Category Archives: Topps

2016, Box Break, Hobby Box, Star Wars, Topps

2016 Topps The Force Awakens Series 2 Hobby Box Break

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This follow up the very successful movie release late in 2015, with a second series of cards. The first series was released in late 2015 along with the movie. This one is officially called a second series, even though the numbering has been reset.

The base set is 100 cards, featuring scenes from the entire movie, with a number of possible parallels. There are also two reported short prints in the set, numbered 101 and 102. Many familiar inserts return from series 1 or the Journey to The Force Awakens set, with Character Stickers, Concept Art, Heroes of the Resistance, Power of the First Order, and manufactured Medallion cards.

The Hobby Box release advertises 24 packs of 6 cards, with two hits per box.

This box contained:
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2016, Baseball, Jumbo Hobby Box, Topps

2016 Topps Series 1 Jumbo Hobby Box Break

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The first baseball release always brings an early taste of spring each year. It seems Topps has started taking some more chances with the base card designs, after many years of primarily a solid white border. Last year, they ventured in to a multi color border, but this year, the border is almost completely gone.

I really liked the design when I initially saw it online. It’s different from the standard releases. Then someone from the comic shop completely changed how I saw them by saying one word. Panini. After he said that, I do see it. It feels a lot like the types of designs Panini would release. Somehow, despite not having a border, the cards have more of a flat feel than usual.

It’s possible it will grow on me, but my initial feel is a bit of a let down. I still like seeing Topps change it up a little bit, even if some years end up missing the mark a little bit.

There is the usual assortment of inserts, including autograph and relic versions. In what seems almost a yearly occurrence now, buyback cards are featured once again. It looks like they go beyond base topps this year, and include other releases and even stars. They’re also starting to include different parallel levels of buybacks, based on the color of the foil stamp up to a 1/1 gold stamp.

This box contained:

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2015, Hobby Box, Non-Sport, Star Wars, Topps

2015 Topps Star Wars The Force Awakens Series 1 Special Edition Hobby Box Break

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This is a bit of a different release from Topps for the opening of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. They are offering two different configurations for Hobby Boxes this time, which seems to have caused some confusion in the market place. The first is a traditional box containing 24 packs of 8 cards, with a chance at various hits including autographs and relics. The second one (featured here) is the special edition with 24 packs of 6 cards each, with no hits.

It seems a little bit different to not have the chance at autographs, but with the usual long odds of getting any desirable ones, this seems like a decent alternative. It is targeted more to the set collector, while still including inserts as well as parallel cards.

This is the first series of movie cards and seems to cover approximately the first third to first half of the film. Given the recent release, if you are avoiding spoilers, you may not want to look at the cards yet, although I don’t think this first set is very filled with spoilers you would not have gleaned from the trailers before the release.

The set contains 100 cards, along with various subsets featuring Behind the Scenes shots, Movie Scenes, Locations, among other details.

This Box contained:

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2015, Baseball, Box Break, Jumbo Hobby Box, Topps

2015 Topps Update Jumbo Hobby Box Break

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The Topps Update set is an old favorite from this time of year.   You expect to see a lot of mid season rookies and players who are traded.  It has a pretty good selection, but some major names, like Schwarber, are curiously missing.  I suppose it is just an effort to keep some rookies in series one next winter.

Another major change you find this year is the expansion of the base set to 400 cards, after many years at 330.  Even series 1 and series 2 were only 350 cards each this year.  One thing that really stands out to me this year, involves the stamped buyback cards in the packs.  I like the idea, but it seems like they should really up their game a bit.  I realize some of these are are 55+ years old, but I’d still hope they would at least not have rips through the cards and other serious damage.  It’s fun to pull an old card, but it loses quite a bit when it looks like it was pulled out of a garbage pile.

 

The box has the standard configuration for jumbos featuring ten packs of 50 cards each.

 

This box contained:

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2015, Hobby Box, Star Wars, Topps

2015 Topps Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens Hobby Box Break

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This is a second break for this product, as the hobby and retail releases look significantly different.  It seems a bit different from a regular release in that the hobby packs seem stacked much more toward set makers than the retail.  The box contains 24 packs of 8 cards, while advertising two of those eight as inserts.  Each box also comes with two hits, which apparently includes the patch cards from the retail blasters.

This box contained:

90 Different Base

24 Base Slime Green Parallel

12 Base Black Parallel

6 Base Silver Parallel

4 Base Pink Parallel

2 Base Purple Parallel

1 Base Rainbow Foil Parallel

1 Base Silver Ice Parallel

6 Behind The Scenes

7 Concept Art

3 Cloth Stickers

9 Character Foil Stickers (6 different)

6 Power of the First Order

6 Heroes of the Resistance

11 Stickers

1 Patch Card BB-8

1 Sketch Card W Silverman

2 Trading Card App Code Cards

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