Old hobby formats die hard
If you look at the biggest failures of the last few years for Topps, two factors are recurring themes: mini cards and novelty factory sets. Topps Mini was a no-show at this year’s national convention after last year’s version hit 75% off at the Topps web site. Bowman Chrome Mini has been a tough sell even at 50% off the wholesale price (and shows no signs of coming back for 2015). Topps Heritage High Number ditched the factory set format after two years of dismal sales and turned into one of the best products of the year. 2015 was the year of Topps learning its lessons, apparently.
But old habits die hard. Unable to resist temptation, Topps dipped back into the well of failure twice in late 2015. Topps Mini returned in factory set form, embodying the worst of both worlds and trying to make work what even Bowman Chrome couldn’t succeed at. And Topps Heritage ’51 Collection came seemingly out of nowhere, adding a fourth 2015 Topps baseball product to the Heritage lineup. The only one in factory set form. And with lots of minis! This is not the product the hobby needed or wanted, though it isn’t without redeeming value. Not entirely.
It seems strange after 15 years of Heritage, but Topps has never done a full product with the 1951 design. In 2001, Topps Heritage debuted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Topps using the 1952 design. Every following year’s Topps Heritage product has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the design from 49 years earlier. That one-year gap is due to the 1951 set, which was the first Topps card set but was more playing card than trading card. So it was fitting then that 2015 Topps Heritage ’51 Collection was released as a 104-card factory set, forming exactly two 52-card decks (one red back and one blue back, just like the original). But could this concept work as a modern sports card product? Topps sure tried to make it work, I’ll give them that.
Card Design
All cards in Heritage ’51 Collection use the same design, the 1951 Topps design. Grainy black and white player photos are surrounded by a primary color playing card design with the card number and player blurb on the front. The backs are generic, as you would expect for a playing card. The cards are beautifully produced, but the design is kind of ugly. There’s just not much you can do with this design.
Mets Selection
The Mets get seven cards in the 104-card set, which is enough to get a mix of stars, rookies, and Lucas Duda. The lack of Steven Matz is disappointing, but you can’t complain too much.
Inserts
Minis! Each factory set includes 21 mini parallels, just what everyone wants. To see never happen ever again. Five different parallels exist, each with a different color back and all in the same size as the original 1951 cards. Even though each color is inserted at a different rate, these cards are not serial numbered (based on production, the rarest variant has about 75 of each produced). As a result, demand for them is practically nonexistent. There is only one card in each factory set with any value.
Autographs
One of the worst products of the year somehow got one of the best autograph checklists. The Heritage ’51 Collection autograph checklist has only 28 names on it, but those names include Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, and a lot of Rookies. On the Mets side, David Wright, Jacob deGrom, Kevin Plawecki, and Noah Syndergaard have live autographs and Lucas Duda is included with redemptions. No other team has more than three autographs. All autographs have serial numbers, with base versions numbered to 250 or fewer copies and parallels numbered to between 1 and 25. The signature area is a solid white block, making these some of the cleanest autograph cards released this year. Score one for a boring design!
The Verdict
The big names and low-numbered parallels in the autograph checklist will probably keep sealed sets from being heavily discounted, but that’s the only thing 2015 Topps Heritage ’51 Collection has going for it. With the most beautifully ugly autographs packed with 100+ cards of junk filler, Heritage ’51 Collection is a product of contradictions. Hopefully, it will follow its namesake and be another one-off experiment never to be repeated.
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