Completed Set: Magnificent Moons

One of the things I mentioned in last Sunday's post was that I don't really collect modern cards. To elaborate on that just a little bit:

For me, collecting is much more about nostalgia than it is about keeping up with the industry, figuring out how many products are out there these days, or even having enough interest in current players to want their images on cardboard. In other words, collecting is something I did as a kid, and I don't mind keeping it there.

If anything, since rediscovering my childhood collection a few years ago I've gone backward on the timeline, occasionally picking up a card from the '50s or '60s or working on a set build from the '70s or '80s. And that's it.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and recently I found the nearest thing to my exception there probably is: Allen & Ginter.

I know, I know, Topps established the modern version of A&G in 2006, so I'm more than 10 years late to the party. But you can see why an old-fashioned collector like me would be drawn to the brand, which originally began way back in the late 1880s when the Allen & Ginter tobacco manufacturing company inserted collectible cards of athletes and non-athletes into their products.

The modern-day A&G designs reflect the originals, and are always classy. And boy oh boy do the subjects ever vary—from the standard (Baseball Icons) to the historic (World's Greatest Wordsmiths) to the impressive (Ancient Rome Relics) to the peculiar (What Once Would Be) to the outright wacky (World's Dudes).

I appreciate the variety. And of all the subsets I've seen so far, the one that drew my attention most was a 10-card subset from the 2018 issue called Magnificent Moons.

Because the subset is quite small, and each card is quite affordable, I suppose you could say I recently took one small step into the 21st century of card collecting by adding all 10 cards to my collection. I picked up one or two via trade, and the others through purchases (and why not, at about $1.00 each?)

Here are all 10 cards:

Moon (Earth), #MM-1

Successful design. The filigrees around the corners of each card are not too ornate—just enough to frame each subject. The addition of the moon's phases along the left and right borders is a nice touch. I also enjoy how the night sky background is different for some of the moons.

Europa (Jupiter), #MM-2

Of the 10 moons featured in the set, three of them orbit Saturn. Three others orbit Jupiter, like Europa here and the next card, Io. Seems like an imbalance, but consider that those two planets have more than 60 moons. Each!

Io (Jupiter), #MM-3

Mimas (Saturn), #MM-4

Did you just say to yourself that Mimas looks like the Death Star?
NERD ALERT. (I kid, I kid.)

Enceladus (Saturn), #MM-5

The surface of Enceladus is frozen, but there are liquid oceans underneath. At certain locations you can see this liquid spraying out through cracks and turning into ice particles in space.

Triton (Neptune), #MM-6

Here's an example of a card back. Topps did very well in adding a few interesting factoids about each moon.

Phobos (Mars), #MM-7

The wacky-shaped moon, Phobos. It's almost more like an asteroid that just happens to be in orbit around Mars.

Titan (Saturn), #MM-8

The orange haze around Titan comes from an atmosphere rich in methane. The intensely cold temperatures and heavy atmosphere mean that if it rains on Titan, the droplets would be more viscous than water-like, and they'd likely be dark greenish in color. They'd also fall more slowly than drops of rain on Earth. Take a minute to picture that scene.

Miranda (Uranus), #MM-9

Those are some large scratches and scrapes running across Miranda. Wonder what happened there.

Ganymede (Jupiter), #MM-10

And there you have it. Ten magnificent moons.

I like the way the cards look when they're assembled in a 9-pocket page, although I wish Topps would have made it a 9-card set instead of 10. Poor Ganymede is all alone on page #2.

Still, a very nice job overall. And maybe I'll just fill the rest of that second page with other A&G cards that I come across.

So how about you? Do you have a favorite Allen & Ginter subset? 

Leave a comment below, and thank you for reading.