So, 2018 Topps Heritage Is Here

I am going to break chronological order and talk about Heritage before I talk about my foray into '18 Topps Series 1. Heritage is my favorite release every year, so I want to go ahead and talk about it while it's fresh.

Last year, Heritage was really kind to me. In short, this year was not so kind.

I purchased two hobby boxes the day Heritage released. Here are the cards of interest:

The biggest pull of two boxes had to be this nickname variation of Francisco Lindor. The fact that this was the biggest pull should tell you something. 

Both boxes contained a base relic as the "hit."

And that's the extent of my '18 Heritage adventure. No other variations, no parallels, nothing. In short, it may be the single most disappointing break that I have had lately. 

To make things worse, the second box I opened essentially had the same cards in it. In fact, outside of the short prints, there were only 12 unique cards in the second box that I didn't pull in the first. It was absolutely awful.

I'm working on getting my needs list posted on The Trading Card Database. Hopefully, it will be accomplished by the end of the weekend. I'll also post the cards I have available for trade. I'm going to be transitioning all of my tradebait and wantlists to that site to keep everything organized. 

I hope everyone is well!

2017 Gypsy Queen: Box 1

I said I wasn't going to do it. I swore to myself I wouldn't. I made a promise to myself that I had enough self-control not to do it.

But I did it.

I broke down and bought a box of 2017 Gypsy Queen.

After seeing the cards, I couldn't resist. They just look so great. I'm attached to GQ - it's the first set I built when I got back into collecting - so this set pulled on my heart strings.

Back to the story. I bought the first box - that's right, I bought more than one - last week, a couple days after release. Let's take a look and see how it was.

Right off the top - see what I did there? - was this GlassWorks boxtopper of Stephen Piscotty. By far and away, these are the best boxtoppers of any product I have opened since I got back into collecting. This scan just doesn't do it justice. 

My first box had plenty of parallels. Here are the missing backplate parallels I pulled:

These are...interesting. They are easy to find, as they stand out like a sore thumb. They're unique, I give them that. But I still don't know how I really feel about them.

I also pulled a couple purple parallels numbered to 250:

Not bad players! You've got a guy who rakes and then there's Giancarlo Stanton...how incredible was Mad Bum's two dingers on Opening day?!?!?! 

I also pulled a green back variation:

These aren't numbered, but I think they are numbered to 50 (or so I believe - I could be completely wrong). 

The final numbered parallel I pulled was this black and white parallel of Kevin Gausman numbered to 50:

Beyond parallels, I pulled two variations. First up, this Marcus Stroman no nameplate parallel:

Mr. Stroman will appear again in a later post in a much more impressive fashion.

I also pulled this capless variation of Francisco Lindor:

Not too shabby.

As promised, my box had two on-card autos:

I guess my autos could have been worse. One knock - the machine that loads these into packs seems to have put a crease in them. They don't look like they have been folded over, but it does look as if they went through rollers that had too much pressure. You can't see them in the scans, but trust me - they're there.

The set got rid of the minis this year. I know there are some people who have a problem with this, but I'm not one of them. Those things were nearly impossible to store in any way. However, there is a "mini" insert set called "Fortune Tellers." I put "mini" in quotes because they are closer to tall boys than minis. Anyway, I really dig this set. I was stoked to see that there are three Rangers in it. I happened to pull the Cole Hamels in this box:

So freakin' cool, man!

Anyway, everything you see here is for trade. well, everything except the Hamels. That's for me.

Keep your eyes open for a post about a potential second box of GQ.

Okay, there's definitely a second box. Post coming soon.