2011 Topps Heritage - Some Thoughts

One thing has become abundantly clear just a couple months into 2011 - I REALLY miss Upper Deck.  Or at least I miss what they represented, that being the last competition to the Topps baseball monopoly.  Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed Topps Series 1, but since I pulled a full base set out of my first day jumbo box it left me with little incentive to buy additional packs (not that I haven't bought a couple anyway).  With no other baseball card companies out there I've had just one big, boring lull to sit through until the next Topps offering comes out......

The good news is, at least the next Topps set is one I do indeed want to collect, and not just because I have no other options!

Let's start by looking at the design for the 500 card base set, a callback to 1962 Topps:



Love it, love it, love it!  Frankly I can't believe they didn't use this design for a Heritage set already, it would have been one of my first choices.  In my opinion there aren't many card designs from way back when that still hold up when making an honest comparison to modern designs, but this is one of them.

I do however have a bone to pick with Topps about the base set - there are 75 Short Prints.  As a set builder I've always been torn on the idea of SPs.  I understand that it encourages people to buy more packs and Topps is after all a business, but look at it this way - I couldn't find an official listing of how rare the SPs will be for Heritage, but let's assume that they are 1 in every 3 packs like they were for Topps Magic Football.  That means that even if you bought 2 full boxes (24 packs, 9 cards per pack) with pefect collation, you'll still be missing about 12% of the base set, or about 1 out of every 8 cards.  To me that seems wrong.  I think maybe 40 SPs would be a more reasonable number.  I would be interested to hear other people's take on this subject.

As far as the hits, you gotta love that all of the autographs in this set are on-card autos, no stickers!



The one negative is that there are an awful lot of players on the list of autos for this set that I've never even heard of.  I guess that is to be expected, particularly in a throwback set, but I've always been of the mind that I would rather Topps put out fewer autographed cards in total, but make the ones they do produce all really mean something.

Next up, the Clubhouse Collection relics:





As far as what you are getting, these are great!  But from a looks standpoint, my immediate response was "yuck".  Memo to all card companies - if your card design involves large portions of the card being plastered in banana yellow, you are going the wrong way!  I thought we learned this lesson decisively 20 years ago....

I think we all knew this picture was coming.



Finally, the '62 Mint Cards:



I think I'll have to reserve final judgement on how good these are until I actually get to see one in person, but I'm definitely intrigued by the idea.  Each player has 5 variations, and what I like most is that the variations aren't just the coin involved, but also the info about the player:

• 1962 Silver Half Dollar - Hall Of Fame Induction
• 1962 Quarter - Baseball Highlight
• 1962 Dime - Personal History
• 1962 Nickle - Rookie Debut
• 1962 Penny - Happy Birthday

Depending on exactly what info they have on the card backs you could end up with a nice little synopsis of your favorite player's career all contained within this set of 5 cards, which sounds like a really fun collectible to me.  I'm already considering going after the Warren Spahn cards!  :)

Catching Up - Trade Bonanza~!

Man, it's been a really busy couple weeks - I caught that damn virus that's been going around (the uncontrollable shivering even while under 3 blankets was the best part) and it knocked me on my ass for almost a week, and I've been playing catch-up ever since.  I have a whole slew of trades to post on, so let's get to it!

(For those I've traded with, if I make any mistakes about who sent me which cards please forgive me. I tried to keep them all separate but then they ended up getting mixed together by accident, and I THINK I'm remembering who sent what correctly...)

First up, I had an exchange with Charlie over at the Lifetime Topps Project.  I really like the premise of his blog - he is trying to collect every Topps base set since he was born.  In this case I sent him a handful of 2010 Topps cards, but the bulk were cards he needed for his 2010 Upper Deck set.  In return, he sent me a stack I needed from 2010 Upper Deck (which I can't post a scan of because they are already in my set binder!), and also a handful of Griffeys:

 

Thanks Charlie.  As I continue to pick my way through my old card closet I've found lots of doubles from some of the 1990s Topps sets, and I'd be happy to send some your way in the future!

Next up, I had a small exchange with AJ at The Lost Collector.  AJ found my blog and saw that I was looking to trade for Platinum Diamonds, so I sent him a couple of Yankees from different sets from last year and he sent over a couple 2010 Topps Chrome cards I was missing plus this sparkly version of Mr. Borbon:

Thanks AJ, glad you liked the Posada refractor!

Next, I had been talking with Justin over at Justin's World for a couple weeks about a trade for the Starlin Castro Topps 60 Jersey Patch I pulled from my box.  He ended up sending me a couple more Platinum Diamonds, a couple Griffeys, and a few assorted Topps inserts:

This is one of the reasons I'm really glad I started this blog.  In the past I would have pulled the Castro, said "meh," and put it in a box forever.  Now I'm able to send that card to someone who really will appreciate it and get some cool stuff in return.  Thanks Justin!

And finally, I had an exchange with Matt over at Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius (easily one of the best blog names I've seen so far).  This trade had a really unusual start - I had just happened upon his blog one day, and looking around I noticed one of the things he collects is the old Donruss Diamond King Puzzles.  I made a mental note because I had gotten all of the pieces of the Duke Snider puzzle a few months before from a random box I purchased at the local card shop (I believe it was 1984 Donruss Champions & Legends), and I figured I could set up a trade.  Then about a week later, in a really bizarre coincidence, I went to my card store and while perusing the table full of random old boxes of wax packs and assorted oddball items what did I find but 2 other complete Donruss puzzles from the mid 1980s! I snatched them right up, contacted Matt, and soon after had these lovely Griffeys waiting for me in my mailbox:

Thanks Matt!

Whew!  That's everything.  I really need to not get a backlog like this again.