Collect call: 2011 Allen & Ginter baseball

Posted Aug 16, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Aug 16, 2011 at 09:52 PM

I always eagerly look forward to the release of Topps’ Allen & Ginter baseball card sets every summer because of its diversity, sharp design and compelling inserts.

The 2011 version certainly lives up to the hype.

There are a few tweaks to this year’s set, most notably in the card front design. This year, each card front is ringed by gold piping, and there is a team logo in the bottom right-hand corner. At the bottom of the card, the distinctive Allen & Ginter header is set against what I can only describe as a 1920s-like wallpaper motif. The card backs retain the same format that has been used since the product debuted in 2006.

And in addition to the baseball veterans and rookies, Allen & Ginter offers several interesting cards in its 350-card base set. For example, the set includes game show host Chuck Woolery; boxers Ava Julaton and Manny Pacquiao; Matt Guy, the “King of Cornhole” (that’s bean bag toss, by the way); Maxim Shmyrev, winner of the 2011 International Ping Pong Championships; and BMX biking champion Mat Hoffman.

Notable rookies include Chris Sale, the Lakeland native who had an outstanding collegiate career at Florida Gulf Coast College and now is in the Chicago White Sox organization.

Now for the breakdown. A hobby box contains 24 packs, with eight cards to a pack. The box I sampled yielded 224 base cards out of the 350-card set, plus three cards that were marked with the special A&G code that collectors can try to crack for major prizes (this year’s winner will receive a special codebreaker set of every 2011 A&G framed autograph subject.

There are some interesting autograph cards this year, too: Picabo Street, John McEnroe, Nancy Lopez, Larry Holmes, Stan Lee, Hope Solo and Dick Vitale, to name just a few.

There are also 20 cut autographs of U.S. presidents: some big names, like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower; and some of the less famous, like Millard Fillmore, Chester A. Arthur and James Buchanan. More recent presidents like Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and current president Barack Obama are also part of the set.

Back to the inserts. The hobby box I sampled had 18 Hometown Heroes cards (out of a possible 100). Other insert subsets include Baseball Highlight Sketches (four in the box), Minds That Made the Future (three) and Floating Fortresses (three).

The Ascent of Man inserts represent a deviation from regular A&G inserts, as the card fronts employ more four-color. The effect is mesmerizing, even if some of the subject matter isn’t. The hobby box I saw contained four of the 26 cards.

The mini inserts remain, as always, diverse. The most intriguing set has to be the Uninvited Guests, which depict the Lizzie Borden House (brave souls can actually stay in the room where Lizzie committed her crimes, since the house is now a macabre bed and breakfast place) and the Villisca Axe Murder house from the 1912 incident in that small Iowa town.

Other minis include the World’s Most Mysterious Figures (another four-color effort), Portraits of Penultimacy, Animals in Peril and Step Right Up (a nod toward the famed oddities found at the circus).

A final mini subset is a five-card offering called Flora of the World. These full-color cards have a raised, high relief front, which is very interesting.
For those chasing mini parallels, there are plenty in a hobby box. The one I sampled had nine mini parallels and four with the distinctive Allen & Ginter logo on the back.

Every hobby box promises three special cards — relic, autograph, printing plate, rip or book cards. The hobby box I looked through hit that quota: a framed game-used bat card of the Cardinals’ Jon Jay, a framed game-used jersey card of Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, and an framed autograph card of Jason “Wee Man” Acura, the “World’s Smallest Stunt Man.”

So once again, Allen & Ginter delivers a nice product. It’s a tough set to complete, but it’s also informs and enlightens. And that’s a dynamite combination.