This is an interesting release this year.  Archives normally comes out around late May, but as the summer started, there was talk about it being pushed back until August.  That much isn’t particularly unusual.  Releases get delayed frequently for any number of reasons.  What is unusual, is what happened in August.

The cards hit retail in August, but hobby was nowhere to be seen.  It

wasn’t really clear when hobby was coming, or why the delay, but hobby was eventually released on October 24th.   There are a lot of rumors about why, but I’m curious to see what it does to the product.  I feel like a lot of people had a chance to get their fill at retail long before hobby hit stores.  It’s interesting to see how few of some autographs really hit the market from retail, though.  It’s also apparent that some retail redemptions came back and were packed in live for hobby, which is a benefit, I guess.

While Archives is fun, it’s starting to get a little stale to me.  I much prefer Heritage paying tribute to a single year.  Archives just seems like it’s too random.  If you show me a Heritage card, it’s easy to tell which year it is.  With Archives, it becomes a lot less clear.  It’s nice to get some lesser known autographs, but I’m not sure that’s enough to carry a release.   This year, it pays tribute to 1959, 1977, and 1981, along with a side of The Sandlot movie.

A box advertises 24 packs with 8 cards in each pack, including two on card autographs per box.

This box contained:

 
176 Base (55% of 320 card set)
1 Base Venezuelan Back
1 Base Silver Parallel
4 Coming Attractions
3 Future Stars
2 Topps Rookie History
3 The Sandlot
1 Fan Favorites Autograph Marty Barrett
1 Topps All Stars Autographs Rhys Hoskins / Nick Williams