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For the few who still care about A&G

 
Probably the best way I can explain the difference between card blogs when I first started blogging, say 2008-11, and card blogs now is the difference in how Allen & Ginter is received and perceived.

During the golden age of blogging and A&G (well, the recent incarnation anyway), the release of Allen & Ginter was an event on the blogs. The set was celebrated and there was enthusiasm for the framed autographs, the weird inserts and the non-ballplayers in the set.

Sure, some collectors still didn't like it/understand it and there was always a little bit of "what the hell is this card?," but the overall reaction to those cards and the set was, "it's wacky, it's zany, it's interesting! Let's learn about stuff and maybe find a piece of hair from an old, dead, president!"

Then, in perhaps the biggest party the card blogs had at that time, 30-40 blogs or more would participate in "Gint-a-Cuffs," a celebration of a set the likes of no one has seen before or since. Each of the participating blogs would buy a box of A&G and match the contents of their box with the contents of every other participants' box, according to the arbitrary point system devised by this blogger. Topps even offered up a box of A&G to the winner.

This went on for a few years and it would dominate the blogs for a month. Yeah, it got a little tiring seeing the same cards over and over, but the cool kids liked those cards and the popularity of A&G meant that other bloggers simply waited for it to go by and blogged about what they liked. There was no stopping the A&G juggernaut.

Speed forward to 2021, and I can't envision any of that happening on blogs. It seems like another time. When A&G arrives now, I seem to be one of the few who is enthusiastic about the set (well, I'm not exactly "enthusiastic" anymore, but I'm still interested). There seems to be a lot more bloggers who cower at the thought of pulling a card of an egg. And when I post about A&G, I can count on comments about how, "I never liked that set," "it's not for me," etc. I wonder where 2009 went.

Many of the bloggers who participated in Gint-a-Cuffs a decade ago have moved on. They either blog sporadically, don't blog at all (they tweet) or have stopped collecting cold. Some of those blogs have disappeared completely. So that's where the enthusiasm went.

But it's not just the change in who's blogging about cards that explains the muted celebration for A&G these days. It's also that A&G is now 16 years old. It's only natural that people won't be as excited. Also, A&G is NOT the set it was a dozen years ago. I've posted about that several times.

Each year, I update the list of all the non-baseball players in the newest version of A&G on my sidebar. I just did it for the 2021 set, which gets released tomorrow (but the cards are already all over ebay, for stupid prices in many cases).

The current version of A&G has fewer non-ball players that interest me. Per usual of late, it's full of Instagram stars and comedians and cooks and just, who cares? There are no past famous figures and there are no animals or famous sites or any of that good stuff in the base set.

Still, I can always find a few cards that interest me.


For example, Rocky Bleier is in the set. Bleier was one of my first favorite football players. I have known about his Vietnam past since I was a kid. His '70s cards were always cool.
 


Buzz Bissinger, who wrote "Friday Night Lights" is in the base set. I appreciate authors being recognized.


And there are several female figures who are working in baseball in the set. Marlins general manager Kim Ng, a former Dodger front-office executive, is in the set. Giants coach Alyssa Nakken is in the set as is baseball coach Bianca Smith.

I also enjoy seeing an individual card of each of Slap Shot's Hanson Brothers and women's soccer great Michelle Akers, who was among the first of the high-profile USA women's soccer players.

But these cards are few-and-far-between, because the high-dollar collectors aren't interested in/can't make money off of a picture of a building.
 
Those inanimate objects are now entirely in the insert sets. I've been following A&G so long that I'm starting to see repeats of insert themes. There is a World Leaders mini set. That's been done before. There is a mascots set (pictures of animals that also represent MLB teams). That's been done before. There is a shark insert set. That's been done before, although the first version was a stealth mini set and this one is a full-size insert (it admittedly probably looks cool like this).

None of the mini inserts interest me. Hats, trees, stars, birds. Not much creativity there. (The "good for you" set of fruits and vegetables at least might inspire an overweight collector). Maybe I'm starting to fall into the "who cares" A&G camp.

I counted up the rookies in the base set. There are 56 of them. None of them in the SP portion of the checklist. This is weird. Topps likes rookie-chasers, don't they want them to buy more cards? 
 
 
There are 97 retired players, which I appreciate. Now that A&G has shed famous past authors and composers and such, they should at least recognize baseball's past. There are a few new old players in the checklist. And there are the usual recently retired players that I think shouldn't be included for awhile. Also, give it a rest on Hideki Matsui.
 
Oh, and I haven't said anything about the design. It's not my favorite. It's similar to the "cameo" look of 2017 A&G. Kind of looks like a Christmas ornament.
 
Yes, yes, I know, the set "looks the same every year" (actually, it doesn't). And the "backs look the same every year" (you've got a point there).
 
But this is not me hating on A&G or inviting anyone else to do so. It's just me missing a bygone period. Topps doesn't need me to collect A&G, which is obvious because it's still being released and I haven't tried to complete the set since 2015 (and haven't actually completed one since 2014).
 
But if you want to see real blog enthusiasm for the set and what that set used to be, just go back to some of my Gint-a-Cuff posts back in the archives. It was some good times then.

Comments

Zippy Zappy said…
I know I'm not the first (or last) person to point this out, but my enthusiasm for this set flew out the window years ago when I stopped being able to tell this apart from Gypsy Queen, Heritage and Archives.
Mark Hoyle said…
Just grabbed my team set
Nachos Grande said…
I'm excited for the set!
Adam Ryan said…
Normally there’s a few non-baseball people in the set that I’m interested in (like Doc Emrick and RL Stone last year) but beyond those that you mentioned, I don’t recognize hardly any on the non-baseball people in the set. I might grab single of some players I like and some of the retired stars though. Might even grab some inserts if they interest me but I’ll have to see.
Brett Alan said…
I do have fond memories of Gint-A-Cuffs, which was a thing when I first started reading the card blogs. It was fun to follow.

Really do wish they'd do something new with the backs.
Matthew Glidden said…
Thanks for the Gint-a-cuffs flashback! Nice to see someone remembers. 👍
The non-baseball players and occasional random former players are still of interest to me. But not much else.
Didn't know this year was out. I'll grab my Braves for now.
hiflew said…
"But these cards are few-and-far-between, because the high-dollar collectors aren't interested in/can't make money off of a picture of a building."

I used to think that too, but some of the non sport cards from earlier A&G sell for ridiculous prices. And I am just talking base cards. Manny Pacquiao from 2011, the cryptocurrency card from 2913 I think, a couple of others from 2012 were all selling for STUPID prices. And they were actually selling, not just people asking stupid prices for them.

As for me, there are only six Rockies in the whole set and only three of them are members of the current team. The Rockies lack of representation in 2021 sets have just about turned me off the hobby completely. At the very least it has discouraged me from blogging recently.
John Bateman said…
I believe 2017 AG had about 250 active players

Last year there were only 180. This year appears to be slightly more.

I kind of like to see todays players more on these cards but i do like the off the wall ones.
Matt said…
As always it's all about the non baseball things for me in Allen and Ginter. Can't wait to get my hands on some of the 2021 !
Fuji said…
You pretty much summarized my feelings towards A&G in this post. I am excited to pick up the Alyssa Nakken card. Not sure if I'll pick up a blaster (assuming I stumble across one at Target) and hope to pull a copy... or just buy one online.
GCA said…
I'm excited for it, and so much more than 2021 flagship. I've run into the ground the point that all the creativity is in A&G now. Hopefully the boxes haven't ballooned to $200 apiece.

I never have trouble distinguishing it from GQ, because GQ is the same ugly since 2016. And A&G doesn't look like an old Topps design, so that means it's not Heritage, Archives or most of flagship.

I will say I'm too old to know who most of these online "celebs" are. As long as there's someone like Paige Spirinac or Erin Andrews, I'm happy.
Nick said…
A&G actually has a few non-sport cards I'm excited about for the first time in years. Namely Jeff Garlin.
Anonymous said…
...we salute you. FiRE!!!
cardstacks said…
I like A&G but not enough to buy a blaster online at this moment. If I saw a pack in the store I would probably pick up one or two. But I'd rather go grab the singles and call it a day.

I did enjoy following Gint-a-Cuffs when that was a thing (I guess it's not anymore?). Really I just enjoy seeing people's break results in general.
Jafronius said…
I enjoyed those Gint-a-Cuffs posts the blogosphere partook in. It was something that promoted unity. It was like a blog-wide "it's over".
jacobmrley said…
I have always been an Allen & Ginter enthusiast - though never a gint-a-cuffs participant, in fact, I wrote a mocking post about that a long time ago. I saw Ginter came out this week and came THISCLOSE to pulling the trigger on a box for old times sake (I think the hobby box I bought of it was 2012 maybe?) but I just couldn't do it. I did go on cardbarrel.com and pick off about 40 of the Mets and amusing non-baseball folks and some old timey stars for an old timey page. I think I started getting less enthusiastic for A&G about the time Gypsy Queen became a thing. Topps, in that wonderful Topps way, killed my love by shoving too much of a good thing down our throats with the "you like the tobacco stuff, here's some tobacco stuff!" mentality. I do wish they'd bring back the really quirky things like the revolving door and the egg but I think that ship has sailed. I am going to have to find some minis too, because, minis!