Allen & Ginter Week: 2011 Blaster...now with working pictures!

2014 Topps Allen & Ginter hits the market this week, and I'm already itching to get my hands on it.  In the mean time, here is a blaster of 2011 Allen & Ginter.

This is from the year when A&G took the biggest jump in base card design.  It would also be the last year that Stanton was Mike, and not Giancarlo.

The common insert was Hometown Heroes, which I liked.  It felt like the A&G version of Bowman International.

Baseball Highlight Sketches were back for another year, though I'm not really sure why they didn't rotate the border.

This rotation issue is my fault.  Oops.  Floating Fortresses is another nice set.

I wasn't big on these at first, but they are growing on me.  From a conceptual standpoint, the set is brilliant.  As individual cards, not so much.

Minds that Made the Future? Sold.  Absolutely sold.  These are some of the best A&G inserts around.

The last full-size card I'll show (sort of) is this Chipper code card.  Again, as a set, these sort of make sense, but individually, they're kinda just an ugly parallel.

Chipper again!  I'm sure a couple of these are A&G backs but I don't remember.

A-Rod inside that funky black border.  Not the finest black borders in A&G history.

Second-to-last mini card I'll show (sort of)...get it...see what I did there...it's the penultimate mini...oh my golly...whew...that was a fun one.

Never heard of him -> wikipedia -> now I'm the leading Count of St. Germain scholar.  Ask me anything.

You may have noticed the two "sort of" statements I made.  That's because the last card (not sort of...definitely the last card) I'm showing is both a mini and a full-size card:

You may have thought the relic committed the crime, but I assure you it was framed...



....well, speaking of crimes, come back tomorrow for some 2012 A&G.

Oh yeah, if you are interested in the Beckham relic, or maybe a different A&G relic, check this out...