Pack of the Day 193: A Hobby Box of 2019 Topps Heritage

Topps Heritage came out the other day, and I talked myself into going to the local card store to see what their pricing was like. It was fairly reasonable compared to online prices, so I bought a box to open and get a look at this year's offering.

There's the box before I tore into it. I guess there's not much else to say about this picture. You're guaranteed one autograph or relic in the box, and there are 24 packs with 9 cards per pack. You also get a box topper.

Here's what the box topper wrapper looks like, for anyone who was wondering.

My box topper was a 1970 Topps Super Baseball card of Juan Soto. Other options include 1970 Topps Originals (buybacks with foil stamps), 1970 Topps Posters, and 2019 Topps Teammates.

The packs look like Heritage packs.

Here are the odds for all of the various things, as well as the NPN information, for folks who like to participate in that.

Here is a standard base card from the set. I pulled 196 / 400 cards from the base set, so it is conceivable that with some luck you could complete the non-SP set from two boxes and a couple of packs or trades.

Here's an example of a League Leaders subset card. I had to choose the one I pulled with two Astros on the front.

The Rookies get to share their cards, and they get minor league stats on the back of their cards.

The All-Stars have a newspaper design. Several blogs have noted the return of The Sporting News branding on these, after a couple of years without. The backs get cartoon heads with varying levels of creepiness.

There are also playoff cards, with The Sporting News branding, black and white photos, and box scores on the backs.

Here are a few other base cards I picked out for this post. I don't know why so many Braves showed up in this picture. I didn't set out to do that. I don't even like the Braves. I guess I picked Minter because of the All-Star Rookie trophy.

I pulled 8 cards from the short-printed # 401-500 portion of the set. I'm glad I got an Astro in Gerrit Cole. Aaron Judge is probably the other highlight here. I noticed that the cuts on the edges of many cards are pretty rough. You can see it well here on the bottom of the Edwin Diaz card. Maybe they should switch out the cutter blades a bit more often.

The Chrome partial parallel set falls 1:58 packs, and I pulled an Odubel Herrera from the box. I think the serial number on it is # 261 / 999. It is quite bowed.

The Black parallels are not serially-numbered, but fall 1:62 packs. I think this is a full parallel set rather than a partial, but don't quote me on that. I am not a reliable source here.

Baseball Flashbacks are a 1:18 pack insert set, and I pulled a Reggie Jackson as the lone representative from that checklist.

New Age Performers fall 1:6 packs, and are quite colorful in spite of the bland grey borders.

News Flashbacks are another 1:18 pack set, and I got two of them in my box.

Then & Now is an additional 1:18 pack insert, and I got a card with Jim Palmer and Justin Verlander on the front. It is interesting to see how the pitching game has changed over time. No one last year threw more than one shutout in the AL.

1970 Topps Scratch-Off inserts come one per box, and I got Mike Trout as the subject of my booklet.

Here's the inside of the booklet after it's been unfolded. I think I liked these better as box toppers.

And the promised hit is a Yankees pitcher autograph. Real One Autographs are a 1:106 pack pull.

I like this product quite a bit, but at the going rate for boxes I don't feel like the perceived value is there. Maybe if you can break enough of it to pull a few variations or cooler hits it would be different. At $90-100 per box, though, you're getting a lot of base cards and not much else. You can get a # 1-400 base set for $35-40 online. This would be a much better break at $60-65 per box, but I guess we're not going to see that happen anytime soon. This is a fun product to sort through and look at, but I'll probably just buy a set online at some point rather than bust any more boxes.