The Last Hobby Box I Purchased (2024 Allen and Ginter)

It has been quite a while since I purchased a hobby box of cards. The last one, in fact, was a box of 2017-18 Artifacts hockey, but since then, my collecting focus had taken a strong shift away from new products and more in to through-the-mail and in-person autograph collecting. More than that, my three daughters have gotten older (11, 14, & 17), and more involved in their activities, which is where most of my previously-allocated collecting budget has gone. 

However, last fall, I had a few extra dollars leading in to the Christmas season, and decided to treat myself to one of my old collecting interests with a hobby box of 2024 Allen and Ginter. I always loved these releases year after year, for a variety of reasons. Whether it was the matte card stock, throwback look, or the plethora of oddball base cards and inserts, it was always a unique and cool product, plus a bit of a nostalgia kick for me.

I haven't done much more than observe new cards from a distance the last few years, and completely missed the Covid card insanity that apparently took place, so I went into this one completely blind, apart from what I knew about previous releases of Allen and Ginter. The last hobby box I dove into of A&G was almost a full decade ago (2015), but I can't imagine there would be too much different, thematically, at least. 

The hits were pretty good to me. The big one, of course, was the rip card. In this case, it featured St. Louis Cardinals rookie Masyn Winn, numbered 184/199. The dilemma here is "To rip, or not to rip." I went with "rip" for two reasons. It is a pretty rare opportunity, so why not, but also, as a Cubs fan, it gave me a valid excuse to tear up a Cardinals card. I didn't get anything signed or low-numbered inside, but did get the SSP of Juan Soto, which is not bad at all, especially right when he signs that fat contract with the Mets. I probably should have thrown it right on Ebay then, but my laziness took over, and it is still in my possession. 

The other two hits were an Austin Wells jersey card, with a vertical Yankee pinstripe, and and autograph of comedian Daniel Van Kirk. Overall, this does a great job of representing the variety of what you can find in Allen and Ginter: something weird, something baseball, and something completely unrelated to the sport. 

Then, of course, the inserts, many of which pay tribute to the tobacco cards of the late 1800s by displaying a variety of subject matter, in mini form, similar to cards of that time period. I did get a Chrome parallel of Pirates rookie Quinn Priester, and a couple Cubs. They've also started doing more of those oddball inserts in modern card size, which I don't love, as it moves them further away from what they are trying to pay tribute to. 

The base cards have a clean design, as usual, and do run the occasional parallel. As far as players go, I did pretty well with mine. The Ronald Acuna Jr. is a Foil Filagree parallel, which is 1-per-box, plus three Chrome and one refractor (Mookie Betts). 

The Clemente is an example of what I got as my base cards for the entire box. Going into this product blind, I became quite confused when a few packs in, everything was shiny. Apparently, these are "Hot Box Exclusive" variations, and the entire box would be full of Silver Portrait Parallels. Yes, it was nice hitting something so rare, however, there are two reasons that I buy Allen and Ginter: building the set, or sending the base cards TTM because the card stock work so well to get signed. This particular box serves neither of those purposes. 

Not a horrible break, overall, and I know you could do MUCH worse in this realm. Most of these cards have been tucked away in a box since I opened them almost a year ago, though, so if anybody wants anything, just let me know!