01 February 2017

Topps Finds Another Way to Disappoint Me

Like many collectors, I was pretty excited today about the release of 2017 Topps Series 1, the real celebration of a new year for many of us. I stopped at Target on the way home from work, not finding any of the new cards. Later in the evening I told my wife that I needed to go to Wal-Mart, and off I went on my search for a fix. They didn't have 2017 Topps Series 1, either, but that's not how Topps disappointed me today. They don't have control over when the retail stores get their new cards.


While I looked at the Wal-Mart card aisle, a couple boxes of 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary Edition caught my eye. This product pretty much passed me by when it released, but today I thought it looked like something fun and new to break in the absence of the new 2017 cards. I was pretty much choosing between this, some NASCAR stuff from Panini, and some WWE Divas Revolution cards. This won out, because I hadn't opened it before and I was in a bit of a baseball mood.


Here are the pack odds. Each box contains one pack, with 16 cards in the pack. There is a shot at some parallels and stuff, and one card in each pack is guaranteed to be an autograph.


The card fronts are all reprints of significant Topps cards of the past. There is one for every year that Topps put out a set, or 65 cards total. The backs are all the same design. I don't know vintage Topps well enough to tell right off the bat whether these are based on an actual historical card back. The card stock is relatively thin. It's got a halfway rough texture, like someone thought about making them feel vintage, but got distracted and kind of half-assed it.


Here are some more of the base cards. There are some pretty decent names here. I like that Fernando Valenzuela card. I like the Harold Baines, too.


These ones all go way back in time. The original Koufax predates the birth of my parents, and the original Maris and Simmons were printed before my parents turned three. 


WHAT. THE. HELL. I guess I should have read the reviews of this stuff before putting my money down on this stuff. Apparently most boxes of this product had doubles in them. But I didn't know about that when I was opening this box of cards in my car in the Wal-Mart parking lot. All I knew was that Kent Tekulve was the first card in the box, and the last card in the box. I actually checked the plastic wrap to make sure it was the original Topps wrapping. Then I checked to see if any of the doubles were parallels of some kind. Nope. Somehow Topps was okay with packing doubles into a single $25 pack of reprint cards. Why do I give this company my money?


This was my autograph card. It's a $1 + shipping card on eBay, but I'm not particularly disappointed with it. Sparky Lyle has an interesting nickname, a nice signature, and he's an All-Star closer with a nice mustache, a reputation as a prankster, a Cy Young award, and a couple of rings. No, this autograph doesn't disappoint me, but those doubles sure do. I guess Topps wanted to pay homage to the junk wax era, when you might expect to pull doubles out of a single pack of cards. Ultimately, it's just a couple of base cards, but when I am plunking down $25 on some cardboard, is it too much to ask that all 16 cards in the box be different from each other? I guess one of the Tekulve cards was a little different from the other, as it had a big ding on one corner.

Ugh. I guess I'll keep looking for some Series 1, but I was pretty disappointed with my substitute purchase. Buying packs is for suckers, and I definitely feel like one tonight.

16 comments:

  1. If you're not attached to it, I'm interested in the Curt Simmons card. Someone was kind enough to send me the autographed version, but I still need the (two) Cardinals base cards from this set.

    I'm really picky about card stock, so I would probably hate this set. I'm guessing the cards feel similar to the recent regular Archives sets.

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  2. Yeah, having doubles in anything but a really large box is bad; having them in a 16 card pack is inexcusable. I wonder how Topps has responded when people complained. I'm not much interested in reprints anyway, but I'd be ticked if it happened in something I bought.

    The backs are based on the 1975 backs, BTW.

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    1. I've been spoiled, I guess, by collation in recent products. Most Topps products don't have doubles in them until you complete, or nearly complete, a set. They obviously have the math sorted out to be able to seed base cards without doubles at those levels, but you're telling me that they couldn't be bothered to figure out how to pack 16 cards in a single pack without doubles? Especially a single pack that they sell for more than the price of a blaster?

      I probably should have know that the card backs were based on 1975, but vintage is something I only dabble in. 1975 happened seven years before I was born, after all.

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  3. I bought the Tekulve auto from this set, but stayed away from buying a box. The checklist has lots of interesting names but most are $5 cards on eBay. Just not enough value in the boxes.

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    1. Yeah, I can see that now. I guess I shouldn't buy things I haven't researched first. Most of the reviews of this product on Cardboard Connection mention the poor collation and weak autograph checklist.

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  4. I've been almost tempted by this product on the store shelves...but (luckily?) I've resisted so far. Based on your experience, I think I'll simply keep walking from here on out as well!

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    1. I guess it depends on your perspective. If you're just in it to roll the dice on hits, the base cards aren't all that important. If getting duplicates in a modern pack would frustrate you, stay away. The autographs look pretty good, and if I had it to do over again I'd probably just go on eBay and hand-pick a couple of those.

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  5. I didn't touch this stuff. Saw a buddy of mine do poorly but if it came to needing a box fix you never know

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    1. Sometimes you just want to try something new. Often trying something new bites you on the hand. I think next time I want to try something out, I'll at least pull up the checklist and reviews on my phone first.

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  6. Back in the 80's, Mother's Cookies would produce sets that were stadium giveaways at many of MLB stadiums on the West Coast. The catch? They would give each attendant 20 to 25 cards of the 28 card set, then give you 3 to 8 cards of a certain player. The point? They wanted the fans to interact and trade each other their duplicates to build the set.

    Maybe that's what Topps is doing. Maybe they're purposely loading these boxes with doubles to encourage collectors to trade. Lol... just trying to be a "Positive Pete" today ;)

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    1. I really shouldn't be so negative. Whoever runs Topps' Twitter account probably has me marked down as one of 'those' customers who will never be happy, no matter what.

      I am also a hypocrite. The other day I was trolling some people in a forum who were taking a Facebook game way too seriously, completely losing their minds over one of the awards released in the app. And here I am blowing my top over a couple pieces of cardboard. I guess we all have our blind spots. In spite of this moment of clarity, it still irks me that Topps was so sloppy when they planned the pack-out of this product.

      The world needs more Positive Petes. I have been trying to be more positive about a great many things lately, and I think all my frustration over trying to see the good side of big, meaningful things wells up and erupts over little things like trading cards and paper towels that don't tear off evenly along the perforations.

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    2. Yeah... the world definitely use more Positive Petes, but don't get the wrong idea. I'm not the poster boy. Most of the time, I keep it real and Topps dropped the ball on collation with this product. You definitely have the right to be disappointed or upset when you drop $25 on a single pack and get duplicates within a pack.

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    3. I'm not a poster boy for positive attitudes, either, but I am trying to be a better example for my kids. They don't seem very resilient when it comes to life's disappointments, and I need to be better about showing them how to keep things in perspective with regard to the big picture. There are too many people out there who can't handle even a little adversity.

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  7. I understand why you're disappointed, and you should be. I would be too if I I opened a box like that. But Topps isn't out to get to anyone and do something to upset. During the pack out process, something went awry and Topps is looking into why so many doubles ended up in boxes. Trust me, the people who worked on this product weren't happy about this either.

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    1. Thanks for commenting on this. It's nice to know that Topps is aware of issues and looking for fixes. It would be disappointing to be involved in card design and feel like collectors are distracted from your work on the product because they are frustrated about collation.

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