Opening Day is just around the corner, so that means the release of Topps Opening Day set. This is a set that manages not to rely on hits, in a hobby that seems to more and more focus on hits. That’s not to say there are not any in Opening Day, but they are much rarer, and result in a lot more affordable boxes.
2018 Donruss Hobby Box Break
Panini Donruss fills an interesting role in the hobby. Topps has an exclusive contract with Major League Baseball to produce fully licensed trading cards, but that hasn’t stopped Panini from putting out a quality alternative. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground as people either really like it or really hate it. I definitely fall in to the like it category.
2018 Topps Heritage Hobby Box Break
The 2018 Topps Heritage release pays tribute to the 1969 Topps set. After a year of Judge cards, I was slightly concerned we would just see everything over produced to meet the increased demand, but we find that Topps allocated this release a little bit. Couple that with the inclusion of a hot new pre-rookie SP in Ohtani, and you have a pretty hot product. Will the value hold up?
It’s pretty striking to me the apparent odds of nearly everything this release. While Heritage autographs are never really the focus,
they’re even rarer this year. Is that a sign of really increased production? I guess time will tell. Are speculators just driving the prices again? Don’t get me wrong. It is still a nice release, but the added speculators will end up making an already expensive set to collect that much more costly. It will definitely make it more difficult to get value out of a box, especially if you miss out on Ohtani.
2018 Topps Star Wars Black & White Hobby Box
This release snuck up on me. I didn’t know it was coming until just before it was being released. I’m not really tied in to the non-movie related releases, so it’s possible I just didn’t know. I ventured out largely without really knowing what I was getting in to, but thought it could be a fun release.
It’s a pretty bare bones release, with a 140 card base set, and a few insert sets, as well. The black and white is an interesting imagery
gimmick. The parallels end up being a slight tint to the cards. The box’s size really stood out to me. It’s a box of only seven packs of cards, containing eight cards each. That’s going to make it a tough set to make from packs. Each box contains either one autograph or sketch card, as well. The cards feature great photography, and the base cards do not really waste any space on design, other than the Star Wars logo. It makes for a different feeling with the cards, to be sure.
It seems a little pricey for what it is, but we’ll see how it holds up.
This box contained:
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2018 Topps Series 1 Jumbo Hobby Box Break
The release of 2018 Topps series 1 heralds the first signs of spring and the coming of spring training. After a long cold off season, it’s the first sign of return of baseball. I’m not a big fan of the recent designs, and this year doesn’t do much to change that opinion. Again, the design, with no borders, doesn’t really feel like a flagship Topps set to me, and I can only see a tongue sticking out by the logo now.
It’s not a bad set by any means, it just doesn’t feel right to me. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises to me, is the lack of buybacks in the product. They have become a staple over the last few years, and almost seem to stick out in their absence.
Once again, there are a large number of SP and SSPs mixed in. The odds for a lot of the numbered inserts seems much tougher than normal, pointing to a large increase in production. That’s been a concern as the hobby begins recovering from Judgemania last year.