We see another regular release during the great trading card boom. Recent releases seem to immediately shoot up in price. People are going to retail outlet and clearing the shelves to resell blaster boxes at three times the normal price online. Will that continue with Archives? That’s not clear, yet, but I suspect not. While Archives may contain some of the new rookies, the hits are primarily focused on retired players from years gone by.

It’s early, but so far, this release doesn’t seem to have the same bump. Is the bubble starting to slow down a bit? Or is this a one-off because it’s not rookie focused? Time will tell. It’s still difficult to find at retail, but that is often the case during the first week or release. Some people claim that no product being available is a great sign for the hobby, but I don’t think so. If you spend a few minutes online, it’s very clear that product is selling out because people are trying to resell it for an inflated price, rather than actually collect the product. That’s anything but good for the hobby. If product is not available, people are going to end up not buying any. After a few releases where someone can’t find any product to buy, why would they want to keep looking?

This release is well known by now, and reuses popular designs from the past. This year, the primary set features 100 cards with designs from each base Topps product from 1955, 1974, and 2002. Most of the autographs are not quite star level, at least not top stars, but there are a few big names mixed in, as well. Each box advertises twenty-four packs with eight cards per pack, and two guaranteed autographs per box.

This box contained:

48 Base 1955
58 Base 1974
62 Base 2002
4 Base Posters
4 Base 1976 Traded
1 Base 1955 Variation Full Size Image
1 Base Purple Parallel
4 1960 All Star Rookies
4 Classic Combos
1 1990 Rookies
3 1955 Bowman
1 Fan Favorites Autographs Bernie Carbo
1 Fan Favorites Autographs Silver Lee Mazzilli
1 Duke Snider Duke of Flatbush Oversized Box Topper Poster