards. Turkey Red, Masterpiece, and Ginter, might as well see what this set has got. So I picked up one pack.

Then Topps clicked the handcuffs on my wrists and bound me to this set. Now I am not saying I will try to complete this set or anything, but what I am saying is that a pack of these always seems to end up in my cart when I am doing my shopping. Why? Here is why. This was the third card in my first pack.


Such a beautiful card. The signature is crisp and clean and the way the card is designed, it looks fantastic. Of the Authentic auto cards that I have, this is one of my favorites. I really don't know who Mr. Desmond is, sorry I don't, but it doesn't matter to me.

The Eighth TMM Success this Year

In the time that I have been neglecting this blog, Joe Nathan was kind enough to send back a signed card for my son and I. I can't say how long it took because I waited too long to post, but I can say that Mr. Nathan is very good at responding to TTM requests in a timely manner

Thanks Joe!

A Taste of the new Ginter

I am not sure why but 2009 Allen and Ginter really didn't get me excited. Maybe I was still hung up on 2008 and needed a cool down. 2010 however has given me the baseball card fever again.

Upon hearing the news that Upper Deck would no longer be able to field an Major League Baseball product, my expectations for 2010 were low. I had not been impressed with the Topps base set for years. 2009 was not bad (meaning, I didn't HATE it), but I expected Topps to mail it in with no competition. I was very much mistaken. 2010 Topps has been, in my opinion, the best Topps set in years. I completed the first series pretty early, and I am pretty sure I am close on the second series already. I will have to find time to organize it later.

All of this new excitement for Topps product this year must have feed into the anticipation for the new Allen & Ginter set. A couple weeks ago I stopped by my local card shop and I saw the owner had a box of the Ginters. I was thrilled.

First a little back story on this shop. I go there because it is very close to my house, maybe two or three blocks. As far as prices and service, I dread going there. The gentleman that owns it has no knowledge what so ever of the product, and hovers as you scan the wall of packs to see what you want. I learned early not to chat about the product with him. The first time I did I ended up debating him for a short time that 2008 Ginter indeed came with EITHER a cabinet or an N43's. See he had apparently opened only two boxes that season and got both cabinet cards. Therefore it must mean that they stopped making the N43's.

After seeing the box of 2010 Ginter's I noticed that he had no open boxes to sell individual packs. He tells me that he only has one box and he is only going to sell it unopened. I was a little bummed, but OK it's his box.

"People only want to buy the full box, they want the Strasburg rookie."

"I haven't seen the retail packs yet, do you know when they are coming out?" I asked

"There are no retail Ginters" he scoffs

"Really?" I knew it was starting again, "They had them in 2008 and 2009, they stopped this year?"

"Allen and Ginter is only hobby".

And so I left. How I wish I could enjoy his shop. He doesn't have to do much to keep me coming back, because I want so badly to enjoy his store. Yet, he still manages to annoy me so much that I can actually leave a shop full of baseball cards empty handed. A feat that on willpower alone is near impossible.

Later this last week I Googled a hobby shop near work and was able to pick up two packs. My second pack I got a Mark Reynold base which I was very happy to find.

Then, to my bank accounts chagrin, my local Target was graced with the beauty that is Ginter. Caught up in the new set, and with the knowledge that my family budget will not allow for a hobby box, I scavenged through my collection to find cards I could sell to fund my addiction. You can view my feeble attempt here.

So with no money to buy a hobby box, and starving on the small amount of Ginter I can glean from the retail packs, I had to do something. I did what any self-respecting Baseball card addicted blogger would do, I bought some Ginter relics on E-bay. (would you believe I wrote this entire post, just to show them off.)



I picked up a Stephen Drew, and two Mark Reynold bat cards. I had to get two Reynolds you see, combined shipping dictated it.

Rip Card Goodness

It has been a while since I was able to sit down and put up a blog post. Since that time a lot has happened, but the one that really sent me for a spin was being diagnosed with ADHD. This is a baseball card blog so I won't get into it, but finding out that you have been living with something like this (and apparently my case is pretty severe) for 30 plus years and never knowing, well that is a lot to swallow.

Anyway. The fun stuff.







A while back I picked up a random pack of 2009 Allen and Ginter's and my luck struck again with another rip card. This time I figured I would open it up and enjoy the experience.

First off, this was a 2009 with the black shielding on the card, so there was no sneak peaking with the rip.



The card was pretty solid, I didn't feel like I was going to get an out of controlled rip going. The only thing I was concerned about was to do as little damage to the original card as possible. Rip card or not, the designs themselves are very nice.



The rip card ended up containing an extended mini of Joba Chamberlain. I could have done better, but I could have done a lot worse.


I have no idea how much this card is worth, I figure that the rip card was worth more unripped than with the out come. It was my second pull and it would have nagged at me, if I would had sold both unripped. I will end with a clean scan of the extended mini.