Category Archives: Hobby Box

2018, Hobby Box, Topps WWE NXT, Wrestling

2018 Topps WWE NXT Hobby Box Break

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This is a little bit of a different release for me.  I generally like the NXT brand and previous card releases, but this year it seems to be focusing on a much higher price point.  It features two 50 card subsets, one concentrating on the roster, with the other looking at Matches and Moments from the year.  

In previous years, you could find this release in blaster boxes at retail.  This year, however, it is a hobby only release.  At $200 per box, it seems like it may be difficult to find true value in this release, but it advertises an incredible 10 autographs per box.   While NXT definitely has its following, this seems more like a prospects release where you really won’t know the full potential of some of these characters for a few years.  Even the big names will probably get much bigger once they hit the grand stage of the main roster.  

This box contains 10 packs, with 7 cards per pack, including a total of 10 autographs.  This box contained:

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2018, Hobby Box, Topps WWE, Wrestling

2018 Topps WWE Then Now Forever Hobby Box Break

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The Then Now Forever release, essentially series two for the flagship release of Topps WWE cards, rounds out the year’s big four releases.  It’s not just the base set that continues the same numbering as previous releases.  There are also many tribute sets adding additional cards to earlier sets.  These are usually exclusive to some store or type of pack.  

The base set contains a mix of Smackdown, Raw, 205 Live, NXT, and Legends to round out the wrestlers featured. It features many debuting athletes, along with the flagship rookie card for Ronda Rousey. You also get the regular complement of parallels, to go along with insert subsets paying tribute to the 25th anniversary of Raw and Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper. Each box advertises two hits, including one autograph.

This box contained:

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2018, Baseball, Box Break, Hobby Box, Topps Archives

2018 Topps Archives Hobby Box Break

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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.

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2018, Hobby Box, Topps WWE, Wrestling

2018 Topps WWE Women’s Division Hobby Box Break

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Much like the growth in the WWE Women’s Division itself, the trading card release is also getting a higher profile. In years past, we’ve seen a retail release, but now we’re seeing a full hobby release.

The set itself doesn’t seem to have changed very much,  though,

with a small roster set, as well as a Matches and Moments set featuring Raw, Smackdown Live, NXT, and the Mae Young Classic. We also see insert sets focusing on the Mixed Match Challenge, Power Couples, and the first women’s Royal Rumble.  We’ve also come to expect the usual assortment of relics from a WWE release, including pieces of the mat from various events, t-shirt swatches, and manufactured relics of the Women’s championships over the years.  Each box contains 24 packs with 7 cards per pack and advertises 2 hits per box, one of which is guaranteed to be an autograph.

This box contained:

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2018, Baseball, Box Break, Hobby Box, Topps Heritage

2018 Topps Heritage High Numbers Hobby Box Break

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Heritage High Numbers exists as essentially an update set for the regular Heritage release.  It picks up where the first set ends, containing cards 501-725, of which the final 25 are SPs.   The SPs are a much smaller portion of the set for High Numbers, so they are easier to complete.

This set has cards for some traded veterans, people left out of the first release, as well as hot rookies making their debut this year.

Once again, we have the return of short print variants with team color swaps, errors, traded, action, and others.  There’s an extra wrinkle to those this year, which I think it long overdue.  At least for this release, gone are the days of trying to read a tiny product code to be sure which variant you have.  Instead, Topps includes a label below the card number telling you which variant you have.  Hopefully this is a feature that sticks around in future releases.

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