Pre-Gint-a-Cuffs Bout Thoughts

Greetings Mafia,

I hope you've all recovered from your pack ripping hangovers. I know I haven't, but I like to be drunk on the smell of fresh Ginter wax about 360 days out of the year. Those other 5 days are the ones leading up to the following year's release to detox from the aging Ginter. While Topps Allen and Ginter is like a fine wine and gets better with age, in order to properly enjoy the new vintage one must cleanse the palate and mind.

Unless there are discounted blasters on sale for $12 a pop at Target. In which case all bets are off.

I figured I'd come to you with an update for Gint-A-Cuffs VI and a few thoughts I've been having.

1) Favorite Player and Teams have been opened for declaration. Some of the contestants' declarations are obviously no surprise. I mentioned an earth-shattering announcement. Announcing the Ginter Godfather's Favorite Player for Gint-A-Cuffs VI... Buffy the Yankeevampire Slayer's very own...

FELICIA DAY!!!

You're probably going "Big whoop, whatever, GiGo, you suck at math, you're going to lose for sure." Maybe. BUT HOW CAN YOU NOT GET EXCITED OVER THAT FACE!? Besides, I'll pull a Felicia Day auto, a Felicia Day relic, a Felicia Day base card, a Felicia Day glossy 1/1, a Felicia Day mini, a Felicia Day A&G back mini, a Felicia Day black bordered mini, a Felicia Day A&G flag back mini, and a Felicia Day wood 1/1 mini, and who will be laughing then? Myself and my army of Felicia Day cards as we set up an epic campaign of Dungeons and Dragons, thats who.

OK, so I realize the unliklihood of ACTUALLY pulling a full sized Felicia Day out of my box of Ginter, but if they miniaturized her, then hey, anything is possible, right?

Also, my declared Favorite Team is the Washington Nationals.

2) Production is down, hits will be up. Big, big hits are bound to result in some of the highest Gint-A-Cuff scores ever seen.

I'm not talking about necessarily having people pull DNA relics or cut autos (though I wouldn't put it out of the question...) but with roughly 1:6 boxes having a RIP card, and in general the hits and rarer cards being more plentiful due to fewer boxes for them to hide in, people are going to be hitting some GREAT stuff in their boxes. I can't recall how many RIP cards we saw pulled last year, but I'd say at least double that. I pity the people like myself whom are doomed to have a below-average box... I mean, that other Ginter Godfather guy who is going to continue to have below-average boxes. Not this one, no siree, nothing but blue skies, RIP cards and 1/1's abound for this guy!

3) I've already seen what was pulled out of most of the case my allocated Gint-A-Cuffs box was from. Derek Jeter RIP Card 1/25 (not pulled by me, of course), red ink auto of Danielle Kang, red bordered minis box topper pack, Urban Fauna, and possibly either another RIP card or a Double RIP card. At any rate, it is NOT looking too good for the GiGo this year. Ah well, never say never!

As always, keep it in the family.

-GG

Happy 2014 Ginter Hangover Day

Well, I got so drunk on ripping Ginter that this post has to come a day late...

Greetings Mafia,

2014 Ginter is upon us, and of course that means Gint-A-Cuffs. I have a unique and possibly never-before-done move that will simply STUN the Gint-A-Cuffs universe, assuming the Commisioner OK's it. The $5 he's going to find in his lunch sack says he'll be fine with it.

Now, don't worry. This isn't going to give me any sort of unfair advantage. In fact, I am purposefully tying a hand behind my back (so to speak). However, desperate times call for desperate measures. There is almost no upside and I'm dumb for doing it, but who has several people's thumbs and doesn't care? This guy.

This year's set is great. Production is down about 40%. Things are easier to hit all around, there are some interesting new additions (some good, some bad), and all around it is a great product once again. I love the design, I love what they've done with the inserts and minis, the Pastime's Pastimes are fantastic looking in black... needless to say, resisting the urge to open this sealed box designated for Gint-A-Cuffs is going to be... taxing. Possibly on my wallet. Because I want to open it and every other box of Ginter within a 12,000 mile radius. I'll leave you with a quick list of loves and hates for this year's Ginter. As always, keep it in the family.

-Ginter Godfather

2014 Ginter LOVES:

-Felicia Day. Duh.
-Plentiful RIP cards (never pulled one myself, REALLY hoping to. This year is the year, I think... c'mon double RIP card!)
-Framed mini relics fall roughly 2 per case. They are SCARCE. Will help their value tremendously.
-Snoop Lion/Dogg. Fo' shizzle.
-Metal minis. I haven't seen one in person, and probably won't. But, it's a mini and therefore I must love it.
-Box toppers. They're smaller, so they are easier to store/display. They look AWESOME. I love the cabinet cards and the cabinet-sized cards. Nothing like having a GIANT CARD OF YASIEL PUIG.
-Gold retail minis. They're baaaack!
-Distribution of hits. The way they fall, ROUGHLY 5:6 boxes will have only 2 relics. Odds are very good to get an autograph, printing plate, or RIP card. GOOD JOB TOPPS!

2014 Ginter HATES:

-Urban Fauna #2. It's a cockroach. I hate cockroaches. They give me nightmares. For real.
-Gold retail minis. Doing the math, ONE set requires over $1000 of retail to be bought. That's with perfect collation. It's crazy... like a fox! With parasites.
-Full-sized Relics. 2 per box! Not even sure it is possible to NOT get 2 relics. Last year I saw a box opened that had a relic, an auto, and a RIP card. I want a box like that.
-Carlos Gomez card #231. You open 4 boxes, you'd expect to complete the main set 1-300. Yeah, Carlos decided to steal 2nd, 3rd, and home in one go and made it out of all of my boxes. He better be hiding in the Gint-A-Cuffs box or there might be a hit squad out on him.
-"SP" Minis. Yeah, no secret here. They aren't SP'd. Think about it. Odds are 1:10. So at least 2 per box, sometimes 3. At 12 boxes per case, you're looking at about 2 cases with perfect collation to complete the set. We'll call it 3 for good measure and you really should have most of them. After you factor out the insert minis (falling 1:5, so about 4 or 5 per box), and the A&G and Black Bordered minis, you end up with, on average, 12 base minis per box. 12 boxes per case, 144 base minis per case. At 300 of them, you're going to need at LEAST 3 boxes with amazing collation to put together one set, with it being more likely to need 5 or 6 based on the sheer number and impossibility of amazing collation. Just a little food for thought!
-"SP" base. I'd like to see these go from 1:2 to at least 1:6, maybe as rare as 1:12. Let's make "Short-Print" *really* mean something. Or, split it. 301-325 inserted 1:6, 326-350 are SSP at 1:24. Something like that. Just a thought!