These Cards Are Nuts

Recently I picked up two Giants team sets that are stadium give aways sponsored by Emerald Nuts.

These sets were from the 2005 and 2008 seasons. Several months back I picked up the 2011 set as well. I have only seen a 2009 set on eBay but I have to assume these have been given out annually since at least 2005.  I thought it might be fun to share the contents of these packs and make some comparisons to the standard Topps issues.

Let's check out the 2008 set first.  Here are some examples of the front and back.  The front design is the same as the base set with the addition of the Emerald logo on the front.  The backs look exactly the same with the exception of the numbering.  This is a 32 card set and the numbers go from SFG1 to SFG32.

Many of the cards have the same photos as their base Topps counterparts:

A couple have different photos, the standard issues are both from the Update set which may explain the difference:

My two favorite features of these sets are #1 - cards of players that don't appear in the base Topps set:

Some good action photos and at least one quality player in Jonathan Sanchez.  #2 - Coaches Cards:

The Giants have some solid former players as coaches like Dave Righetti, Carney Landsford, Tim Flannery and Mark Gardner so it is nice seeing them on some new cards.  Overall I think coaches are underrepresented, I love the old 1960 Topps coaches cards.

Next up the 2005 Emerald Set, take a look at this design:

Again the backs have a different numbering convention, this time it is GTS1 - GTS30. Do the fronts seem a little different, notice a slight change?

Oh yeah, the borders!  I was very surprised when I opened these up for the first time.  I really like the black borders, I am a huge fan.  It goes great with the Giants color scheme but I really think it would work with any team's cards. The scans don't do it justice but the gold looks really nice with the black as well.  Two thumbs up from me.  As you see, for the most part the same photos, I was only able to find one different one (however my team sets are complete from 2005 so there may be a couple more:

Mike Matheny was in the Update set and the Emerald set with the same photo so I am not totally sure why this had to happen.  This set has quite a few more new players than occurred in 2008, two scans worth:

I couple solid players and some young guys as well.  In addition to liking the new guys and the coaches card, I have another favorite part of this set:

A nicely designed header card!  The Header card is not numbered (so there are 31 cards in the pack) but does contain a checklist on the back.

I am very happy with these pick ups.  I may splurge on the 2009 set and will definitely be on the lookout for the other years.