Tag Archives: Topps

The Topps Spring Fever Promotion Leaves Collectors Cold

Posted by on 1 April 2014 Comments Off on The Topps Spring Fever Promotion Leaves Collectors Cold

An April Fools’ joke two months early

I’m not trying to turn this blog completely negative. Really, I’m not. But when these stories present themselves, they get little attention from the big names in collecting news. That leaves it up to the little guys to capture these moments for posterity and make sure that they become part of the historical record. In this case, Topps has set a precedent that could completely undermine the entire hobby. It almost certainly won’t go that far, but the lack of any notable backlash seems to have demonstrated that there is no obligation to deliver what is promised in a pack of cards.

Last year, Topps introduced the Spring Fever promotion with 2013 Topps Series 1. This was the first of many promotions designed to get people to spend more time at their local hobby shops. Spring Fever redemption cards were inserted into packs at a rate of one per hobby box (regular or jumbo). If you had a participating hobby shop near you, you could redeem the card for a special 5-card pack of Spring Fever cards, which contained an assortment of cards from the 50-card set plus 32 different autograph cards randomly inserted. For those without local hobby shops, they could sell the redemption cards for about $2 each, a nice little bonus out of each box (something usually referred to as “added value”).

The Spring Fever cards themselves were quite nice. Even though the photographs were mostly just the same photographs used in the base Topps set, the metallic foil and new background design made them really stand out in a sea of colored border parallels. The cards look even better scanned, just like the 2012 Topps Archives gold parallels. For a Mets collector, having David Wright and Jeurys Familia in the base set wasn’t all that bad. The set itself was a mix of rookies, stars, and retired greats, making it a fun set to put together. On top of that, the autographs, while on stickers, were a nice bonus for the price. I bought 10 extra redemption cards and pulled the Markakis auto shown above, which sold for almost as much as I paid for the redemption cards (I probably could have gotten more if I had sold the unopened packs though…). It was hard not to like this new promotion.

2013 Topps Series 1 delivered considerable value beyond the cards in the packs. In addition to the Spring Fever redemptions, Topps also continued its tradition of wrapper redemptions in 2013 Series 1. Wrappers from a box of cards would get you a 5-card Silver Slate pack, which contained a mix of blue sparkle parallels, framed silver parallels numbered to 10, and autographs. Luck was on my side in these, delivering three of the cards above in the four packs I sent in for (I had to buy the Familia). The Machado and Kipnis each sold for about $30, not bad for a few bonus packs.

And that brings us to 2014 Topps Series 1. Like last year, Spring Fever redemption cards were back at the same insertion rate. No announcements were made about wrapper redemptions, which Topps seemed to be phasing out anyway. Then something strange happened when people started opening packs – they couldn’t find the Spring Fever redemption cards. Box after box, case after case, thousands of packs were opened on launch day without a single Spring Fever redemption card being pulled. Usually, this would be a sign of something being a retail exclusive, but that wouldn’t make sense for a hobby store promotion. Something was wrong. Then Topps confirmed it: Spring Fever redemption cards weren’t in packs of 2014 Topps Series 1.

With no wrapper redemption planned, switching the Spring Fever to a wrapper redemption would at least ensure that the people who were shorted the redemption cards could still get the packs (or get some money for the wrappers). Topps however also confirmed that there would be no wrapper redemption for 2014 Topps Series 1. No redemption cards, no wrapper redemption, how was Topps going to make things right? As it turned out, all would be made right for a price.

Spring Fever promotional flyer sent to hobby shops in early March of 2014

Topps would later reduce the cost of a Spring Fever promo pack from 18 packs to 16 packs. What a bargain! For only the cost of 16 hobby packs, or about $32, collectors could get something that was supposed to be in a box they already spent $70-100 on two months ago. I suppose you also get the cards in the packs for that price, but the value of a two month old product just isn’t what it used to be. And of course there’s the little bit about how collectors already bought a ton of this stuff two months ago with the promise of Spring Fever packs. But was it really a promise? Let’s take a look at the wrapper.

Odds from the wrapper of a 2014 Topps Series 1 hobby jumbo pack

If you read the fine print, near the end of the fourth line you’ll see the odds of a Spring Fever Redemption card in a hobby jumbo pack at 1:10, or one per hobby jumbo box on average (odds for regular hobby packs are 1:36 with 36 packs per box). That’s not a guarantee that one will be in any particular pack or even a sealed box. It could be argued that it isn’t any sort of guarantee at all. But if that is the case, what about all of the other cards with listed odds? Can Topps get away with leaving all of those out too and charging more later for the chance to get them? Either Topps is obligated to meet the insertion rates printed on their product or they are free to ignore them, there’s no middle ground. Since nothing has happened to Topps for their failure to deliver Spring Fever redemption cards, we are left to assume that pack odds are not in any way binding and can freely be ignored by manufacturers. That is a disturbing concept.

Luckily, while it seems that Topps is under no obligation to deliver what their product promises, hobby shops are under no obligation to follow the specific rules regarding the distribution of promo packs (well, they may technically have an obligation, but Topps has no way to enforce it unless the shops do something stupid like listing promotional items on eBay). Many shops are doing the right thing and are giving the packs to customers who they know deserve them or are at least making them available for more than just purchases of the now outdated 2014 Topps Series 1.

This may be the last we see of this problem. Or it could only be the beginning. In any case, it should not be ignored and forgotten. Major League Baseball may have sold out to Topps, but that doesn’t mean that we have to stand by silently and watch Topps disrespect collectors and the hobby. Topps is not and will never be the hobby, no matter what their arrogance leads them to believe.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Museum Collection

Posted by on 18 November 2012 2 comments

Pretty and loaded, but not very deep

If the name Museum Collection sounds familiar, you might be remembering last years amazing framed autograph cards from 2011 Topps Marquee.  This year, Museum Collection is the name of the product, with more framed autos and a few interesting changes.  This time around, multi-player cards and booklets are plentiful, as are 1/1s and Jumbo Lumber bat cards (in addition to the occasional bat card in the regular jumbo relic set).  The cards look better than ever, which may not mean much in a product with only one prior release, but it is still worth noting.  Marquee looked good, Museum Collection looks great.

Base Set

Wait, there’s a base set?  Oh, right, here’s something an eBay seller threw in as a freebie with one of the Primary Pieces Four Player Relics:

Nice try, but wrong team.  Oh well.  I’m sure if I take long enough to get this review out I’ll get a hold of a proper Met to use here.

Procrastination has its rewards

Even though these are base cards, they are still as thick as everything else in this product.  Player selection is limited though; only David Wright and Nolan Ryan made the cut.  Tom Seaver would have made more sense, but he only shows up in the Canvas Collection art card set (which are his only individual cards in this entire product, all others are with three other players).

All base cards have a version with no serial number and four serial numbered variants with print runs of 299, 199, 99, and 1, while Canvas Collection cards also have parallel versions numbered to 10.  Not bad for what is essentially filler in this product.

Game-Used and Autographs

This is what people are really after in Museum Collection.  Last year, 2011 Topps Marquee set the bar pretty high, getting my award for 2011 Mets Game-Used Product of the Year.  So is 2012 Topps Museum Collection up to the challenge?  Yes and no.

Yes, the variety of Mets cards is much improved from last year’s product, which lacked any Mets triple relic cards and had several other Metsless variant sets.  Museum Collection has a Met in every major insert category except, sadly, Framed Autographs (Archival Autographs Dual and Cut Autographs are also without Mets, but those are fairly minor in comparison).  This year’s product features Mets with autographs, large jerseys and bats (both alone and in two-player booklets), autographed single, double, triple, and quad memorabilia cards, and quad relics (featuring one or four players).  And that’s just for David Wright.

No, the player selection is extremely limited, with David Wright representing the Mets in every game-used set and single Archival Autographs, Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden (plus Tom Seaver on the quad player relics and Nolan Ryan on his Archival Autographs cards) representing retired Mets, and Dillon Gee representing the young players.  Jose Reyes is also featured as a Met on a lot of cards, while Ike Davis makes his 2012 game-used debut on a dual Jumbo Lumber relic booklet card with Wright.  Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, and Heath Bell round out the roster with former Mets shown in other uniforms (plus a Warren Spahn Cut Autograph 1/1).  It’s not a terrible list, but it is a bit light on players who are actually, you know, on the team.  This is likely a consequence of moving it from a fall release to a spring release, but that really only explains Reyes.  Is there nobody else on the Mets worth including?  For comparison, there are 14 Yankees in the Momentous Material Jumbo Relic set alone; even the Pirates have four in that set compared to three for the Mets and eight total players shown as Mets in all of Museum Collection.

Overall, it’s not a bad mix.  Between all of the different insert sets and parallels, it adds up to over 100 autographed and/or game-used cards of current or former Mets players.  David Wright accounts for all or part of 28 of those and Jose Reyes adds 14 more.  Once you remove the cards of players not shown as Mets, that leaves you with just 26 other Mets cards to split between Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Gooden, and Gee.  The field thins out very fast in this product.

On the positive side, the few players we do get bring a lot of new material.  Reyes, superfluous as he may be at this point, has his first blue jerseys in Museum Collection.  I’m hoping for some large orange jerseys in next year’s product; blue and orange (even if it is from the Marlins) would look great side-by-side.  Reyes’s quad jerseys also include swatches with orange or blue piping, another first (piping has become more common in recent years after apparently being stripped off prior to cutting in the early days of game-used).  Dillon Gee also has his first blue jersey cards, with patch and piping variants, and David Wright got in on the piping party with a few variants of his quad jersey cards.  Carter’s pinstripe jerseys are the first I’ve seen of the narrow variant of the printed zigzag stripe, calling into question everything I thought I knew about that stripe’s history, and Gooden has some great-looking dual pinstripe jersey cards.  Finally, Carlos Beltran’s large jerseys were all a very off-white, indicating that they are from his Giants uniform.  I would have preferred the orange swatches that some other Giants players got, but this is still good enough to call it a confirmed Giants colored jersey, the first in my collection.

Here’s the full list of Mets-related items you can pull from boxes of 2012 Topps Museum Collection (each box contains one autograph, one autographed relic, one jumbo relic, and one quad relic):

Archival Autographs

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

These are the base autographs in this product but are all limited-production on-card autographs of star players.

Archival Autographs Dual

Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays (with Hank Aaron)

Talk about a holy grail.  This may be one of the best dual autographs since the Mickey Mantle / Ken Griffey Jr. card back in the ’90s.  Expect to pay just shy of $1,000 if you want to pick one up.

Framed Autographs

Gold: Numbered to 15
Silver: Numbered to 10
Black: Numbered to 5

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

This year’s Framed Autographs get a three-tier parallel that brings their total production run even with the lesser Archival Autographs.  I’ll assume that these look just as good as last year’s, but you really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Cut Autographs

Numbered to 1

Non-Mets: Warren Spahn

Cut signature, 1/1, Hall of Famer not known for his time with the Mets.

Momentous Material Jumbo Relics

Silver: Numbered to 50
Gold: Numbered to 35
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 10
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Duke Snider

I have to say, I really like the changes they made from last year’s Titanic Threads.  While the size of the material is down a bit, the big square piece has much better presence and allows for a big player photo next to it.  Pinstripe and colored swatches look great, too bad Wright is stuck with an old gray piece.  We don’t get enough large jerseys these days, so get these while you can.

Momentous Material Jumbo Patch Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Only Wright and Reyes get the patch treatment, but they are some really outstanding patches.  At 5 apiece, don’t expect to have an easy time finding them.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright (with Evan Longoria), Jose Reyes (with Jimmy Rollins)
Non-Mets: Duke Snider (with Matt Kemp)

I don’t mind the inclusion of Longoria because a. prior to his injury, he was one of the best players in the game and b. he plays in a completely different division.  The Reyes-Rollins booklet on the other hand features the shortstops of two NL East division rivals.  And Ruben Tejada isn’t given a single game-used card anywhere.  Otherwise, I love the idea of booklet cards as long as they don’t go nuts with it like Panini did with their infinie booklet cards.  Two is plenty.

Momentous Material Jumbo Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

These have to be some of the most beautiful cards in this product.  Not only is there an autograph and a nice big piece of patch (or, in some unfortunate cases, tag), but most patches are of the premium variety – round sleeve logos or, for Carter, the 25th Anniversary patch.

Momentous Material Jumbo Lumber Relics

Silver: Numbered to 30
Gold: Numbered to 20
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 5
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield

These are just like the regular Momentous Materials Jumbo Relics, only with a round piece of bat instead of a square piece of jersey or bat.  Large bat cards are even harder to find than large jersey cards, so these are a real treat.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Lumber Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Ike Davis, David Wright (with Alex Rodriguez)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (with Harmon Killebrew)

If one is good, two must be better, right?  Wright is once more paired with a third baseman from the AL East (not a bad choice), but the real draw here is the Ike/Wright booklet – this is Ike Davis’s first game-used card in 2012 after a breakout 2011 with lots of jerseys and bats in Topps Marquee and Topps Triple Threads.  Injury and regression hit Davis hard on the field and in the hobby.  It’s still a great card though.

Signature Swatches Dual Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

With these, you get an autograph (sticker of course) and either two swatches of jersey or bat or a jersey swatch and a piece of patch/piping/multicolor jersey.  The variants numbered to 5 include two pieces of patch (if applicable).  David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Signature Swatches Triple Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

Same as the duals only with three swatches and an autograph.  As in the dual version, David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Sadly, this year’s quad relic cards are not an improvement over last year’s.  While having the jersey swatches split to the four corners of the card looks a bit better, there is very little variation between the silver, red, and gold versions.  Every card has three jersey swatches (blue for Reyes, gray or white for Wright) and one swatch with a piece of patch or piping.  As usual, the variants numbered to 5 are all patch swatches.  With a four-tier parallel and four swatches to work with, you would think there could be a bit more variety (some of last year’s went nuts with variations, including what appeared to be a piece of Phillies patch for Beltran, which makes no sense whatsoever).

Primary Pieces Quad Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

The quad relic cards left no room for autographs, so the autographed version is in booklet form.  These are hard to find and highly sought after, but that goes for most of the cards numbered to 10 or less.

Primary Pieces Four-Player Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Jose Reyes (with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Jose Reyes (with Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, and Elvis Andrus), Tom Seaver (with Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia)
Non-Mets: Heath Bell (with Brian Wilson, Craig Kimbrel, and Mariano Rivera), Nolan Ryan (listed above)

The four-player version of the Primary Pieces insert set includes some interesting player combinations.  Wright and Reyes appear together with their Yankees counterparts, Seaver makes his only game-used appearance with Nolan Ryan (Seaver’s material is from a Reds jersey while Ryan is shown as an Astros uniform), and Reyes appears again with his future (and now former) teammate Hanley Ramirez.  Heath Bell also has his only game-used cards in this insert set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics Legends

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

The final Primary Pieces insert set featured some of the game’s all-time greats on a slightly different card design.  Carter’s cards contained pieces from a pinstripe jersey (though many pieces did not have stripes) and Mays had a couple of quad bat cards.

And there you have it, the defending Mets Game-Used Product of the Year champion.  Once again, this is clearly the bastard child of 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade and 2005 SP Legendary Cuts raised by Topps.  With a few more players, this could have been something truly special, instead it’s just pretty damn good.  As with most premium releases, value for the money is a bit of a crap shoot, with some cards selling for less than $10 and others selling for $1000 or more.  I’ll stick with singles on the secondary market over boxes/packs.  Compared to the premium products that followed it in 2012, Museum Collection looks pretty strong.  The variety of players and material is much better than the offerings in Tier One and Five Star and Triple Threads, despite having a better player selection, can’t compete with the quality and availability of the game-used in Museum Collection.  All have their strong points, but I think Museum Collection comes out on top.

Product Spotlight: Topps Tier 1, Tier One, Tier 1 One, Tier Whatever

Posted by on 2 October 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: Topps Tier 1, Tier One, Tier 1 One, Tier Whatever

Finally, a product that is honest with itself

Look, I don’t buy boxes of premium products.  If I’m going to drop hundreds of dollars on cards, I either want a good number of cards (preferably enough to build a set) or just the premium inserts that I want.  I’m not in this for the gambling, so missing out on a slim chance at a big score is worth it if I can get the cards I want at a reasonable price.  In the case of 2012 Topps Tier One, I spent less than the price of four boxes and got cards that are better than could be expected from four boxes, which is a win in my book.

Base Card

So beautiful

Got ya, there are no base cards!  If there’s one thing that I hate in sports card products, it’s filler.  No, not those blank cards that are used to thicken packs to make it harder to find high-dollar cards by feel.  It’s the base cards in those one-big-ass-hit-per-pack products that seem the most pointless.  I mean, how do you collect base cards when the packs cost $100+ each?  Mix in a few levels of parallels and some inserts to thin things out and you have, at best, some singles you can get a few dollars for because the people who want them aren’t going to drop a few thousand dollars to pull one.  That’s why it was refreshing to see Topps basically say “Look, this is a pure gamble, there’s no collecting to be done here, just a big win or a big loss,” with 2012 Topps Tier One.  Each box contains one pack that in turn contains just three cards, two with autographs and one without (plus a bonus relic in every fourth box).  Based on the Twitter buzz about this product, you would assume that there was a 1/1 bat knob in each pack, but that of course was not to be.  There was still a lot to like about this product, when purchased on the secondary market of course (good advice for any premium product).

Top Shelf Relics / Autographed Relics

If one is boring, three is, um, also boring

Single Relic: Numbered to 399 or 150
Double Relic: Numbered to 50 or less
Triple Relic: Numbered to 25 or less
Autographed Single Relic: Numbered to 99
Autographed Double Relic: Numbered to 25
Autographed Triple Relic: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright (Autographed Relics have not been seen)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (Relics only), Gary Sheffield (Autographed Relics only)

These are the filler relic cards, with even Wright’s triple relic commanding less than $10.  If you pulled one of these as your non-autographed card, well, my condolences.  And stay away from the slot machines.  Like last year’s cards, these are largely forgettable and don’t really get any better with more material.  The usual boring gray jersey swatches don’t help much either.  How long has it been since we’ve seen a pinstripe jersey card from Wright?  Autographed versions may exist for some players, but the checklist doesn’t match up with what has been seen.

Prestigious Patches Relics / Autographed Relics

The thin blue line makes a crappy patch

Relic: Numbered to 10
Autographed Relic: Numbered to 10

Mets: Dwight Gooden, Rickey Henderson (Autographed Relic only), Eddie Murray (Autographed Relic only), David Wright (Autographed Relic only)
Non-Mets: Willie Mays (Relic only), Nolan Ryan (Relic only), Tom Seaver (Relic only), Warren Spahn (Relic only)

A better relic pull would be one of these jumbo relics.  Most of these are patches, but Wright has large pieces of gray jersey with blue piping instead (Topps and I clearly have different definitions of ‘patch’).  Gooden and Murray have nice big Mets patches, which at least explains why Murray is shown as a Met here.  In general, I’m really getting tired of seeing Murray, Henderson, and Ryan shown as Mets, but I’ll allow it if the purpose is to match the material in the card.

Bat Knobs

Numbered to 1

Mets: Gary Carter, Jose Reyes, Tom Seaver
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Duke Snider, Darryl Strawberry

And here’s the real relic draw.  With going rates around $800 for most players, a bat knob pull would make up for a few boxes of garbage.  It is also extremely unlikely (odds are 1 in 204 packs).  Pulls of a lifetime tend to be somewhat rare.  But they sure look nice.

Crowd Pleasers Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Ike Davis, Ed Kranepool, David Wright
Non-Mets: George Foster

On the autograph side of things, you have several mostly identical insert sets.  Crowd Pleasers are landscape-oriented cards featuring on-card autographs in either blue ink on a white background or White/Silver/Gold ink on a black background.  These are some sharp-looking cards and have ink colors that you don’t really see much anymore now that Sweet Spot is gone.  The player selection is fairly standard but better than most products, with David Wright and Ike Davis representing the current Mets and Ed Kranepool representing retired Mets.  It’s always nice to see more Kranepool, but some more variety would have been welcome.  Luckily, there are plenty more autograph insert sets to work with.

On the Rise Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Jon Niese
Non-Mets: None

These are essentially the same as Crowd Pleasers, only with portrait orientation.  Jon Niese is the lone Mets representative here.

Top Tier Autographs

Blue: Numbered to 50
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Same as above, more or less.  Of course they throw in Nolan Ryan here as a Met…

Everything Else

Top Shelf Relics Legends

Single Relic: Numbered to 50
Double Relic: Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Clear Rookie Reprint Autographs

Numbered to 25

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Mays never stops signing autographs apparently.

Double Autographs, Triple Autographs, Cut Signatures, Elevated Ink

Nothing worth noting.

Verdict

There’s some nice stuff here, but it feels awfully redundant sandwiched between Museum Collection and Triple Threads.  It was refreshing for Topps to drop the pretense that anyone is buying these for anything other than the big hits, but what does that say about this product’s identity?  For Mets fans, this product is all about the autographs, but even that is only a draw because of how little variety there’s been in other products.  Outside of Archives, there’s been little to choose from in on-card autographs beyond Wright and Ryan, and even Tier 1 only adds Kranepool, Niese, and Davis (plus some very nice parallel ink colors).  Beef up the autograph offerings in the other products and Tier 1 becomes completely unnecessary.  Next year, Topps should drop the non-base cards from this product and come up with some new ideas.  How about autographs on manufactured material, has anybody done that yet?

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Posted by on 26 February 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Topps remembers Tom Seaver and tries to photoshop out the memory of Jose Reyes

With the [trademarked term for a significant football game] just around the corner at the end of January, one thing was on everyone’s mind – baseball cards!  Topps Series 1 dropped on January 31 with a huge media event that looked like someone put Keith Olbermann and a camera crew in my living room circa 2001.  Anticipation had been building for weeks, filling the 40-day gap since the last Topps product release.  So did the product live up to the hype?

The big news in the lead-up to Topps Series 1 was the inclusion of several short-printed variant cards.  The big ones were photoshopped cards of fan-favorite Jose Reyes and some guy named Al in their new teams’ uniforms (I guess Prince Fielder waited too long to sign).  These were announced as very limited short prints, just to make sure nobody sold them cheap on launch day.  Other SPs included humorous cards showing mascots, Gatorade, and Skip Schumaker’s foot (more on this later).

The theme for the bulk of the insert sets this year is gold.  Golden Moments, Golden Greats, Gold Standard, Gold Futures, gold-colored coins, Gold Rush wrapper redemption cards, and even 1/1 solid gold cards (via redemption of course) filled out the base product.  The Golden Moments insert set filled the annual role of “set spread across all mainline Topps products with relic and autograph variants.”  Manufactured material also got a boost, expanding into metal objects like pins, coins, and rings in addition to the usual cloth offerings (this year’s theme: retired numbers).

With the stage set, launch day held a few surprises.  First, the first-ever card featuring Jose Reyes in a (fake) Marlins uniform was overshadowed by a squirrel.  The Skip Schumaker SP featuring the Cardinals “rally squirrel” was the hot ticket, with one of the first pulled selling for over $600.  After a few ending in the $300+ range, prices quickly settled down to the $100-200 level.  These should bottom out somewhere in the $20-$50 range, which is still absurd.  The Reyes card meanwhile is settling in at about $50-$100, not that it matters.  This is supposed to be about the Mets after all.

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2011 Mets Game-Used Year in Review

Posted by on 31 December 2011 Comments Off on 2011 Mets Game-Used Year in Review

2011 was another dismal season for the Mets on the field, but who needs actual games when you have baseball cards?  It was a fairly uneventful season there too until the last few weeks, but there were several bright spots.

Going into the first year of the reborn Topps monopoly (Upper Deck still managed to put out a 2010 product with just a MLB Players Association license before getting sued by MLB Properties), I didn’t exactly have high hopes.  Take out all that Upper Deck and Donruss have given the hobby on the game-used front over the preceding decade and you would be left with mostly mediocre offerings.  Even after just the loss of Donruss and Fleer in 2005, variety in game-used offerings has taken a nosedive; taking Upper Deck out of the picture certainly isn’t going to help.  Gone are the days of finding pieces of hats, gloves, shoes, and other random items embedded in cardboard (I can live without game-used dirt cards).  Gone too are the days of even having any details of the item mentioned on the card – “Congratulations! You have received pieces of stuff used in a game of some sort!”  Based on how Topps seemed to be dumping its excess game-used inventory into cards in 2010 (some cards featured pieces of jerseys from events dating back to 2002), the days of timely and relevant game-used pieces (aside from the annual All-Star game insert sets) seemed long past.  2011 had a few surprises though, giving hope for some interesting products in the years to come (especially now that Panini, aka Donruss Mk. III, is in the market with a license from the MLB Players Association).

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