2018 Topps Heritage High Number Hanger Box

I'll be honest, I'm not looking forward to Heritage as much this year as I was the last few years. The past two years, Topps has done well with both the 1968 design (2017) and the 1969 design (2018) and those happen to be two of my favorite 60s sets as well. So when I opened the package that Ryan from the Sumo Cards blog sent over and pulled this out, I was pretty excited. I won't show every card, but here are some highlights.

Todd Frazier was a great third baseman for the Reds and him winning the 2015 Home Run Derby when the Reds hosted the All-Star Game that year. Despite the Reds having to trade him off, I still enjoy watching him play when the Mets are on MLB Network so therefore I still get his cards. Speaking of fun players, you can't forget about Bartolo Colon, who is pretty much ageless. To my knowledge, he hasn't signed a contract with anyone for 2019 but is the last active major leaguer to have both played for the Expos and to have played in the 1990s.

Here are a couple interesting specimens. Miles Mikolas came from out of nowhere last season to lead the lead the NL with 18 wins and a .818 winning percentage. This was after he was out of the majors for four years and had appeared in 37 games total with the Padres and Rangers from 2012-2014. He finished 6th in Cy Young voting and made the All-Star Team last year. Gift Ngoepe is the first major leaguer from South Africa and made it into 13 games with the Blue Jays last year. He's currently in camp with the Phillies as a non-roster invitee.

I found it interesting that the photos in both of these Giants cards were taken at sunset. 

There were also a few cool inserts starting with this Ichiro. I'm glad to see he was featured as a member of the Mariners.

Also, there's this Freddie Freeman deckle edge style insert. This I really dig with the black and white photo. I always hear about insert sets like this and the Topps Super style inserts in Archives a few years back but I never pull any. I'm pretty happy to have this.

All in all, a pretty standard hanger box of cards but still it's Topps Heritage and I'm not going to complain too much.

My Favorite First Card of 2018

I'm going to kill two birds with one stone here.

I had planned on doing an end of year post about my favorite "first card" I pulled from various 2018 packs. Then, P-Town Tom announced his annual "favorite card" post. I figure why not wrap them together into one post?

I opened packs from seven different baseball products in 2018 ... Flagship (including Series 1 and 2), Heritage, Opening Day, Donruss, Gypsy Queen, Big League, and Archives. As I mentioned earlier, each card you see here is the first card I pulled out of the first pack of each product and I'll have a brief summary of my thoughts of each product as well.

2018 Topps Flagship (Series 1 and 2)

I went crazy back in February when Series 1 was released and bought a ton of packs and hanger boxes. I have a feeling I'll probably do the same thing this coming February when 2019 Topps hits the shelves. I really liked this years design with the "waterslide" design. The photos on some of the cards were definitely inspired too and a few even had a Stadium Club feel to them with the photography. It's definitely a lot better than when they started the borderless base cards in 2016.

2018 Heritage

Heritage this year played host to one of my favorite vintage designs, the 1969 Topps set. While it was hard to find at first, once I did find it, I really enjoyed it. Plus the initial two hanger boxes I bought produced a Giancarlo Stanton relic card. I ended up going back for more ... well, lots more ... when Target ran a big Easter sale. 

2018 Opening Day

Sure, this is pretty much the same thing as Flagship but it being Opening Day, it had a number of fun inserts and was decidedly cheaper. I imagine I was looking for something cheap to rip into so that's why I bought a blaster of it. Of course, Aaron Judge had to be the first card I pulled from the first pack but the main thing I like about this particular card is the return of the Topps Rookie Cup!

2018 Panini Donruss

I've been a big supporter of Donruss since Panini revived the line about four years ago. I really, really liked the base card throwback design of 2017 but this year, I felt the base cards left a lot to be desired. The design was very busy, the photography was not good, and the airbrushed out logos and team nicknames were patently obvious. However, when I opened my first pack of Donruss this Nolan Ryan card was the card on top. I like it because Donruss did a really good job of throwing back to the 1984 design, the airbrushing is barely noticeable (except for the cap), and I can tell it's from a game at old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati because of the blue seats in the background. I'm hoping Donruss can step up their game next year.

2018 Gypsy Queen

I've been a Gypsy Queen fan since the 2015 design. I've yet to see a GQ design that can top that one, I really did like this years effort. I was only able to get my hands on some retail packs as part of the aforementioned Target Easter sale but from what I was able to sample, I really enjoyed it. The only thing I wasn't a big fan of were the variations and parallels (because who really needs a parallel of a card where the back plate is missing) but other than that I really liked it.

2018 Big League

My aunt treated me to a box of this back in the summer when she came to visit from Tulsa. I'll admit, I wasn't sure what to expect with these cards. I'd heard they were more of the set builders variety and were low on inserts and hits but were more on the "fun" side of collecting. I really liked the design on them and honestly, that design could've probably worked as a flagship design too. A few complaints I had about it though is that there was one gold parallel card per pack, which I felt was a bit too much, and there weren't all that many "inserts" as well, the main one I even remember are those obtuse and goofy looking caricature cards. 

2018 Archives

I was so excited for Archives to come out that when I finally found a Target that had some, I stopped in at 10:45 at night to stock up. What I found was a bit of a let down. The cards themselves I felt were a bit thin and the designs weren't all that great this year. It was nice to see 1977 and 1981 in the set but I think maybe the 1961 or 1962 designs could've been used or maybe even 1993 to continue the theme of 1991 and 1992 in the previous two Archives releases. The inserts weren't even that great. Sure there were the Sandlot cards (which I promptly mailed to Dimebox Nick) but there were also the Rookie Reprints cards which I personally didn't care much for.

So that's the seven baseball products I opened in 2018. As for my favorite "first" card?

The winner is ....

Nolan Ryan from 2018 Donruss!

As I mentioned, I thought the 1984 throwback design cards were the best part of Donruss this year. That coupled with it being Nolan Ryan throwing in Riverfront Stadium, just makes it stand out for me.

I appreciate Tom running the contest for another year in a row and if all else fails and I don't win a prize, at least I got a blog post out of the deal. That should count for something I hope.

A Steal of a Retail Deal (Part 1)

I told myself I was going to stop buying stuff just to review on the blog. Well, that kind of went out the window with this purchase. Over the Easter weekend, Target had a whale of a deal on cards. Blaster were on sale for $16.99 each and hanger boxes were on sale for $8.49 each. Also, on the Cartwheel app there was a $10 off a $50 purchase coupon and there was a free pack coupon on each blaster of Heritage. To go along with this, my mom got me a $75 Target gift card as an Easter gift.

Naturally, I had to take advantage of this rare sale. I had come in search of some Gypsy Queen but they were well stocked with Heritage. I settled for eight packs of Gypsy Queen (four of which came out to be free thanks to the $10 off coupon and the free pack coupon on the blaster), one Heritage blaster, and two Heritage hanger boxes. Grand total for all this? About $48.

I'll focus on the Heritage cards here and share the Gypsy Queen cards in a follow-up post. I can't remember which cards came out of the blaster or the hangers so I've just sort of mixed and matched here.

First off, before I get to the cards, I wanted to take a moment and comment on the Heritage pack design itself. Since I'd yet to open any actual packs of Heritage this year, this was my first glimpse at what the pack itself looks like. I have to say, I kind of dig it.

I'm going to try and show cards of players I don't think I showed on my initial round of Heritage. I can't guarantee though there won't be repeats. 

Yay! Rookie Cup cards! It may just be me but I kind of think the Rookie Cups fit better on Heritage than on flagship.

Nice to see that the Mariners finally signed Ichiro. 

When Strasburg was a rookie, I had club seat tickets for a Reds game to see him against Johnny Cueto. That was quite the game.

Between the hangers and the blaster, I got four short prints (including two Lonnie Chisenhall cards). I'd forgotten completely about Brandon Phillips' stint with the Angels last year. 

The lone Reds card I got that wasn't already a duplicate and it's one of the baseball flashbacks insert. 

And here are the Target exclusive inserts. I think that Rhys Hoskins might be a duplicate but I'll have to go through my Phillies cards to make sure.

While these weren't the best boxes and I didn't get any variations, it was still a fun rip. I think I'm good on Heritage now probably until High Numbers comes out this fall. If I want any more singles or inserts, I'll probably dig for them at card shows or the like.

You've Got Mail #83: A Cracked Bat

A while back on Twitter (a month nearly by the time this posts), I mentioned that everything that could possibly go wrong in one day did. My five year old had a 102 degree fever and couldn't keep any food down, I had a $1200 car repair bill in my future, and a host of other minor issues. Not long after that, a padded mailer arrived from Julie at A Cracked Bat with a nice little note of encouragement. It had been a while since I received anything from Julie so this was a nice, welcome surprise.

2018 Topps Heritage was the last thing I expected to see included. I'm guessing this has to be near the entire Indians team set, or darn close to it. 

My three favorite Indians cards of the batch, Encarnacion, Lindor, and would you look at that ... another Jay Bruce Indians card! I think I like that one more that the Series 1 card. Yes, I know I showed the Encarnacion card in my Heritage post.

Some Reds Heritage cards were thrown in too. Too bad star pitching prospect Tyler Mahle has to share a rookie card with middle reliever Jackson Stephens, who didn't exactly set the world on fire last year with a 4.68 ERA in 7 whole games last season. Again, I know some of these cards were previously featured in my Heritage post, the pictures were already in the can and the cards have already been filed.

Heritage wasn't the only thing that was included. These green crystal 2013 Panini Cooperstown parallels are pretty sweet. I'm pretty sure I've got the base cards of each so the parallels will go perfect with them. Also, when was the last time you saw Edd Roush on modern cards?

Some miscellaneous Indians cards, including a framed Earl Averill parallel from last years Diamond Kings set. The most curious thing there is the card of Ron Wollenhaupt, the trainer of the Waterloo Indians. I had no idea TCMA was making cards of single-A Midwest League teams in 1982, let alone for a team in the middle of Iowa. If your curious, the 1982 Waterloo Indians, finished second in the south division in 1982, 4 games behind the Quad Cities Cubs.

Here's some of last year's Topps Chrome set which I can proudly say I didn't buy a single pack of. It was nice to see the Reds lock up Eugenio Suarez with a nice long contract, I wish they'd do the same for Adam Duvall. 

Much like this envelope was a surprise from Julie, getting an autograph card included was another surprise. I don't have too much in the way of auto's and relics from the Indians. Also, it's a 1987 style card, I can't really complain too much.

Thanks for the cards Julie! These definitely made a pair of bad situations much better. As for the problems I mentioned earlier, it turns out that my five year old had an adverse reaction to his booster shots but he slept it off and was better the next day. My car finally got fixed too and now I have AC in it again for the first time in two years! It's the little things.

Chasing Down Heritage

I have a love/hate relationship with Topps Heritage. I love it because it's a fun set with classic designs and fun inserts. I hate it because it's always so blasted hard to find, especially when there's a hot rookie like Aaron Judge last year or Shohei Otani this year. Sure, I could go the easy route and go to the card shop and pay $4.79 a pack or I could just check out Target to see what they have. I chose Target (but I did stop at the card shop for an unrelated matter and bought some Donruss packs, more on those to come in a future post).

Since we were out and about by the local mega-mall, we had to stop at Target next door to it while we were there anyway. I peeked at the card section. Nothing, zilch, zero in the way of Heritage. As fate would have it, though, we actually had to stop at our local Target on the way home to pick-up an online order that was ready sooner than expected. Before picking up the order, I just had to look at the cards. They had a huge display of Heritage hanger boxes, but no loose packs or blasters. I bought two hanger boxes (as two of those pretty much equates to a blaster in terms of quantity and price) along with a blaster of Opening Day.

My first Heritage card of the year, Jean Segura of the Seattle Mariners. I'm making it a point to show off the first card of every 2018 product I open, be it baseball or otherwise, so I can do a fun little 2018 wrap-up post with them at the end of the year (that's if I remember to do so). Anyway, I like these cards ... a lot. The pictures are nice and crisp, it's a fun design just like the 1969 set, and the backs are super fun too. I'm definitely going to get more of this as I see fit.

Here's a pair of Dodgers pitchers that I know Night Owl is probably fond of. I think my first Maeda card from last year came from Heritage as well. 

Here's a trio of players I tend to enjoy collecting. The Carlos Beltran card is a nice sunset card as I don't think he had a card in Series 1, but I could be wrong. Alonso is a former Reds prospect who's finally broken out and shown the power that everyone knew he had. This past offseason, he signed with Cleveland and joined Edwin Encarnacion to form a nice power hitting duo up on the shores of Lake Erie.

Two of the biggest names in the game and the Giancarlo Stanton Yankees card that everyone is talking about. I found this to be a bit interesting as well and I'll explain why shortly.

Four Reds cards between the two boxes. Iggy's glove looks bigger than it should be.

I like this card simply because of the colorfulness of the Washington uniform. I've found that most of the uniforms featured on these cards are the regular home whites, not that that's a bad thing, so when an alternate top sneaks in, it's a welcome sight.

Each hanger box also provided one short print card. I think Kenley Jansen was a short print last year as well. I checked the microscopic code numbers on the backs of the cards as well and I didn't get any action variations, color swaps, or anything like that. 

I was absolutely thrilled when I saw these checklists because, honestly, when was the last time you saw an honest, old-school style checklist? These are just things of beauty.

Of course, there are the multi-player rookie cards. I find it curious that Topps gave Rafael Devers the rookie cup and stuffed it onto a multi-player card. Why not just give him a card all to himself with the rookie cup?

I always like the flashbacks inserts in Heritage, both the baseball and the news ones. The New Age Performers inserts never really did much for me, but this year's design is kind of fun and funky.

Remember what I mentioned earlier about the Yankees Stanton card being a curiosity? Well, here's my point. The All-Star card shown here of Stanton uses the exact same picture (minus the airbrushed uniform) and proclaims him as a Marlin, not a Yankee. While I see the point to doing this because it's an All-Star card, Topps maybe should have tried to keep him listed with one team or the other.

This picture is the stack of cards that came out of the second hanger box, and look, what's that I spy in the middle there?

Why it's a Giancarlo Stanton relic card! Again, as with the All-Star card, this card proclaims him as a member of the Marlins and we have the exact same photo as the base card. Hey, I'm not complaining. It's a hit from a retail hanger box and I never ... repeat, never ... have that kind of luck and if I do, it's usually not a name of this caliber.

So, overall, do I like 2018 Topps Heritage? Yes. As with any product, there's good and there's bad but so far, I haven't really found much to complain about. The 1969 design is a fun design, the pictures are much better and don't look as grainy as some past issues, and there are full-fledged, honest-to-God checklists! So far, this is my favorite product of the year.