For the first part of the bracket creation, we need to seed the various full-sized insert sets. I thought it'd be fun to first have a vote for the best insert set within each year and use each year vote winner as a top seed. From there, I'll fill in the rest of the bracket with the remaining full-sized sets.
I also hope that each of these Seeding Vote posts give you a bit of information about each of the insert sets for a specific year. That should help with your voting as we move forward into the heart of the Ultimate Ginter Full-Sized Insert Set Bracket. I laid out the rest of the ground rules in my introductory post so feel free to check that post out as well. Now, we move on to the good stuff (and remember to vote at the bottom of the post by leaving a comment with your choice)!
The 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter set contained a whopping SIX different full-sized insert sets (compared to only four such sets the year before). (Also, thanks once again to COMC for saving me from having to scan a bunch of cards!)
The largest of the six sets was the baseball-centered Across the Years set.
This set contains 100 cards current players as well as retired stars. The main gimmick of the set is that each card celebrates the featured ballplayer's birthday and then other events and birthdays from history that happened on that same day.
Next, a 20-card set called Civilizations of Ages Past.
This set contains cards of 20 different ancient civilizations from around the world including the Babylonians, Mayans, and the Shang Dynasty. Each card back describes the civilization briefly.
If Earthly matters aren't of interest to you, perhaps the One Little Corner insert is more your speed.
This is another 20-card insert set, but this one is all about space. There are cards for the various planets and other bodies in space (moons, etc.) as well as the sun.
The third 20-card set from 2013 is the Palaces and Strongholds set.
As you'd expect from the set name, this particular set is all about various manmade structures throughout history. There are a number of sites featured in this set that I've actually visited, I feel like that could be a blog post idea sometime in the future!
The last two full-sized insert sets are both of the ten card variety beginning with Martial Mastery.
This set focuses on different types of fighters (Gladiators, Samurai, etc.) across different civilizations. As you can see, the 2013 Allen & Ginter set was a great set for history nerds!
Finally, the last full-sized set was the Curious Cases set, a set devoted to the weird and unexplained.
This particular set oozes that Allen & Ginter charm but with a checklist that's only ten cards deep I can't help but wonder how it will do in the voting.
Speaking of voting, it's your turn to cast your vote! As a reminder, your choices for best set in 2013 A&G are:
- Across the Years
- Civilizations of Ages Past
- One Little Corner
- Palaces and Stongholds
- Martial Mastery
- Curious Cases
Let your vote be heard in the comments below!