Topps often offers some kind of bonus to collectors who purchase boxes or packs at participating hobby shops, usually in the form of a certain number of packs for purchases of a given size. For 2018 Topps Series 1, these bonus packs contain Chromed-out cards in the 1983 Topps design. There are randomly-packed parallels and autographs in these packs, too. I think the offer was that you could get one pack for the purchase of a Hobby box and three packs for the purchase of a Jumbo box.
I didn't buy a Hobby box or a Jumbo box, as for the last couple of years I've just been buying a factory set each year. I picked up three packs on eBay. Topps did away with my favorite flagship insert set, First Pitch, so I really have no incentive to buy packs or boxes of Series 1. Each of these bonus packs has 4 cards inside.
This first pack has some of the biggest names in the hobby from the last couple of years, outfielder Aaron Judge and third baseman Kris Bryant. That's a pretty good start.
This pack also has a famous outfielder and a famous third baseman, although Hank Aaron and Wade Boggs probably aren't nearly as popular currently as Bryant and Judge, at least not on pieces of cardboard. Judge and Bryant only need 34 All-Star appearances and 206.3 WAR between them to catch up to Aaron and Boggs in those numbers.
I pulled Mike Trout in this group of packs, too, which is pretty good. I also was happy to see that my only parallel was an Astro, second baseman Jose Altuve. It's a shiny green parallel of some sort.
The Altuve card is numbered # 79 / 99. Every card in the packs had the same paragraph on the back, talking about the 1983 Topps set.
I was hoping that I'd pull an autograph from these packs, but I was pretty happy with the player selection in these three packs. It was also nice to get an Altuve parallel.
Let me know if you don't have any plans for the Harrison Bader card. 1983 was one of their better designs. I just wish they had some good designs lately.
ReplyDeleteI can send it your way. I don't have your address. Well, I might have it on a bubble mailer somewhere in my hobby mess or in a notebook that I can't find, but I don't have it in a place where I know I can find it.
DeleteI haven't bought any Series 1 yet myself. Like you I 'll probably just trade and cherry pick on eBay. This year has one of the smallest Pirate checklists I've seen in the last 10 years.
ReplyDeleteI've kind of lost touch with the base Topps set over the last couple of years. I still think of it as 'the set of record' for each year. I liked the First Pitch insert set, but other than that I just get a factory set and an Update set from eBay.
DeleteIf u don't want or need the judge....
ReplyDeleteI could probably send him off in your direction.
DeleteCubs hot pack! The green, oddly enough, looks really good on the '83 design in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt does look all right, although maybe better for an A's card than an Astros card.
DeleteI've got mixed emotions on how Topps keeps creating inserts using past designs when they still produce products like Heritage and Archives. As of today, I'm not a big fan of the regular inserts. However, I do like these refractor versions. Tried to see if there were completed sets already online... and there were. I'm just not ready to drop $40. If sets eventually fall into the $20 shipped range, I'll grab one.
ReplyDeleteI tend to like the throwback inserts, especially ones with something extra like these Chromed ones or the minis they were doing a few years ago. I do wish that Topps had continued the First Pitch insert. That was one of my favorites.
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