My immediate defense: It was the bargain of the century, and it was scraping what little was left of my money out of our closed eBay store and putting it to good use. Now, everything is officially empty- wallet included.
I included a picture of the bottom of the box in case some of you were unfamiliar with the stated odds. The odds are not printed on the hobby packs, which I noticed the other day.
This is going to be a slow box break with a review of the total contents at the end. I know you're all shaking your head going, "how long is she going to drag this on for?" The answer is probably the end of the night in all honesty. I have been hell bent on getting my mitts on these cards since I saw the preview cards months ago. I know many of you have already opened these, and some of you were not pleased. I don't understand how anyone could be disappointed in the design of these cards by any means. You all drooled over A&G and they were on white backgrounds with halfway decent drawings, yet some of those same people are crying that they got ripped off or whatever. I'm just sayin'.
Anyway, clearly I love these. There are a few things that I do not like but they aren't enough to make me grumpy, which is good for you guys so you don't have to listen to me bitch. I will tell you the one thing that is annoying right off the bat to me. I don't like how if you get one of these cheesy 20th anniversary inserts you get one less card per pack. I have no interest in these inserts and I don't know many people that do, so why wouldn't they make it an extra card every so many packs? The only reason I am not going to burn them is because VOTC is trying to complete the set.
Here are the first 4 packs, in scan form rather than words. Words are boring, and these cards are too cool to not scan all of them.
The A-Rod card was a Gypsy Queen back, which I can't complain about. I could have ended up with Garrett Atkins... (If he is lurking in this box as a gypsy queen, I promise I will kick my own ass for even saying it.)
The A-Rod card was a Gypsy Queen back, which I can't complain about. I could have ended up with Garrett Atkins... (If he is lurking in this box as a gypsy queen, I promise I will kick my own ass for even saying it.)
Victor Martinez Game Used (white) jersey (Indians...) card. Now, I know some of you had mentioned to me that they had noticed alot of people pulled the "hits" from within the last 2 packs on each side. When I opened the box up the packs had shifted and there were an uneven number on each side, not to mention a pack smack in the middle. So I really had no idea what was where to start. Normally when I go into a store and buy packs, I ALWAYS buy the bottom ones and that's something I have done for years so if I come across a box of these somewhere I will test the theory (for the sake of reporting, of course).
As far as trading these, I am undecided what I am doing with them. I will probably try to flip some of them for Pujols, Cano, Lind or Russ Martin.
More packs to come later....
That Robin Roberts is pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that many people are complaining about the design. That hasn't changed since the sell sheets and is the main reason that so many people were interested in the set.
ReplyDeleteThe main complaint that I hear is that for about the same cost, you get almost twice as many cards in a box of Allen & Ginter. Ginter's parallel minis don't replace a base card. Goodwin's autograph list has some big names on it, but the autographs that most people are pulling are ridiculously weak. What really kills Goodwin though is the ridiculous amount of 20th Anniversary cards that you get which replace the cards that you really want in the box.
Upper Deck came up with a great design and the cards look beautiful, but the blew it big time on the execution.
Offy, I see what you are saying about the execution as far as the ratio of those inserts. Ginter has nothing on the design of these. For the money spent, I would much rather have a card I like looking at than a whole bunch of bland zero background cards. The 20th anniversary cards counting as one of your cards does kill the buzz a little. Retail there don't seem to be any 20th anniversary cards, at least I haven't seen one in the packs I opened today.
ReplyDeleteStop back tomorrow and see the 2 hits I opened, I am going to scan those packs tonight.