Breaking it Down 11: 2014 Allen & Ginter Toronto Blue Jays

A little while ago I bought into a 1/2-case break of 2014 Allen & Ginter, picking up the Blue Jays team slot. There were some pretty good cards in the break, including a red ink # / 10 autograph of Snoop Lion aka Snoop Dogg. That, of course, went to the non-baseball team slot. I got all of these base cards. I do like that cap that Roy Halladay is sporting on his card.

Here are some more base cards. I think the Jays' only SP this year is Brett Lawrie, which seems a bit odd. I don't know how popular he is, but when I think of the Blue Jays' top-billed players he isn't at the top of the list. I don't know how Topps decides who to put in the SP section of the checklist.

I got four minis in the break. I think the Encarnacion and the Lawrie are A&G-back parallels, while I got a regular mini and a black parallel of Jose Bautista. My problem with the black-bordered minis in this year's set is that they don't get cut evenly, so one edge always has more black lines than the opposite edge. It looks out of balance and I don't like it.

I was lucky enough to get one of the hits in the break, a bat relic card of Edwin Encarnacion. It's a pretty nice card. I like the design and all of the border work on it. I also had the Blue Jays team slot in the Crackin' Wax charity full-case break. You can see a recap of the cards I got from that break in the base cards section above, so I probably won't be doing a separate post when they arrive. Edit: I may not have given Topher from Crackin' Wax enough credit there. I got his cards in the mail yesterday and there probably will be enough for a post. I also forgot about his skunk protection plan, in which he credits you some cash if you don't get a hit in his break. Since it was a charity break and I felt bad for complaining here, I donated my skunk protection money back to his Big Brothers Big Sisters link on the Crackin' Wax website.

And with that, I am probably about done with Allen & Ginter for this year, outside of participating in Gint-a-Cuffs and collecting a few of the mini insert sets. I didn't want to try to build the full set by buying packs, so I just ordered the base set + SPs and all of the regular-sized inserts (The Pastime's Pastimes, Air Supremacy, Natural Wonder, The World's Capitals, Festivals & Fairs, Fields of Yore) from eBay as a lot from a case breaker. I am not sure how I will source the minis I want, though.