After anticipating its release for months on end, 2019 Topps Heritage was finally released earlier today. As you can see, I wasted no time in taking a trip to my LCS for my yearly tradition of purchasing a hobby box of the fan-favorite product.
2019 makes the first year that Topps is replicating a 70s Flagship set, marking the dawn of a new era of sorts for the Heritage brand. Over the next few years, we'll start to see Topps finest sets ever created once again, featuring modern-day stars.
I fully intend to take my time opening my hobby box so I won't be posting a full recap until tomorrow at the earliest. As for today's post, I'm starting off with just 1 pack of the product in order to access and share my thoughts on this years' set.
There's honestly no better sight than a freshly-opened hobby box with all the packs remaining unopened, especially when the pack design is as creative as the Topps Heritage sets. I'm not certain if they're created with the intent of recreating past pack styles, but they still are eye-catching regardless.
Just like it has been for as long as I can remember, a hobby box delivers 24 packs with 9 cards per pack along with the guarantee of 1 autograph or relic card as well. Thankfully, the first pack I opened didn't house my hit, for that would've been an extremely anti-climactic moment, even if it was a super rare card.
Now, the moment that I've been waiting on for quite some time now. Here's my very first pack from 2019 Topps Heritage.
#170 Albert Almora Jr.
Just under 1 month ago, I pulled Aaron Judge's base card as my first card from 2019 Topps Series 1. This time around with 2019 Topps Heritage, my first card from this set is Chicago Cubs' outfielder, Albert Almora Jr.
As expected, Topps did a stellar job of replicating the 1970 Topps set, a feat they never fail to accomplish no matter the year. While I was originally worried about the pictures being too small after what I saw on Cardboard Connection beforehand, seeing this first card proves to me that there's nothing to worry about when it comes to the size of the photos.
#279 Rick Porcello
With my first card being a Cub and the 2nd being a Red Sox player, it'd be challenging to start off better than I did with my first pack of 2019 Topps Heritage.
Looking back on it, 1969 Topps had a fair amount of headshots, but they weren't necessarily recreated for Heritage. Upon seeing this Porcello card, I can already tell that there will be a wider variety of different images utilized in this years' product.
#313 Michael Fulmer
The bright yellow and dark blue card backs from 1970 Topps are some of the more memorable Baseball card backs in Topps history, and I'm pleased to see the effort that Topps made to redesign them practically perfectly. Even the fun fact cartoons have returned in the top right-hand corner of the card like they have in previous years of Heritage as well.
#191 David Price
With SPs once again reserved for the top superstars of Baseball, it was somewhat surprising to find Red Sox pitcher and World Series hero David Price in the base set as card #191. While I'm obviously thrilled to wind up with 2 Red Sox cards in 1 pack, just like Series 1, I expected to see Price as a short-print this year, but I'm not upset about the decision whatsoever.
#TN-8 Then & Now Johnny Bench & Javier Baez
Almost every Topps Heritage pack delivers some sort of SP, insert, numbered card, or hit, and my first pack from the 2019 set landed me an insert card that falls at roughly 1 per hobby box; a Then & Now card.
While the pairing of Bench and Baez isn't the greatest, the insert set has remained iconic for over a decade. However, this years' design resembles the base set a smidge too much for my taste.
#376 Toronto Blue Jays rookie stars
Even more so than the standard base design, Topps was able to nail the rookie stars cards despite the fact that I've only seen the Blue Jays version thus far. Perfectly capturing the colors as well as the font and positioning, Topps successfully replicated a critical aspect of this particular iconic set of cards.
#347 David Bote
Similar to Eric Thames, Chicago Cubs 3rd baseman David Bote will likely be recognized years from now for a mini-tear that the 25-year old went on last year. Just like the few weeks in which Eric Thames was a hot commodity, Bote's walk-off grand slam will forever be an iconic aspect of modern-day Baseball history.
#398 Teoscar Hernandez
At this point in the pack, 7 of the 8 cards I've pulled have featured a member of either the Red Sox, Cubs, or Blue Jays. Even if the final card doesn't showcase a member of one of those 3 MLB teams, over 75% of the cards in pack #1 feature players on just 3 clubs. What are the odds of that?
#153 Seth Lugo
He's not necessarily the first Mets pitcher I would like to find, but seeing another headshot to close out the pack affirms my previous theory that 2019 Topps Heritage will feature a wider range of different photographs, not just the same shots we've grown accustomed to seeing year after year.
Thank goodness, because I'm getting sick and tired of players swinging a bat with bright blue skies showing up on almost every single card.
I didn't look at the Cubs or Blue Jays, but the odds of pulling a Red Sox card are pretty high - 34 cards in the set, and only 4 are SP!
ReplyDeleteThat is a stellar looking Bote McBoatface.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I'm very excited about this Heritage set (running theme the last few years). But Heritage is always a classy, well-put-together set and that makes it worth a few packs anyway.
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