Box Review: 2024 Historic Autograph & Card Co. All Time Greats

Today, I have a rather strange product to review:  2024 Historic Autograph & Card Co. All Time Greats.  This is a product (and company) that I had never heard of until I recently did an eBay search looking for "Stained Glass" cards of Barry Larkin.  My intention was to find stained glass inserts from Allen & Ginter, but you can imagine my surprise when a stained glass Larkin card popped up from the All Time Greats set instead!  

I did end up buying that Larkin card, and after having it in hand, decided that I should hunt down a full box of the All Time Greats set for group break purposes.  Today, I'm here to show off the highlights of one such group break box!

Each box contains 12 packs with four cards per pack.  The box also promises one insert hit with the following stated odds:

• Cut Signature Card:  1:48 packs (1 in 4 boxes)
• Stained Glass Acetate card:  1:29 packs (1 in 2.4 boxes)
• 1/1 Printing Plate:  1:44 packs (1 in 3.7 boxes)
• 1/1 Foil Design card:  1:89 packs (1 in 7.4 boxes)

Base cards:

Tier 1 (#/1600):

The 108-card base set is divided into eight tiers of increasingly rare parallels.  The most common cards (Tier 1) have a stated print run of 1600 copies each.  Here's the full breakdown of the tiers with their stated print runs.

• Tier 1:  1600 copies
• Tier 2:  800 copies
• Tier 3:  400 copies
• Tier 4:  200 copies
• Tier 5:  150 copies
• Tier 6:  125 copies
• Tier 7:  100 copies
• Tier 8:  25 copies

It's worth noting that none of the cards in any of the tiers are sequentially numbered exactly, instead, each card back simply states how many total copies of that card exist.

Our box produced a total of 24 Tier 1 base cards (one of which was a duplicate:  #103 Tom Glavine).  In sorting the base cards, it became quite clear that the cards are not exactly seeded randomly in a box.  Our box had mostly long strings of consecutive base cards (#21-27, 47-50, 57, 81-85, 91-93, and 103-105).  Clearly, that distribution is most likely NOT the result of truly random card seeding!

Parallels:

Tier 2 (#/800):

The various Tiers are proper parallels of the base set, albeit each tier has its own unique design and a different marking on the back of the card indicating how common or rare that particular card is.  The Tier 2 cards each have 800 copies in existence and our box produced 12 such cards (basically one per pack).  Interestingly, the Tier 2 cards also appear to be seeded using a specific pattern.  Our twelve cards were numbers:  10, 18-20, 31-32, 41-45, and 106.  On the bright side, all twelve cards were unique and none of the Tier 2 cards were of the same subject as our Tier 1 pulls!

Tier 3 (#/400):

On average, each pack in the box contained two Tier 1 base cards, a single Tier 2 card, and then one higher Tier card (or insert).  Our box had three Tier 3 cards (Bill Dickey, Jackie Robinson, and Willie Mays).  You can't really complain about that trio!  

Tier 4 (#/200):

The Tier 4 cards are quite striking in design with their purplish-blue backgrounds.  With only 200 copies of each card produced, we are rapidly approaching quite rare cards!  Our box happened to have two Tier 4 cards (George Sisler and Earl Weaver).  

Tier 5 (#/150):

The Tier 5 cards have a neat foil "swirl" effect on the cards which looks pretty cool in hand.  We lucked into a pair of Tier 5 cards in our box (Ted Williams and Tony Gwynn).  Even for a product full of Hall of Famers, I think you'd be hard-pressed to do much better than the Splendid Splinter and Mr. Padre as Tier 5 representatives!

Tier 6 (#/125):

Our box only produced a single Tier 6 card, but at least it was a great one in my eyes:  Johnny Bench!  The Tier 6 cards have the same swirly effect as the Tier 5 cards, the only difference is the frame around the photograph (and truthfully, I prefer the larger photos and frame used on the Tier 5 design).  

Tier 7 (#/100):

The Tier 7 design is probably my favorite - I love the swirl effect combined with the silver borders.  Despite having only 100 copies each, we pulled two Tier 7 cards (Dave Winfield and Carl Hubbell).  

Tier 8 (#/25):

Our lone Tier 8 card was of Carl Yastrzemski.  The Tier 8 cards are basically the same as Tier 7 in design except instead of silver, the Tier 8 cards use a purple background.  The cards look undeniably snazzy in hand, even if it can be tricky to figure out the card's subject based on many of the images used.

Insert:

Each box promises a single insert and our box delivered on that promise exactly.  We pulled a Stained Glass Acetate card (seeded 1:29 packs):

That's Derek Jeter and unlike the base cards, the Stained Glass card is properly serially numbered (in Jeter's case, we pulled card #23/25)!  I LOVE the stained glass cards so in my mind this was a great pull.  Sure, I was kind of hoping for one of the cut signatures but I think the Stained Glass inserts are also top-notch pulls!

Overall, I give the 2024 Historic Autograph & Card Co. All Time Greats box the following rating:

Set Design:  B-

Collation:  A-

Opening Thrill:  B+

Overall:  B+

Let's start with the obvious:  Clearly, this set isn't for everyone.  It's a small checklist set (108 total cards) with eight versions of each base card (nine versions if you count the one-of-one parallels).  In addition, the photo selection was definitely hit or miss.  For many cards, I found it nearly impossible to even discern who the player was, but luckily the card backs are super informative so all I ever had to do was flip the card over to see the player's name if necessary.  

Personally, I enjoy the various parallels and the similar-yet-different designs do help make each pack rip interesting.  The Stained Glass inserts are gorgeous and that's another full set parallel (which I didn't realize until I looked up the set on TCDB while writing this post)!  The checklist is basically all Hall of Famers, so you can't go wrong with that either (even if we didn't pull any Barry Larkin parallels for yours truly).  

I have one more box to rip in tonight's group break (see my Discord for more group break information).  I'm curious to see what we get out of that box, perhaps a cut signature is in our future?!