Thursday, June 18, 2015

Topps Gets It Right....Then Fails Miserably

With the street date of Topps Series 2 finally arriving, I bought my obligatory jumbo box. It was pretty sweet. 

Right off the bat, I noticed a photo variation:


Not a bad player, either! Carlos Gonzalez looking all suave in his shades...

Next, I noticed a pack that was thicker than all others. What was inside?


The framed parallel of Hector Rondon. This guy is numbered to 20. It gave me a slight heart attack when I saw the Cubs logo...dreams of the fat stack of cash I could make if it was a Bryant! But it wasn't meant to be.


Next, I pulled this Braun relic. This is getting silly. I pulled a Braun relic in Series 1, which I happily sent to Tony. I suppose I will do the same with this one.

The auto was next....


An Archie Bradley auto! Not a bad pull, but nothing that fits in my collection.

But the box had one more massive surprise in store for me...


The Ted Williams birth year stamp and penny! I know there are 50 copies each for the penny, nickel and dime, along with even fewer of the quarter, but I was shocked that I pulled something like this.


Such an awesome card.

Buuuuuuuut Topps then decided to suck again. I pulled more than twenty horizontally cut cards that looked very similar to this:


Do you see it?


They are horribly mis-cut. How the hell does this happen?

I decided to give them a pass for the time being, and I bought a hobby box. What did it have in store, you ask?

Well...


In the first pack, I got a buyback of a player I've actually heard of.


I pulled another photo variation, this time of Albert Pujols. Not a bad pull.


Then I pulled a Scherzer relic. Hooray for plain white swatches!!!


The parallel offered up in this box was a Drew Storen snow camo card. Okay, that isn't terrible.

But, once again, Topps shat the bed.


Over inking on about 20 cards. These three show just how bad it was.


I don't know if you can see it in this scan, but another 20 cards looked like they had been thrown on the floor and walked on for a couple weeks.

I understand that Topps has an exclusive license with MLB. It's my decision not to collect cards that don't have a logo. So that's on me. But it just seems like Topps doesn't give two shits about quality control (and thus, their customers) this year. This is ridiculous!

Eff you, Topps. Eff you with a thorny stick.

6 comments:

  1. That's just plain embarrassing for Topps, especially considering the money those jumbo boxes go for. You'd think they'd have things under control.

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  2. Nice pulls, but WOW on the miscuts and over-inking. It's 2015! How does something like that happen, and then make it out the door to the consumer like that?

    On the other hand, I bet JediJeff over at 2x3 heroes would love those miscuts.

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  3. I WANT THOSE MISCUTS DAMMIT!!!!!!

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  4. I imagine this is a product-wide issue, which Topps will catch major flack for especially so shortly after the Tribute fiasco. But that jumbo box...HOLY S#!T you killed it! Aren't the framed cards and stamp/coin cards one per case? And you got both in the same box?! Awesome!!

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  5. Those two photo variations and the Williams easily make up for a handful of miscuts and over-inks. I think you did okay. You can always take those miscuts and ship them to JediJeff who will give it a loving home... then package those over-inks as some rare "error" cards on eBay and maybe a huge bidding war will ensue.

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  6. Is the Pujols for trade by chance?

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