Yes, that's right, I said A&G. A product that I had sworn off of a few years ago. With just a limited amount of my collection on hand right now, and my desire to begin set building here in the land of palm trees increasing, I decided to try a few packs and see what's what.
I like it.
Similar to the Hometown Heroes insert set and other larger A&G insert sets from the past, the Starting Points set highlights the first game for each player listed. I especially liked the Giancarlo Stanton card back, where it states that Stanton was the youngest player with a 3 hit debut since Danny Ainge (!) of the Blue Jays in 1979. Who would have thought?
The Polio Vaccine card was kind of disturbing to see; I guess I'm used to vaccine being administered with needles, not holding a kids mouth open and dropping the goods straight in. The Hindenberg airship card also had some interesting facts on the back as well. Maybe that's A&G's allure for me, the interesting things that I learn when reading the card backs.
I was really surprised to pull this Wil Myers relic card out of the 3rd pack, but at the same time I was disappointed because if you notice on the left hand side of the card, the outer layer (coating?) is peeling. I don't think that I've ever had a card come out of the pack like this. Who knows, there may be a Padres fan out there that still might be interested in it.
I pulled a SP card out of each of the packs, which was also a plus. It's probably going to take me a while to put the set together, what with the normal funds that I have for collecting reduced a bit with the move, but I figure it's something that will keep me occupied for a while.
If anyone needs any of the inserts I showed here, please let me know and I'll send them your way.
thanks for reading, Robert
Just FYI, cards 301-350 are supposedly not short-printed this year, although they all still appear in their customary place near the inserts in the middle of packs.
ReplyDeleteThat peeled relic card could be damage from pack searchers. Apparently there is a method of pack searching that involves sliding the thumbnail along the faces of the cards through the pack, presumably to feel if there are thick cards, autograph stickers, or relic windows. I've found many packs at the local Target that had been obviously searched (the local pack searcher pulls all the packs out to search them and puts them back on the shelves in a certain way), and in those packs there are cards with damage and peeling along the bottom edge. Maybe your Myers card had a run-in with an amateur pack searcher.
Good to know about the pack searchers, thank you RAZ!
DeleteYeah, I've spotted a few pack searchers at my local Target. Lame. I dig the Myers relic though, but I already picked it up for myself. I'm a sucker for some of those cool inserts like the airplane one, but I usually get stuck w/the weird ones like the vaccines.
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