A&G Mini Portraits in Penultimacy Set

I am a bit late to the game but I have finally picked up some rack packs of 2011 Allen & Ginters. Like many people I get wrapped up in the minis and like to see what Topps comes up.

This year the Portraits in Penultimacy set draws my interest, I love this set even though Topps made a stretch on the word “Penultimate” to make it work. See “Penultimacy” is not a word, the word “Penultimate” means “next to last” and Topps has altered the word to define the 8 people and two animals that were “seconds”, assistants or helpers of sorts. Some of the selections bother me because they are not solid selections based upon the definition.

The 10-card set consist of

Antonio Meucci (Real) - Meucci submitted a patent caveat for a telephone device 5 years before Alexander Graham Bell’s submission but never followed up on the application so Bell was eventually issued the patent for the telephone. If you take things in to consideration he did create a telephone-like invention before Bell did so the dude gets props for that.

Mike Gellner (Real) - Yea, I don’t care about the “Crack the Code” BS that Topps includes every year so…

Dr. John Watson (Fictional) - He is the narrator of the Sherlock Holmes novels, he is also Holmes friend, sounding board and partner so I can see how he could be considered a side kick.

Igor (Fictional) - The typical hunchbacked assistant to every mad scientist, an obvious choice and about as solid an example that can be used here. I wish Topps would have used a more villainous or gruesome image of Igor.

The Hare (Fictional) - Ok, I get it… Topps like including the Tortoise and the Hare in their card sets please get over the damn gimmicks and move on.

Tonto (Fictional) - The Lone Ranger’s trusted friend. I grew up on very old reruns of The Lone Ranger so I was excited to pull this card. I think I would have preferred to see an image of Jay Silverheels on the card, the image used is a generic image and honestly makes me think of the Trail of Tears not The Lone Ranger.

On a side note, Kemo Sabe does not mean anything; it does not come from any specific indigenous language and has been used in various ways on the show and radio program. There are a number of suggestions as to how it came about, including a mashing of different dialects or variations of a real word but nothing has been accurately determined to the origin of the word. My wife is Native American (Tongva Tribe) and while she has no problem with the Lone Ranger my mother-in-law will spend hours dissecting the way that Native Americans were portrayed in early 20^th Century movies and television.

Antonio Salieri (Real) - An Italian composer, the man was an absolute genius. He spoke Italian, Latin, French and German; he played multiple instruments and wrote operas. He was quite successful and traveled around Europe and at times was a personal musician for the Emperor Joseph II.

Sadly Topps got this one very wrong. Salieri is not “next to last” to anyone and was actually more successful than Mozart during the late 1700s; as a matter of fact Mozart often blamed Salieri for his inability to establish himself in Vienna. To add to it, they did regarded each other with respect and Mozart, while jealous, often spoke of his affinity for Salieri and even went out of his way to acknowledge Salieri when he showed up for the opening of one of Mozart’s operas.

Topps seems to have based their selection for this card on the movie “Amadeus” which has been proven to be more fictional then true story.

Sancho Panza (Fictional) – Panza was a neighbor and friend of Don Quixote before he went mad, eventually Don Quixote asks Panza to become his squire which Panza accepts. Like Igor he is the ideal sidekick and a decent selection for this set.

Oddly, though probably without thought on Topps end, Salieri and Panza are connected together. In 1770 Salieri wrote two operas, one of which was Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace which translates to Don Quixote at the Marriage of Camacho. It is based on the Don Quixote novel by Miguel de Cervantes.

Thomas Dewey (Real) – OK, so he lost to Truman so what? I get the comedy here because of the Chicago Tribune flub and yes Dewey was “next to last” in the election but really? What’s next Topps a card based on a side kick dog? Oh wait…

Toto (Fictional) – Dorothy’s dog Toto, follow the Yellow Brick Road. Is anyone else singing the song Rosanna or Africa in their head right now?

I pulled the Antonio Salieri and Tonto cards; I still am looking to find the Dr. Watson, Igor and Sancho Panza cards. There are quite a few cards from the set up for auction including a couple of complete sets available for less than $5 shipped so unless anyone has some cards they are interested in sending my way (begging) I will probably pick up a complete set when I finally get around to putting some extra cash in to my PayPal account.

Preview: 2011 Topps Supreme Football

Aaron Rodgers Base card

Are you ready for some football? Well… you are going to have to wait until January 2012.

Topps just released some preview shots of the upcoming 2011 Topps Supreme Football set that will be hitting shelves January 9, 2012, just in time for the playoffs to begin.

Each $70 pack (1 pack/box) will contain 5 cards- 2 Base cards, 1 parallel, 1 autograph card and 1 autograph-relic card or relic card.

When you pay $70/pack (OK, not the highest end product but a high end product none-the-less) you would expect to not have sticker autographs or tons of parallels but Topps continues to prove that they pay no attention to the collectors, or marketing groups apparently, and loads up on stickers and tons of parallels. Do we need another product with 5 parallels for each base card (plus printing plates) and at least 2 parallels for each hit?

If it was not for the sticker autographs and parallels this set may actually be decent. It reminds me a bit of Upper Decks Ultimate or Exquisite. There is a nice selection of Hall of Fame players, rookies and stars plus you have the change to pull jumbo patches and multi-autograph booklet cards. This is truly a semi-high risk/semi-high reward type product.

AJ Green Auto-Relic Patch

Julio Jones Jumbo Relic

Rookie QB Quad Relic Patches

Mark Ingram Rookie Autograph

Dan Marino HOF Autograph

Eight-QB Autograph Booklet

Joe Montana Autograph-Relic

Press Pass Gets It

We can all admit that when it comes to football Press Pass is a non-entity. Now on the other hand, Press Pass is THE authority for NASCAR sets. They have flubbed a bit, like Eclipse and Element, but then they knock it out of the park with Five Star, Stealth and even their base set is decent. They use on-card autographs, sweet patches and even if you do not follow racing a sheet metal relic card would still be a very cool pull.

Press Pass has taken another step with the recent release of the 2011 Press Pass FanFare Racing release. Each 8 pack box comes with an on-card autograph or race-used memorabilia card in every pack but as an added bonus they are including a Mystery Bonus pack which will include an additional FanFare autograph, memorabilia card or an instant win card.

 Press Pass is now bringing the collector closer to the athletes with some amazing Instant Win prizes. You can now own a Kasey Kahne firesuit, Tony Stewart shirt, Travis Kvapil sunglasses or a Michael Waltrip hat or even better his complete bumper, all autographed.

Here is the instant win checklist:

Danica Patrick Autographed 8x10 4 Tickets to any NASCAR event Kasey Kahne Firesuit Carl Edwards Autographed Hat Tony Stewart Autographed Shirt Travis Kvapil Autographed Shirt David Gilliland Autographed Shirt David Ragan Autographed Shirt Dave Gilliland Autographed Sunglasses Travis Kvapil Autographed Sunglasses Michael Waltrip Autographed Bumper David Gilliland Autographed Sheet Metal Travis Kvapil Autographed Sheet Metal Regan Smith Autographed Hat David Ragan Autographed Hat Brian Vickers Autographed Hat Greg Biffle Autographed Hat Martin Truex Jr. Autographed Hat Jeff Burton Autographed Hat Jamie McMurray Autographed Hat Michael Waltrip Autographed Hat Denny Hamlin Autographed Hat Marcos Ambrose Autographed Hat

It would be pretty cool if we could see Topps, Panini and Upper Deck following suit. How cool would it be to pull an instant win card for a full Derek Jeter jersey, Bryce Harper autographed sunglasses, a t-shirt worn by Golden Tate from the Rookie Premier or something like Aaron Rodgers helmet? What about autographed Michael Jordan worn Air Jordans?

Early Preview Images: 2012 Topps Tribute Baseball

Sandy Koufax Auto on-card Onyx parallel

Topps just released images of 2012 Topps Tribute Baseball, their first high-end product of 2012 with 6 pack boxes running $300 each. The set is scheduled to go live 2/7/12 and each box will contain 3 on-card autographs and each pack will include a parallel card #/99 or less.

Get ready for more gold, more parallels and more sticker autographs plus dime-sized relics to boot.

The base set consists of a 100-card checklist made up of active and retired players and there will be 7 parallels including printing plates for each card. Even the autograph cards will have 7 parallels of each. Way to kick it up a notch Topps.

The checklist is significant including Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, Mike Schmidt and Nolan Ryan alongside current stars Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Tim Lincecum, Robinson Cano and Evan Longoria.

Hank Aaron Base card

Willie Mays Base card

Mike Stanton Parallel Base card

Prince Fielder Dual Relic card

Adrian Gonzalez Auto on-card

Willie Mays Auto on-card

Evan Longoria Auto on-card Orange parallel

Reggie Jackson Auto sticker

Matt Kemp Auto sticker Purple parallel

Tim Lincecum Dual-relic

Jose Reyes Multi-relic

Nolan Ryan Prime Patch Relic Purple parallel 

Mike Schmidt Relic Gold parallel

Part III- 2011 Horrors of War Cut Signature Cards

This is part three of a three-part story

Benito Mussolini- WWII

The main focus of the revived Horrors of War set is the inclusion of 1/1 cut signatures in each pack. With each pack/box containing a 1/1 cut signature and 1600 total packs/boxes being created that means that the checklist is 1600 people long. Talk about an amazing feat putting this set together.

Here is the complete checklist available on Famous Fabrics Ink’s web site.

Douglas MacArthur- WWII Version

Each cut signature card design is different for each military action to designate that specific war. In some cases, such as in the case of Thomas Pinckney and Abner Doubleday where they served in multiple conflicts they were assigned a specific war and included in that portion of the checklist only while others like Douglas MacArthur were included in multiple sections- MacArthur has a cut signature in the World War I, World War II and Korean War checklists. The WWII checklist is by far the largest portion of the set

Wilber Brucker- WWI

The checklist is amazing to say the least and includes soldiers, world leaders and other personalities tied to each military action. Here is the list of all wars including in the set.

American Revolution (1776-1783)

Boer War (1899-1902)

Civil War (1861-1863)

Cold War (1945-1991)

Great French War (1792-1815)

Gulf War (1991)

Korean War (1951-1953)

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

Spanish-American War (1898)

Vietnam War (1963-1975)

War in Iraq (2003-2011)

War of 1812 (1812)

War on Terror (2001-2011)

World War I (1914-1918)

World War II (1939-1945)

Prices of the cut signatures range most topping $100 easily and as far as I know none of the major signatures have been pulled yet. Some of the bigger names include Fidel Castro, JFK, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Erwin Rommel, Benito Mussolini and Douglas MacArthur.

Erwin Rommel- WWII

Robert Mason- Vietnam War

Jame Tallmadge- War of 1812

Part II- 2011 Horrors of War Base Cards

This is part two of a three-part story

In 1938 Gum, Inc., released the 288-card Horrors of War set over two separate releases, now 73 years later Famous Fabrics Ink has released their “addition” to Gum, Inc.’s original set. The new 48-card base set picks up where the original set ended, the onset of World War II, and includes cards from WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraqi War and The War on Terror with the final 8 cards (covering the Iraqi War and War on Terror) being only available as case toppers. All base cards are encased with the regular base cards having silver labels and case toppers having green labels (The promo materials showed gold labels on all of the base cards but the live product actually has silver labels on the base cards and green for case toppers).

 The set is extremely limited with only 1,600 total boxes being produced. Each $160 box will contain 2 cards, 1 base card #/40 and a 1/1 cut signature card. Interestingly they have numbered each base card #/40 as well as #/1600 to designate where each card stands within that specific card number on the checklist as well as overall in the entire base set run.

The product is still pretty new, released 8/11/11, and there are only a couple of base cards available for auction right now and the prices really range starting at a dollar or two all the way up to $150, which is insane considering you spend another $10-15 and you can purchase a 2-card box which comes with a base card and a cut signature card. Someone posted a complete 48-card base set for $4800, which I guess would be a fair price if you were looking to build the set.

 I am not a fan of the illustrations used with the updated set, it is obviously not as bright and much tamer in comparison to the original set which can be attributed to a by-product of our "P.C." world and bleeding hearts that would file a lawsuit because "Won't somebody please think of the children?' (Admit it, you all read that in Rev. Lovejoy's wife's voice) . In all honesty I do not see this set holding up to the test of time like the original and the only real selling point to the set is the cut signatures.

#2- Hitler Visits Mussolini

#6- Rommel, the Desert Fox

#13- PT 109

#36- Kent State Massacre

#44- Osama bin Laden

#45- World Trade Center

Part I- 1938 Horrors of War

This is part one of a three-part story

In 1938 Gum, Inc., a Philadelphia based candy company owned by Warren Bowman (yes that Bowman) looking to create some buzz created the “Horrors of War Bubble Gum” set, each penny-gum came with a single card depicting the horrors of war. The set, designated R69 1938 Horrors of War, included an illustration on the front and a description on the back.

The initial 240-card set, included illustrations showing the atrocities of the ongoing Chinese-Japanese War, the Ethiopian War (Italian invasion of Ethiopia) and the Spanish Civil War. The set sold so well that Bowman decided to release an additional 48 cards showing the horrors that were happening in Europe that eventually lead up to World War II (Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland). These final 48 cards did not sell as well as the original 240 cards but are now among the most coveted cards in the entire 288-card set due to their scarcity with the 3 cards containing Adolph Hitler demanding a premium (Cards # 277, 283 & 286). Bowman even brought in additional staff including artists, illustrators and distributors just to keep up with demand.

#277- Hitlers Border Tour Raises War Scare

Warren Bowman later went on to say that the reason he created the set was because he wanted to try and teach peace by exposing the horrors of war. Obviously there was a controversy with some saying the set was created solely to make money based on shock value while others, rumored to include President Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported the set as a way to show the violence that was happening around an isolated United States. Some would claim the set was created as war propaganda and some would claim that the cards were to be used as an educational tool.



Original Artwork

 Since the initial release in 1938 we have seen Bowman release similar sets, one of the more notable sets being the 1951 Bowman Red Menace set, we have seen reprints and we now see serious collectors hunting down the original artwork used in the set along with proofs. With well over 10,000 Horror of War singles having been graded only 16 proofs have been graded and are demanding $5,000 or more with original artwork selling near $10,000 for authenticated pieces. There are many ungraded base cards that can be picked up for less than $10 and is a great way to collect one of the most significant non-sports sets ever. Violent nature aside, this set is easily one of the most beautifully illustrated card sets of the first half of the 20^th Century.

Proof

Can you believe that you could have picked up the complete first-series 240 base cards for only $1 in 1938 or you could have taken your chances and bought each card one at a time for 1 penny each ($2.40 if you never pulled a double). Partial sets now are selling for well over $1,000 depending on how many cards are in the lot.

1938 Horrors of War Display Box

Additional cards showing the variety of illustrations, some quite gruesome, that are included in this set:

#3- U.S. Marine Shot While Aiding Americans

#21- The Siege of Toledo

#67- Women Fighters In Spain

#71- The Emperor Leaves Ethiopia

#72- Profile of Attack on American Legation at Addis Ababa

#88- Human Hands Warn Newspaper Publishers

Vintage Card of the Month: Byron Whizzer White

The August Vintage Card of the Month is from the 1955 Topps All American set which featured college stars of the era (1920s-1955). Before he became a Supreme Court Justice Whizzer White was a monster halfback on the football field. He played basketball, baseball and football at the University of Colorado where he led the nation in rushing his senior year.

He was the 4^th pick in the 1938 NFL Draft by the Steelers (Pirates at the time) and in 1938 he led the NFL in rushing before returning to school as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. In 1940 he decided to return to the NFL and signed with the Detroit Lions for the “insane” salary of $15,000/year. Again he led the NFL in rushing before cutting his pro career short to join the Navy at the onset of World War II. After the Navy he decided to go back to school to work on his Law degree instead of playing football.

 The big draw for White’s cards is because of the error, Topps accidently switched White’s back with Gaynell Tinsley’s back and the error cards sell usually for $125 and up while the corrected card sells in the $25-50 range. My copy is the corrected version with White’s bio on the back.

Besides the obvious Topps quality control issues the card is in great shape with only a bit of staining along the right border. The surface is nice and the color is solid. The 1955 All American cards are notorious for being mangled and as you can see with mine, the card is not only off-center but it was cut at an angle. You can actually see the upper corner of the next card on the top right border of my card. Good to know Topps has kept up the tradition poor quality control after 56 years.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I am finally getting around to posting it but I recently had a bit of a hot streak going. Within a 14 day period last month I won contests held by Panini, Upper Deck and Beckett. I am not normally a lucky sports card person, besides coming in a second place  tie last year at Thozul Will Rule's Nightmare On Cardboard III I have not won any contest's lately so this was a nice change.

 It all began with box break of Panini’s Luxury Suite Hockey on Panini’s The Knight’s Lance blog. They asked that collectors leave a message about the box break for a chance to win some of the cards pulled from the break and when I was contacted by Tracey Hackler I was floored. What was even more surprising is that when I received the package I found out that I had won 4 cards and not the original 1 card that I thought I had won.

2011 Luxury Suite Hockey:
Marco Scandella rookie card

Zac Dalphe autograph rookie

Marian Hossa dual relic

Pakke Rinne & Shea Weber dual relic

Next up was Beckett with a box break of 2011 Donruss Football and again, leave a comment about the product for the chance to win one of two cards. I won second place (First place got a Cam Newton Autograph/Relic card) and scored a nice Colin Kaepernick Autograph Rookie card.

The final contest was Upper Deck’s contest for a special unnumbered Abby Wambach 2011 Upper Deck card that was not released in packs. This contest was in support of the Women’s World Cup and the U.S. run in to the finals, 20 winners were selected from those who posted on the USA Women’s Soccer Facebook page. Upper Deck also sent a 2011 Upper Deck MLS Landon Donovan base card with the Abby Wambach card, to bad I am a Seattle Sounders FC supporter.