2019 Topps Allen & Ginter: Chugging Along

I never thought I'd see the day when I purposely bought baseball cards for my collection. Well, that has finally happened thanks to a set of mini inserts from Topps.

After reading a recent post by Fuji, my love of trains had me doing a quick eBay search for the Shinkansen card. That was where I stumbled onto several cards from the 2019 Topps Allen & Ginter set, which unsurprisingly, I had no idea even existed until right then.

This set of minis is named "Chugging Along" and features different types of trains.

I love the look of this 15-card set set, everything from the artistic look of the photos to the gear designs in the corners. My favorite element might not be as obvious though. If you look closely at the fancy border treatment to the right of the words freight train, it looks just like a track diagram from a real interlocking tower. Click here for an example.

My favorite card in the set is #CA-10, the freight train. These are the types of trains that I first saw in person as a kid, so I've always been  into modern diesels more than anything.

As far as the backs of these cards go, the fancy border treatment is transferred there, albeit slightly modified. The title font is also prominent here. Otherwise the back is pretty straightforward and simple, which works really well for a set like this.

Rather than doing this one at a time, it was more efficient to just combine the remaining 14 cards into a single image. Plus, this gives you a great look at the set as a  whole. I'm even thinking about putting them into a frame and hanging them on the wall. 

I tied to put these in order of favorite to least favorite, although after the first two on top everything kind of runs together for me. All together there is a nice mix of styles and colors. The antique white background really helps complete the look.

These make a great addition to my growing collection of train cards. Hopefully there will be another set like this from Topps in the future. I'm not sure of any other modern sets that feature trains in such a prominent way. Kind of makes me want to just design my own.

Has anyone else collected this particular set of minis? I'm not in the know with baseball or this Allen & Ginter stuff. Are these non-sport minis popular with collectors?