The Topps Allen & Ginter set is known for many things, but chief among them is the inclusion of a variety of box toppers. Available only in hobby boxes, the cabinet card set is a set of ten different cards - all of which are much larger than normal cards. The 2011 cabinet card set had two themes - six of the cards dealt with baseball happenings from the 2010 set while the other four cards celebrated US National Parks.
Alpha:
The set begins with six baseball highlight cards. Each card features multiple players involved in whatever event the card was celebrating. For card #1 in the set, that event was the perfect game that wasn't involving Armando Galarraga. The one downside to the cabinet card design is that the reverse side of the first six cards is exactly what you see above - the only difference being the card number.
Omega:
The final four cards in the set highlight US National Parks. Much like the baseball highlights, the National Park backs are also all identical (except for the card number).
Card design:
As I mentioned above, the design of the back side of each card is fairly boring - the least Topps could have done would be to provide the card numbers since each card basically features a checklist of the appropriate subset within the cabinet card set.
Other:
Since the set is only ten cards in size, I've scanned each of the ten cabinet cards. Here's a complete visual checklist of the 2011 A&G cabinet card set.
CB-1: Galarraga is Almost Perfect
CB-2: Postseason No-No
CB-3: Dallas is Perfect in Oakland
CB-4: Multiple-Milestone Matchup
CB-5: A-Rod Does it A-Gain, For the 600th Time
CB-6: Decade of Dominance
CB-7: Grand Canyon National Park
CB-8: Yosemite National Park
CB-9: Yellowstone National Park
CB-10: Redwood National Park
Overall:
Despite the boring back of the cards, I like the cabinet set quite a bit. I still haven't discovered the perfect way to store the cards though...that's the biggest drawback to the set if you ask me! I also don't care much for the card celebrating Roy Halladay's no-no against my Reds...nor do I like the Cardinal-centric "Decade of Dominance" card, even if the card is actually referring to the Cardinals dominating their rival the Cubs. I do like the National Parks cards quite a bit - though I wish Topps would have done five baseball and five National Parks cards simply to keep some sort of symmetry happening. As a whole, the set is nice - but not great. I give it a 6.5 out of 10.
Alpha:
The set begins with six baseball highlight cards. Each card features multiple players involved in whatever event the card was celebrating. For card #1 in the set, that event was the perfect game that wasn't involving Armando Galarraga. The one downside to the cabinet card design is that the reverse side of the first six cards is exactly what you see above - the only difference being the card number.
Omega:
The final four cards in the set highlight US National Parks. Much like the baseball highlights, the National Park backs are also all identical (except for the card number).
Card design:
As I mentioned above, the design of the back side of each card is fairly boring - the least Topps could have done would be to provide the card numbers since each card basically features a checklist of the appropriate subset within the cabinet card set.
Other:
Since the set is only ten cards in size, I've scanned each of the ten cabinet cards. Here's a complete visual checklist of the 2011 A&G cabinet card set.
CB-1: Galarraga is Almost Perfect
CB-2: Postseason No-No
CB-3: Dallas is Perfect in Oakland
CB-4: Multiple-Milestone Matchup
CB-5: A-Rod Does it A-Gain, For the 600th Time
CB-6: Decade of Dominance
CB-7: Grand Canyon National Park
CB-8: Yosemite National Park
CB-9: Yellowstone National Park
CB-10: Redwood National Park
Overall:
Despite the boring back of the cards, I like the cabinet set quite a bit. I still haven't discovered the perfect way to store the cards though...that's the biggest drawback to the set if you ask me! I also don't care much for the card celebrating Roy Halladay's no-no against my Reds...nor do I like the Cardinal-centric "Decade of Dominance" card, even if the card is actually referring to the Cardinals dominating their rival the Cubs. I do like the National Parks cards quite a bit - though I wish Topps would have done five baseball and five National Parks cards simply to keep some sort of symmetry happening. As a whole, the set is nice - but not great. I give it a 6.5 out of 10.
There are 6x9 toploaders available.....these work fairly well, though then you have a stack of large toploaders with 1-2 cards each in them. I use these for the N43s as well, putting 3 in a row in each one. Love the cabinet cards from A&G....
ReplyDeleteI've always enjoyed box toppers, especially cabinet cards... actually oversized cards in general. I have to track down that Braden card and maybe send it out to see if he'll sign it.
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