Wave 5 of Topps 206 arrives in mid December, and completes the 500 card base set for the year. This wave features Hindu and Honus Wagner backs, along with many of the others included throughout the series. Once again, there are some short prints as well as autographs possible as part of the release. This wave has a print run of 9433 packs.
Each box contains at least ten cards, including eight base, and a couple of parallels. Some of the special cards are included as extra cards in the box. Each wave this year features one hundred base cards, so you need quite a few of these to complete a set.
The Topps Heritage High Number release adds an update to the original Heritage release from earlier in the year. The base set continues on after the first 500 cards from the first series, with cards 501-700, plus 701-725 as SPs. A number of the insert sets from earlier in the year also have the numbering continue with the High Number release.
This release mirrors the first release of the year, with 24 packs of 9 cards per pack. Each box guarantees either one autograph or relic. The hits are not really the focus of this product, however. It is more geared toward set collecting, so the boxes are generally not being driven up in price by breaker culture.
We see the arrival of the second wave for 2022 Topps 206 Star Wars. There doesn’t seem to be as much variation as the baseball releases have. This release has the same border and back variations as wave one, but does add an insert set featuring ten different planets, as well as including the chance at a few autographs this time.
This wave boasts a print run of 14,009 boxes, down more than ten thousand from wave one. There are once again fifty cards in this wave. A box is advertised to contain ten cards, eight of which are base, along with two parallels. It seems that special variation inserts are including as an additional card.
This box contained:
8 Base 1 Base Blue Starfield Parallel 1 Base Star Wars Back Parallel
Once again, a normal summer release finds itself coming out well after the season has ended. There isn’t really much difference year to year in this product. Even the base design is very similar, due to the nature of it all being based on the original set from the late 1800s.
The base set features 300 cards, with an additional 50 SPs, although they’re not particularly rare compared to other releases. There is one full size parallel, but the bulk of the parallels come in tobacco sized cards, with differing fronts or backs. A box contains 24 packs of 8 cards, featuring three advertised hits.
This box contained:
125 Base (41.7% of 300 card set) 12 Base SP (24% of 50 card SP set) 10 Base Mini Parallels 5 Base Mini Allen & Ginter Back Parallels 2 Base Mini Black Border Parallels 11 Banner Season 2 Famous Rivals 2 Get That Bread 3 It’s Your Special Day 4 Pitching a Gem 2 What’s Cookin’? 1 Baseball Lexicon 1 Inside the Park 1 Mini Ducks 1 2006 A&G Rookie Design Variation 1 Time Out! 1 What a Steal! 1 Cabinet Boxloader Francisco Lindor 1 Full Sized Relics A Jarren Duran 1 Full Sized Relics B Gerrit Cole 1 Rip Card Eloy Jimenez
Wave 4 for Topps 206 hits during the baseball postseason. This wave represents the lowest print run this year, with a total of 8162 boxes produced. One more wave is coming to finish up this run. At 100 cards per wave, these are twice the size of previous years.
The general format remains the same, but this series includes a handful of night game variations, as well as other image variations. It also sees the Cycle card back make an appearance. Each box contains one pack. This pack is now advertised as eight base cards and at least two parallels.
