Category Archives: Non-Sport

2016, Hobby Box, Non-Sport, Star Wars, Topps

2016 Topps Star Wars Rogue One: Mission Briefing Hobby Box Break

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When Disney purchased the Star Wars franchise, there was a lot of uncertainty over what that would mean. Yes, they had done amazing things with the Marvel properties, but Star Wars always felt different. After 2015’s The Force Awakens, a lot of the fears seem put to rest. Now, a new stand alone movie is on the horizon, Rogue One, and the marketing machine is being cranked up again.

This release us a lot like the Journey to The Force Awakens from 2015. It acts as a bit of a teaser for the movie, a few months ahead of time. It contains a base set with a heritage feel and the design of the 1983 Return of the Jedi Series 1 cards, while combining many of the A New Hope era properties, including the Rebels cartoon. You also get many insert sets matching the previous release, although they are not a continuation of those sets. It’s a nice set, but it’s not really focused on Rogue One, like future releases will be.

The Hobby Box advertises 24 packs of 8 cards, including 2 hits per box. You also see quite a few parallels, including a blue which makes the base set look like Return of the Jedi Series 2. You see a lot of familiar faces, with just a few new ones mixed in.

This box contains:

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2016, Box Break, Hobby Box, Topps Heritage WWE, Wrestling

2016 Topps Heritage WWE Hobby Box Break

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I could start to like these WWE Heritage releases. For 2015, The Heritage release was using the 1985 style baseball release. This trend continues on to 2016, as this Topps trading card set uses the style from the 1986 baseball release. It differs from the yearly baseball Heritage set as it is targeting 30 years ago, rather than 50. That’s interesting when the flagship sets for WWE and Baseball use the same current style for the main yearly release.

This set draws heavily from the 1986 Topps baseball set, for the base card design, as well as insert sets featuring NWO and WCW All Star Cards, Record Breaks, Turn Back the Clock card, and an All Star inspired patch card. The set itself features stars from the WWF years, WCW, NWO, WWE, and up through NXT. The base set contains 110 cards, but the various inserts are very collectable as well. The hobby box advertises 24 packs of 9 cards, including 2 hits per box.

This box contained:

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2015, Box Break, Hobby Box, Topps Heritage WWE, Wrestling

2015 Topps Heritage WWE Hobby Box

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Heritage has been a regular release for Topps baseball for almost two decades now, but its treatment of Wrestling has been pretty spotty. In baseball, they use the style of set from about 50 years before, but for this wrestling release, they go back 30 years. It’s a nice change of pace, and a design you don’t really see featured that often. The base 110 card set features legends, current roster members, as well as some from NXT. You also have some insert sets featuring NXT callups, Rookies of the Year, and others. It’s a fun change of pace set.

The box advertises 24 packs of 9 cards, including 2 hits per box.

This box contained:

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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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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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