Living It Up

Even though I've thought very highly of the art I've seen on the Topps Living set cards, I haven't quite had it in me thus far to fork over $15 for a 3-card weekly set or $8 for one select card of my choosing.

For starters, to my knowledge at least, Craig Kimbrel and Mookie Betts have yet to be featured in the set, and those 2 are the main players I'd be willing to pay that kind of money for. Additionally, each week features 1 or sometimes even 2 players that I don't collect or actively watch, making it difficult for me to buy one of the 3-card sets from any given week.

Moreover, it's not like the set promotes an exciting event or memorable moment like Topps NOW. Although the cards are stunning, they aren't promoting exciting events like Topps NOW, making the prices hard to justify once again.

However, a recent suggestion from Mark Hoyle on my last Topps NOW post brought up a good point that I had not considered before. Apparently, Topps NOW cards, as well as cards from the Topps Living, set are selling on eBay, sometimes for even half the price of what Topps lists them for. 

So, when eBay ran a promotion a couple weeks ago that gave customers $5 off any purchase, I looked long and hard to find a card worthy of this promotion. In the end, I stumbled upon the Roberto Clemente Topps Living card you see at the top of this post which, after applying the $5 off, became mine for the price of just $0.69 cents.

Though this is my first Topps Living set card, I know the basics behind the continuous product. The front features gorgeous art by Mayumi Seto, and the set was chosen to be modeled after the 1953 Topps design, a set known for its beautiful artwork. 

After making the purchase, I went to Topps.com and found the Clemente card had one of the highest print runs of any Living card thus far with nearly 11,000 cards produced. Though that total is quite impressive, the 28,000 made for Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto respectively and the whopping 46,000 produced for Ronald Acuña is nothing short of astounding, especially since each card is only available for 1 week.

Even with all the hype surrounding the big name rookies of this year, I'd likely choose Roberto Clemente over any of them. His talent over his 18-year career speaks for itself, and he was one of the greatest men in sports history, on the field and off the field at that.

Now that is a perfect example of one of the few Topps Living cards I'd pay to get.