Wednesday, February 2, 2011

2011 Topps Baseball rack pack

I braved the snow storm today to go over to Target to get some groceries and of course some of the new Topps Flagship brand. I wasn't disappointed as they had blasters, rack packs and single packs. I only bought a rack pack as I have only seen a few of the cards online and I wanted to check out the cards for myself before I bought up a bunch of packs.

Let's look at the base cards first.

I always gravitate towards action photography when I look at cards.

Who doesn't like a guy jumping over a player sliding into second.

Or a cool broken bat shot.

Out of the few action shot cards that I deemed scanworthy only two of them were vertical.


..and only one was horizontal. The blue background makes the gray and red of the uniform stand out more.


I guess the main reason why I like these types of pitching cards is the pose of the pitcher right before he throws his arm forward. This is one of the most aesthetically pleasing of the horizontal shots of pitchers.


It seems like the release and follow through of the pitching motion is usually captured as a vertical card like this one of Jamie Moyer.


It's one of those diamond variation cards. I don't know if it's obvious but the player isn't all diamondy, just the background. I can't get over the blurry figure in the outfield. The diamond treatment doesn't work out well for the background figures.

I'm not wild about the diamond replacing the team logo at the bottom right of the card because mainly I really like the way the team logo is encased in a circle. I'm a little iffy on the arch that contains the players name, but overall I like the base set design a lot better than last years set.


I don't think that I have seen many cards of a pitcher in the beginning of his windup until now.
I think this card is the first one that I have pulled of a rigor mortis impaired pitcher.


In addition to the action shot cards are the ones that I find unusual.
These two cards are what I think are unusual and stand out when I'm going through my cards.

Two different treatments of candid shots. The team card of the Red Sox is a nice candid moment captured on a card, but the Jefferies card is just bizarre. A candid shot gone wrong.



Since I haven't shown off the back I'll use the Jefferies card as my example. I picked this one because of the little confused head in the upper left of the card.



In addition to the diamond card I pulled one of these Topps 60th anniversary thing of Lou Gehrig.


These are pretty nice. I thought at first that these were the CTYMTO cards. I guess in a way it's similar. The Musial is a "lost card": a card that was never made, but should have been.


The 1972 Carew cards is a little different. I know it's a reprint of his card, but I don't know how it fits into that subset. I'm guessing that they have one card that represents each year and they decided on Rod Carew for 1972. Hey that rhymes.

Diamond Duos card of Utley and Rollins. A replacement of Legendary Lineage perhaps?

I was wondering why everybody was mentioning the Toppstown cards online and seeing them in person I now know why; They're pretty nice looking this year. I don't collect or redeem Toppstown so if anybody wants my codes let me know.

I pulled one of these Diamond Giveaway cards that I'll try to redeem at some point in the future.

Lastly the one subset that I really do like.


The Kimball Champions inspired minis.
This card was a bit longer and wider than the other minis that Topps offers like A&G. The border is the difference in sizes. So not as big as Mayo, but still a little bigger than other Topps minis. It could be that it was cut a little bigger, but I compared it to 4 different A&G minis and they were all smaller than the N184 card.

These cards are going to be in each series as well as updates and highlights a la 2009 Turkey Red. Out of all of the cards offered this is the one set that I'm really really interested in. I'm going to try and get as many of these minis as possible.

I realized last year that rack packs were the best at giving me a random assortment of inserts and base cards and I when I go retail I'll probably stick with rack packs. I'm looking forward to seeing what the hobby packs have to offer. I'm still on the fence about getting a box of these cards. I think it might be more fun to try and go for the whole set by getting packs as I feel like purchasing them rather than going all out and trying to finish it as quickly as possible. This base set looks like it will be fun to try and finish.

8 comments:

flywheels said...

Rack packs do seem to be the way to go this year.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on the Kimball minis. I think they are going to be the only inserts I chase this year.

Dawgbones said...

I love that Moyer card, I think I'll have to find one of these. And I think I'll follow your lead and try some rack packs over the singles for a while.

Jeremy said...

If you want the Moyer, it's yours. I'm not collecting all the diamond cards. Maybe just a few players that I like.

Reds68 said...

Was searching for a good site from which to order a hobby box (still not sure what's best for that - any thoughts?) and found your site.

I just picked up one rack pack from Target and I'm sort of loving the cards this year. I also pulled a Joey Votto (favorite player on my favorite team) Kimball mini so I'm thrilled.

I'm curious, why do you prefer rack packs to hobby box? Or do you?

Thanks.

Jeremy said...

I buy all my hobby boxes online from Blowout cards. I know some people like Dave and Adams card shop online. Their are a few others, but I can't remember the names.

Last year I didn't want the base set, I was just interested in some of the base and mostly just wanted the inserts. I found that in retail rack packs give me the most variety as far as inserts go.

Hobby boxes would be the easiest for completing a set and/or being guaranteed a few hits in the process, but I didn't know if I wanted to go that route this time. I think it will be fun to just buy some random packs as I feel like it and hope to finish the set slowly.

The Kimball minis seem to be the favorite of the bloggers who have weighed in on this years set, myself included.

Good luck with collecting this set, it looks like a fun one to try and finish.

IndianaReds68 said...

Thanks Jeremy. That was a big help, much appreciated.

I'm a former collector who got back into it last year after, well, a few decades away. I have to admit, I really love the 2011 cards. For one, I love the team logos – but I also think the overall design is simple yet sophisticated.

Just curious, what’s the best way to go about “networking” with fellow collectors in order to find people to trade with? Any ideas are appreciated.

And I promise I won't ask you any more annoying questions.

Thanks!

Jeremy said...

you story is a lot similar to most collectors out there it seems. I've read about a lot of the bloggers who collected when they were younger and then got back into it as they were a bit older. My story is like that as well. Some people like to check out message boards like freedom cardboard or blowout cards forums. I'm not much of a message board guy. I'd rather read the blogs. The Sports Card Blogroll is a good place to read a lot of nice blogs about all types of sports. So my advice would be to start a blog. Lots of people have stated that they didn't think of themselves as writers, but once they started blogging about their hobby it came naturally to them. Also putting up a want/trade list is nice. People who stop by your blog might offer up a trade or you can do what I did when I started my blog and shamelessly hound people for trades. I hope that helps.