Category Archives: 2018

2018, Baseball, Hobby Box, Topps Allen & GInter

2018 Topps Allen & Ginter Hobby Box Break

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The 2018 Topps Allen & Ginter release follows the same pattern that we’ve come to expect.  It features old time players, current players, and an assortment of pop culture figures, things, and places.  I’ve heard some rumbling about how some of the relics available in the release are not actually real (like one from the Kraken!), but they seem popular none the less.

The set is the same format once again, containing 300 Base cards and an additional 50 SPs (301-350).  Unlike a lot of other releases, while these SPs are shorter, they’re still attainable falling one in every two packs.  You’ll also find a random assortment of insert sets featuring the likes of the World’s Hottest Peppers, the World’s Greatest Beaches, and Baseball Equipment of the Ages.

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2018, Baseball, Hobby Box, Topps Big League

2018 Topps Big League Hobby Box Break

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We’re looking at a new release from Topps in Big League.  It comes in at a lower price point than most releases and focuses on the base set.  In one of the larger single series base set, Topps Big League arrives at 400 cards.  There are only a limited number of insert sets, and a small amount of parallels.

It seems to be a pretty basic, but fun set.  It’s primarily current players, but has a few legends mixed in, as well as an interesting subset featuring Ballpark Landmarks.  The Ballpark Landmarks are part of the base set, but there is an additional subset showing players in their Player’s Weekend jerseys, with their nicknames.  That seems to be more of a VAR SP for the base set, but the odds state you should get many of these per box.

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2018, Basketball, Hobby Box, Stadium Club, Uncategorized

2018 Topps Stadium Club Hobby Box Break

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I really like the Stadium Club releases.  It focuses on pictures from the game, without having to rely on gimmicks to sell the cards.  It has its share of inserts and parallels, but the picture quality is still king.

The set can be a little daunting to put together from packs, however.  A hobby box contains 16 packs with 8 cards in each pack, with the base set consisting of 300 cards.  It features mostly current players, with some legends in the mix as well.  Each box advertises 2 on-card autographs, as well.   The autograph checklist is fairly big, but there are still some big names like hot rookies Gleyber Torres and Ronald Acuna, as well as many other stars of the game.

This box contained:

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2018, Box Break, Jumbo Hobby Box, Topps

2018 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Box Break

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The Topps series two release continues on much of the first release of the year.  It features base cards 351-700, along with many new and familiar insert sets.  It comes at a time when the top rookie from the beginning of the season, Shohei Ohtani, is out with a potentially season ending injury.   He’s still heavily featured in this product, and we see his first flagship Topps base rookie card.

As the season has moved on, other top rookies have emerged.   This has led to some rookies that may be able to replace Ohtani for hobby prominence.   To partially solve this, Topps issued SP variants for a couple of the top guys in Acuna and Torres, rather than include them in the base set.   These SPs join alternate photos along with many legends as extensions to the set.  This seems like a reasonable compromise to me, to get these players in, without making them part of the set.

This is the normal jumbo box configuration, consisting of 10 packs of 50 cards each, including three hits. On release day, two additional silver packs were included, containing four 1983 Chrome cards each.

This box contained:

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2018, Box Break, Hobby Box, Star Wars, Topps

2018 Topps Solo A Star Wars Story Hobby Box Break

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A new Star Wars movie means a new Topps release.  This time, it features Han Solo’s origin story.  It’s a fun movie, but it’s a little bit of a departure from the recent releases.  The card set, however, seems to follow a similar pattern.  The base set contains 100 cards, along with many familiar insert sets including Icons, Silhouettes, Stickers, Patch Cards, Sketch Cards, and Autographs.

The base set is a fun design featuring the Millennium Falcon along the edge, and numerous parallels.  I question the black parallel, however.  It looks much more grey than black.  If you have the black and silver together, it is easy to tell which is which, but apart, it may be more difficult.

Maybe it’s just me, but many of the insert designs seem to blend together, as well.  I guess they’re easy if you know what you’re looking for, but they don’t seem quite so obvious at first glance.  The different insert sets are displayed below, so you can judge for yourself.

This box contained:

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