Ginter Code Solution Part 1

Have you seen this man? Pat Neshek of the Minnesota Twins played a key role in this year's Ginter Code contest. So is Pat Neskek the answer? Yes and no. This card is a vital part of the Ginter Code, but not the solution. We'll get to that.

So welcome to the solving of the 2009 Ginter Code. We (Mike Gellner from JDs Wild Cardz and Nick Jacoby from Cardboard Overload) have created this blog to lead you step-by-step through how we solved the code. There are a lot of puzzles involved, and some parts can be a bit difficult to explain, so feel free to leave comments or email us with any questions that you might have.


Before we start, we just wanted to give a little background on how we ended up partnering on this project to begin with.

Mike: Earlier in the week I made it my goal to go online and download as many Ginter Code card images as possible, thanks to our friends at Ebay. A lot of images were missing, but I downloaded as many as I could find.

On Saturday, I received an email from Nick Jacoby (same name as my son...fate??) mentioning that he saw I was looking to combine efforts and that he felt he had a few good leads. We sent a few "feeler" emails out, careful not reveal too much to each other, and discovered that we were pretty much to the same point, had discovered something special with the "L" cards, and decided to start discussing on the phone. It was pretty much downhill from there and within the next 72 hours we officially submitted our response to Topps and the wait began.


I just want to say that it was without a doubt the epitome of a team effort. Nick and I helped each other out right up to the final code answer, and there is no way either one of us could have done it without the other, so I just want to thank Nick for being part of a really great experience!

Nick: I bought my boxes on Friday and knew I wanted to work on solving the code because I've always been great at puzzles and the like (yes this is me). I busted my boxes and noticed the "L" cards as well (more detailed explanation in the next step), but wanted to see if someone wanted to team up on the code rather than try to tackle it by myself. I Google searched for anyone discussing cracking the Ginter Code, and Mike was the only blog I could find. I emailed him as discussed above, and the rest is history. I want to thanks Mike as well for the experience.


Just a few quick notes about the code

• It DOES take all 100 cards to solve the puzzle (although we actually solved it without a few of the cards...more to come on this).
  




• The backs of the card WERE NOT important since these were parallels and no different from the regular cards.




• You should be able to order code cards from Ebay for MUCH cheaper now! Take it to the man!

On to the solution!

Ginter Code Solution Part 2

The "L" Cards

Mike: I remember it being Friday afternoon. I had downloaded as many cards as I could find, but had no idea who all of the code cards even were. I was trying to find a way to line up the cards side-by-side (since the was no bottom border) and thought that if I could match up pairs (example sun with moon, eagle with feather, planet with star). I kept flipping though the images and could find no matches. But just when I was ready to shut down my viewer I recognized a square around one of the "L" leters on Aaron Hill. I flipped though a few other cards with L's and discovered that not every card had this feature. I immediately started looking for any cards that had players with L's in their last name.

Nick: I bought my boxes the Friday after A&G was released and was excited to take a look at what the code involved. My first box had two code cards that I studied for a bit, and realized it was going to be a difficult code to solve. My second box had an Edgar Renteria code card:



It also had this James Loney:


When studying those I immediately noticed a striking difference in both...the "N" in Renteria had an odd font to it, and the "L" in Loney had a box around it. I started going through my base cards to see if both players had the same oddities in their base version. Renteria did (I found out that ALL player names with an N have the different font). Loney didn't have a box on the base card. BINGO, my first clue. I did some research online to see exactly how many code cards there were, and found several places claiming there were 100 cards...my new mission was to get a scan of each one (I also realized that the code cards were parallels and the backs did not differ). I headed to eBay and started to download each picture I could. Where there were auctions with lots that didn't include pictures of every card, I made a checklist until I could figure out the 100 cards that I would need. After looking at several of the cards, I noticed more cards with boxes around the "L", and also noticed many code cards that had an "L" in the name, that had no boxes. I knew I was onto something.

So upon further Ebay searching, we were able to locate nine cards with Squared "L"s

The Nine L Cards:

These are the 9 "L" cards in the 100 card set. There are several interesting items about these cards to note:

• After creating the 100 code card checklist by checking eBay auctions (thanks eBay!), Nick noted that these 9 cards all fell in a consecutive sequence among the code cards: 52, 59,62,63,67,69,70,73, and 77.




• Note that there are 3 red, 3 blue, and 3 green backgrounds...more on this later.




• Also note the position of the squared letter. These cards actually give you your alphabet based on the L that is boxed, so:

Wells=3rd letter

Kinsler=5th letter

Uggla=4th letter

Ankiel=6th letter

Reynolds=5th letter

Loney = 1st letter

Miller =4th letter

Mike: I was initially tripped-up when I saw that the 2nd L in Miller was squared. This was the only card of this 9 that had the second L highlighted...but it turned out to me nothing more than a position. Just a red herring from the code writer.

Nick: I also noticed something strange when the 2nd "L" of Miller was boxed, yet the first "L" of Hill was boxed. Why box the second L unless it had something to do with actual letter placement? I don't know that it was necessarily a red herring, because it was crucial to take the 4th letter in the "Miller group" (more to come on this) rather than the third where the first "L" was.

Hill=3rd letter

Liriano=1st letter

Nick: I had no idea where to go at this point. I had found all 9 "L" cards Friday night (well, didn't actually have a good scan of the Wells card to see a box, but figured since the 8 around it had them, the Wells had to, we just didn't know if it was the first or second L), and then when I reached out to Mike on Saturday we both cryptically shared what we had found (so as not to give up too much information about what we knew) and realized we were on the same page and that we should work together. Mike actually had originally thought that Dontrelle Willis was an "L" card, which worried me because that would void my theory of all the "L" cards being in consecutive order on the code checklist. Speaking of which, we NEVER had a scan of Dontrelle, and come to think of it, I still don't (in reality we solved the code without several cards, you can see how a bit later).

Mike: I originally was looking for a 10th L card, and Dontrelle Willis fit the mold, but once Nick pointed out that the 9 L cards were all in sequence (thanks eBay!) and that Dontrelle fell out of that sequence, so at this point we knew there were 9 and only 9 "L" cards. We had the primer.

So at this point we had successfuly found 9 cards, but still had to figure out how to incorporate the other 91...

Ginter Code Solution Part 3

What About the Other 91?

Nick: Once I had found the 9 L cards I started looking for other boxes around letters or any other oddity but could find nothing. I was stumped where to go from here. I was also trying to match the symbols up with letters and numbers. We counted 57 different symbols so I guessed that maybe each letter had two symbols, but I would have figured that whatever symbols would have been the vowels would have popped up very frequent, but none seem to pop up a lot more than any other. I had no idea where to go next until...

Mike: I wanted to convince myself that we did not need all the 100 cards to solve the puzzle, and that the other 91 cards were just smoke-screens, but unfortunately after almost hitting to wall with what to do next I came up with an idea. I took one of the L cards, Aaron Hill and noted that he had 4 letters in his last name and began going through my scans more other 4 letter name cards, and stumbled upon this...

Mike: Notice a couple of things here. Most importantly, the top border matches completely! Planet, moon, cup, key...all in order, but just the top border. Also notice that both backgrounds are green. I immediately called Nick up to report my finding. Nick followed suit, looking for other matches with players with the same number of letters in their names. next came...

Eaton and Loney...both with blue backgrounds, same number of letters in the last name, but wait, this time only the right side matched. Hmmm...

Then...

Again, same amount of letters in the name, same blue background, except this time the LEFT border only matches!

Mike: We knew at this point we were on to something. Right around this time I had some family over for dinner but was just freaking out because we were hot on the trail. I kept disappearing into the bedroom to check me email, and sure enough, Nick was sending them fast and furious and before we knew it we had 9 matches as follows...

Hill/Cain, 4 letter name, green background, top border

Eaton/Loney 5 letter name, blue background, right border

Wells/Bruce 5 letter name, red background, left border

Uggla/Parra 5 letter name, red background, right border

Liriano/Theriot 7 letter name, green background, right border

Miller/Smoltz 6 letter name, green background, left border

Reynolds/Hochovar 7 letter name, blue background, top border

Ankiel/Posada 6 letter name, blue background, left border

Kinsler/Grienke 6 letter name, red background, top border

Important Notes:

• There are 3 top, 3 right, and 3 left borders





• There are 3 red pairs, 3 blue pairs, and 3 green pairs





• MOST IMPORTANT...the matching cards turn out to be cards # 1-9 on the base checklist! Don't believe me? Take a look!

So at this point we have now dealt with 18 cards...

Nick: I was starting to lose my hope when I ran into a dead-end on the L cards, but when Mike told me about matching the top border on one of the cards, my mind started racing. Mike had family over so I found the rest of the matches, and when I realized that the cards were 1-9 on the checklist, I also found that interesting. The reason is, if you look at the checklist most of the code cards are spread out, and only a few are in sequential order. Here, the first 9 cards of the set were in sequential order and matched a given border to the L cards. At this point we still didn't have the Wells card, so we had to do some guessing as to which L was really boxed.

Mike: With family on its way home I jumped back on the computer and started arranging the 18 cards in order of 1-9 with its match, so #1 Bruce/Wells, #2 Grienke/Kinsler...and ran into another coder red herring. Taking the letter from each card corresponding to the letter on the primer "L" cards, I spelled out the words UNRAVEL IT. I was so certain that I had just solved the code and quickly sent my guess to Topps and contacted Nick. He was pretty skeptical that was all there was too it, and thank god he decided to dig deeper, because I was WRONG!

Nick: Haha, I remember getting this statement in an email: "I figured it out and submitted the guess." That was the only thing the email said. I'm sitting here thinking, how in the hell did this guy figure that out? He didn't tell me what it was or anything, so I thought it might be the last I would hear from him. I emailed him back asking what it was, he told me about UNRAVEL IT, and said "congrats bud, we did it". We borrowed Unravel for the title of this blog, and I believe Topps did put this in their purposefully to make people think they had solved it. We would later find out that those 9 cards that spelled UNRAVEL IT were not used again in the code. Anyways, at this point I was convinced there was no way we weren't going to use all 100 cards, so I wasn't going to give up just yet by believing that was the final solution.

Ginter Code Solution Part 4

Mike: So at this point in the puzzle, you now have found 9 "L" cards and matched them up with 9 cards that match the entire border on one side. While I had thought we were near the end of the puzzle, it turns out that we were only at the beginning. We had to figure out what to do with the remaining 82 cards and how the fit into the puzzle. Nick made the next important discovery.




Nick: After Mike dropped the bombshell late Sunday night that he solved the code and submitted the answer I was somewhat deflated. Was it really that easy? I wasn't going to be impressed with the code-maker if that was all there was to it.




Having a strand of hope I was laying in bed looking at all the scans and made an interesting discovery. I looked at all of the cards with four letter last names (again, all with green backgrounds) and noticed that each of them had one symbol that matched the Hill card (the L card with four letters in the last name and the green background). For instance, start with Hill and look at the top row. Zito has the sword on top, Hart has the brick wall in the same spot, Span has the lizard in the same spot, Cust has the barrel in the same spot, Cruz has the planet in the same spot, Mora has the shield in the same spot, Kemp has the moon in the same spot, I knew Cain had all the symbols in the same spot.


At this point I didn't have scans of the Webb and Drew code cards (although I knew they had code cards because of the checklist I created), but knew their backgrounds were green after looking their base cards up on eBay. I was willing to bet anyone a LARGE amount of money that they both had the cup or key in the same spot as Hill (and it turned out to be true once we found scans later).

To be honest, I can't really recall how I would even notice that, because as I step back and look at it, I think this was the biggest leap in the code, and it is probably the most crucial step in the entire process. My mind was racing though because I had a feeling I was onto something (although I was still cautious that it was just a coincidence). The next thing I did was look at the Reynolds card. Eight letters, blue background. Hmmm, onto the checklist to see what might match...Youkilis has the olive branch in the same spot, Zambrano/candle, Kotchman/star, Renteria/horse, Hamilton/storm, Guerrero/anchor, Saunders/coon-skin hat, Hochevar matched each symbol. I didn't have a scan of Pettitte or Jurrjens at the time, but again I was willing to gamble that they had either the umbrella or feather in the same spot. All blue cards, all eight letters in the last name.

I emailed these examples to Mike and he said "Alright, you have me convinced, so now we are looking for 81 cards" (referencing 9 cards to match the 9 symbols on the 9 L cards.






Mike: So with the new revelations of the single symbol cards, it became clear that we needed all 100 scans, and quick! The first thing I did was to create a nine-column spreadsheet with the matching card names in order from 1-9 ( Imagine these in excel columns going from left to right)...



Column#1
Background Red
Border: Left

Wells ("L" on 3rd position)
Bruce (Base Parallel #1)





Column#2
Background: Red
Border: Top

Kinsler ("L" on 5th position)
Grienke (Base Parallel #2)





Column #3
Background:Red
Border: Right

Uggla ("L" on 4th position)
Parra (Base Parallel #3)

Column #4
Background Blue
Border Left

Ankiel ("L" on 6th position)
Posada (Base Parallel #4)

Column #5
Background Blue
Border Top

Reynolds ("L" on 6th position)
Hochevar (Base Parallel #5)


Column #6
Background Blue
Border Right

Loney ("L" on 1st position)
Eaton (Base Parallel #6)

Column #7
Background Green
Border Left

Miller ("L" on 4th position)
Smoltz (Base Parallel #7)






Column #8
Background Green
Border Top

Hill ("L" in 3rd position)
Cain (Base Parallel #8)






Column #9
Background Green
Border Right

Liriano ("L" in 1st position)
Theriot (Base Parallel #9)







Mike: So at this point, these columns laid the foundation for how to find the names to go into each of these columns, it was simply a matter of finding the same amount of letters in the last name and also the correct border color...so even though both Uggla's and Loney's columns have the same amount of letters in the name, the background color was different. So we were aiming to find 9 columns of 11 cards each, or 99 cards total.

Nick: Something I noticed was somewhat strange though. After we decided to group the cards by colors and number of letters in the last name, I sent an email to Mike first thing Monday morning that said the following: "Something odd though...Card number 50 - Neshek has a yellow background? I haven't done a lot of research but I haven't seen any other cards with a yellow background. This is probably a silly conclusion, but I wonder if there are 11 rows of 9 cards (the number 9 seems to be popping up a lot), and since there is 100 cards in the set, the Neshek yellow card is the 100th?"

Little did I know!!

Ginter Code Solution Part 5

Mike: So at this point we knew that we were looking for 9 columns with 11 cards in each (or 99 cards total) that matched up with the background color as well as matching the number of letters in the primer cards' last name. Because we now had more information at this point (including more scans as sellers posted new auctions), it became much easier to take the scans and break them into their respective groups.

What order do the names go in?

As Nick discovered, there were cards fit the first two criteria (same number of letters in last name, same background color) as well as ONE symbol that matched in the same spot as the primer card. So to order the cards, we would group them together and then place them by symbol matching in 1st position, 2nd position, 3rd position, etc. After a few hours, this is what we had...

Column#1

Background Red
Border Left
Letters in last name: 5


Wells ("L" on 3rd position)
Bruce (matches all left border symbols)
Lidge (Matches 1st left border symbol)
Thome (Matches 2nd left border symbol)
Giles (matches 3rd left border symbol)
Utley (matches 4th left border symbol)
Peavy (matches 5th left border symbol)
Garza (matches 6h left border symbol)
Maine (matches 7th left border symbol)
Braun (matches 8th left border symbol)
Lopez (matches 9th left border symbol)

Mike: Continue in this same manner for the top border and bottom border of the red set, and then again for the blue and green set. If you continue this manner the rest of the names fall as follows...

Column#2


Background: Red
Border: Top
Letters in last name: 7

Kinsler ("L" on 5th position)

Grienke

Fielder


Hoffman


Santana

Ordonez

Pedroia

Iwamura

Quentin

Berkman

Soriano


Column #3

Background Red
Border: Right
Letters in last name: 5

Uggla ("L" on 4th position)

Parra

Myers

Weeks

Crisp

Cantu

Upton

Votto

Meche

Abreu

Olsen


Column #4
Background Blue
Border Left
Letters in last name: 6

Ankiel ("L" on 6th position)
Posada

Aviles

Greene

Martin

Ichiro

Lackey

Doumit

Church

Harang

Matsui

Column #5
Background Blue
Border Top
Letters in last name: 8

Reynolds ("L" on 6th position)

Hochevar

Zambrano

Kotchman

Saunders

Youkilis

Jurrjens

Hamilton

Pettitte

Guerrero

Renteria







Column #6
Background Blue
Border Right
Letters in last name: 5


Loney ("L" on 1st position)

Eaton

Soria

Ortiz

Reyes

Danks

Ellis

Rolen

Blake

Young

Snell


Nick: As we started to find these cards that had one symbol match a symbol on a certain side of a corresponding L card, I kept wondering if we were on a wild goose chase. Mike was convinced, but I still didn't know if we were on the right track. I got really excited at this point though, because I thought I found the first part of the code. The first letter of Loney was boxed, so when taking the first letters of this group, you get LESORDERBYS...I noticed "order by" in there, and could have sworn it was part of the code.

Column #7
Background Green
Border Left
Letters in last name: 6


Miller ("L" on 4th position)

Smoltz

Burnes

Lowrie

Kuroda

Willis

Jacobs

Duncan

Helton

Maholm

Suppan


Column #8
Background Green
Border Top
Letters in last name: 4


Hill ("L" in 3rd position)

Cain

Cruz

Kemp

Webb

Drew

Mora

Cust

Zito

Span

Hart

Nick: I started to think we were on the wrong track (and the "order by" was a pure coincidence) when I noticed that there weren't any 7 letter green cards to match with Liriano. At this point I was ready to start from scratch, but I later figured out the 6 letter greens that DIDN'T match with Miller, matched with Liriano. I had no clue why this group was different (and it is a question I would like to ask the code maker), but I was completely relieved when I realized we were still (hopefully) on the right path. Once we figured this out, the spreadsheet Mike put together came together very nicely.


Column #9
Background Green
Border Right

Liriano ("L" in 1st position)

Theriot

Tejada

Weaver

Ibanez

Teahan

Hunter

Furcal

Lannan

Atkins

Gordon


Mike: This now accounts for 99 of the 100 cards...what about the last card? Well, he has a yellow background, and does not fit with the others, but this will all make sense after the next step.

Nick: We had no clue what Neshek was for, but we were both wondering if he was some sort of key to get the final message. Hmmm...

Ginter Code Solution Part 6

Mike: So at this point we know the order of the cards, and we can account for 99 of the 100. The next thing Nick and I looked for was a message. Using the Squared "L" in each column, we picked out the letter from each card that fell in that position.

Column#1
Background Red
Border Left

Wells ("L" on 3rd position)
Bruce
Lidge
Thome
Giles
Utley
Peavy
Garza
Maine
Braun
Lopez

Nick: I saw "dollar" and thought hmmm...could this be prize money :)
Mike: Would help to recover hundreds spent on Ginter cards!

Column#2
Background Red
Border: Top

Kinsler ("L" on 5th position)
Grienke
Fielder
Hoffman
Santana
Ordonez
Pedroia
Iwamura
Quentin
Berkman
Soriano

Column #3
Background Red
BorderRight

Uggla ("L" on 4th position)
Parra
Myers
Weeks
Crisp
Cantu
Upton
Votto
Meche
Abreu
Olsen


Column #4
Background Blue
Border Left


Ankiel ("L" on 6th position) Posada
Aviles
Greene
Martin
Ichiro
Lackey
Doumit
Church
Harang
Matsui

Column #5
Background Blue
Border Top

Reynolds ("L" on 6th position)
Hochevar
Zambrano
Kotchman
Saunders
Youkilis
Jurrjens
Hamilton
Pettitte
Guerrero
Renteria



Column #6
Background Blue
Border Right

Loney ("L" on 1st position)
Eaton
Soria
Ortiz
Reyes
Danks
Ellis
Rolen
Blake
Young
Snell


Column #7
Background Green
Border Left

Miller ("L" on 4th position)
Smoltz
Burnes
Lowrie
Kuroda
Willis
Jacobs
Duncan
Helton
Maholm
Suppan


Column #8
Background Green
Border Top

Hill ("L" in 3rd position)
Cain
Cruz
Kemp
Webb
Drew
Mora
Cust
Zito
Span
Hart


Column #9
Background Green
Border Right

Liriano ("L" in 1st position)
Theriot
Tejada
Weaver
Ibanez
Teahan
Hunter
Furcal
Lannan
Atkins
Gordon

Here is where the fun begins! A couple points about what to do next:

• Imagine each three colors sets as three separate "pictures" Red, Blue, the Green




• When you read the letters, read clockwise starting in the lower left corner of the left border up around the top border and down the right border side of the each color set.

If you write it down correctly her is what you will see...

PAIRALLODULLNDMANOUTMALRRKSTOTHEEIGHTYONES

LLVAMELETTERLESORDERBYSPOTCOLORNLLLIUMBERSTARLTTWITHFLAG

Mike: If you look at what you read above, you will spot certain words, but there appears to be a lot of gibberish as well. Then a revelation hit me, and I emailed Nick "I know what it says", almost within seconds he responded "me too!" Here is the deal. We figured out that in order for this gibberish to make sense, you must eliminate the letters associated with the primer card, as well as the mate card (where the entire border side matches). He is what it looks like when you eliminate the 18 cards...(eliminate letters highlighted in red)

PAIRALLODULLNDMANOUTMALRRKSTOTHEEIGHTYONES

LLVAMELETTERLESORDERBYSPOTCOLORNLLLIUMBERSTARLTTWITHFLAG

This would leave:

PAIRALLODDMANOUTMARKSTOTHEEIGHTYONESAMELETTERSORDERBYSPOTCOLOR

NUMBERSTARTWITHFLAG

or...

Pair all odd man out marks to the eighty one same letters, order by spot, color, number. start with flag!

So now you know who the "Odd Man Out" is. The only yellow background card of the lot, and the 100th card of the code, Mr. Pat Neshek! Also notice that the bottom left symbol is a flag...BINGO!

So here ya go! Is this the answer? NO! We still have more cracking to do (but getting close!)

Ginter Code Solution Part 7

The Odd Man OutYou have now reached the final and most critical portion of this code involving Odd Man Out Pat Neshek.

Mike: Once Nick and I knew we had the riddle, I rushed to print up both the Neshek Card as well as the instructions and we called each other and worked out the meaning of the riddle.

Nick: To be honest, I had no clue if we were even on the right path (even though we had found all of the matching symbol cards) until we figured out that if we drop the letters, that gibberish becomes an actual message!

So here is what the riddle stated:

pair all odd man out marks to the eighty one same letters, order by spot, color, number. start with flag!

Well, first of all we know what the "marks" are, that part is pretty obvious. We also know that there is a flag symbol in the lower left corner, so that is the starting point. So the goal is to once again move clockwise around the border starting at bottom left, around the top, and down the right side.

What are the eighty one same letters? Remember in the last step that we deleted the primer card and its matching mate card. so that is 18 cards gone. 100 cards - 18 cards = 82 cards - 1 odd man out card = 81 cards!

The riddle then states to order first by spot (start with the flag) then by color, then by number. Remember that the color order was red, blue, green

So here are some scenarios

• You need to find every card of the 81 that has a flag as its first symbol. There could be anywhere from 1-81 of these (in actuality there are no more than 4)




• If you find cards of different colors, order them red, blue green.




• If you have 2 reds and a blue, then to get the reds in the right order, you look up the card number and collate by card number for the reds (order by number), then add the blue card



• If you have 3 red cards, then order from lowest to highest card number.

Once you have the flag symbol cards in order, then once again use your "L" Square location to find the appropriate letter on each card.

Repeat this process with each of the 27 symbols on Neshek's card. Again there are anywhere from 1-4 cards that will match that symbol

IMPORTANT: Some cards can be used more than once...meaning that maybe the 2nd and 14th symbol match up.

Once you have all of the symbols and its respective cards in the proper order, and have pulled the proper letter from each card, you should receive this message...

TOWINEMAILAPHOTOOFYOUHOLDINGTHEODDMANOUTCARDWITHBIGTHUMBSUP

WELLDONECODEBREAKER

Or...

To win email a photo of you holding the odd man out card with big thumbs up. Well done codebreaker!

There you have it!

Mike: So there you have it. Just a wild 72 hour ride from start to finish to solve this year's Ginter code. I have seen some posting chastising Topps, who had promised to make this years code tougher than last year. This solution should demostrate that the code was indeed very challenging with several layers of puzzles. Some day I would like to have a beer with the guy who wrote it, because it really is pretty brilliant!

Both Nick and I were excited to share the news, but were met with a lot of skepticism (rightly so, since Topps auto-reply did not immediately change to say that the code had been solved). We were left to sit on our hands and wait it out for the rest of the work week until Topps finally confirmed that the code has officially been cracked. Then of course all hell broke loose and we have dedicated most of the weekend to preparing the solution for everybody to see. First, I hope it makes sense! Secondly, I just wanted to say thanks to all of those who wrote to congratulate us on our achievement. I never started this puzzle fully believing that we would ACTUALLY WIN, but our teamwork was just flawless, and I guess sometimes good things just happen! Thanks everybody!

Nick: What a weekend it was trying to solve the code. I actually called my hobby shop when I got the confirmation email from Topps and I swear he almost hung up on me because he thought I was full of crap! I've talked to several different collectors across the country who have asked me for hints, or to see if they were on the right track, and I've seen some funny stuff. One guy swore to me that the playing cards on the left side of the box were part of the code and represented certain players in the set (may be true, who knows!). A poster on Freedom Cardboard's forum (schmidtfan20) sent me a private message saying he got stuck after "Unravel it". He was sooo close to being on the right track!

I haven't heard from Topps yet, other than to tell me that I was the first and only person to solve it so far, and that someone would contact me regarding the code and the prize. I'm hoping they will let us make our way on to a card for next year's set (even though they aren't advertising that as a prize), and give both me and Mike a set of the autographs!

It was a great ride, thanks for reading, and remember feel free to comment and ask us questions if our directions aren't clear or you get stuck! Most of the scans should be found on eBay, but if there is one you can't find let me know and I can get it to you.

Bring on the 2010 Ginter Code!

Mike: I retire!