2012 Topps Heritage
 

I was in the checkout lane today at Wal Marts and saw the new 2012 Topps Heritage baseball. Before I knew what was happening I had 12 Jumbo Rack
packs (16 cards per) and 2 Blaster boxes (8 packs each) Total price was $115.
Here's the breakdown on what I pulled;

9 Short Print high numbers with Prince Fielder probably the best
3 Blue Border
1 Chrome "Dustin Pedroia"
1 Chrome Refractor "Michael Young"
3 New Age Performers (Doubles of Chipper Jones)
4 Then and Now
6 Flashbacks
4 Checklist
4 Peel and Stick Stickers (Doubles of Jacoby Ellsbury)

No autographs and no Clubhouse Collections or Stadium Relics
Not much for $115. It just wasn't my lucky day

I don't collect modern stuff,but I'll get a blaster box every now and then.It's fun to rip through them.I have about the same luck you have!

it's kind of cool but....
 

Ok, anything with new collecting is cool in it's own right. That being said, I really don't know a lot about it. Isn't this kind of like regular ole gambling and not so much about collecting baseball cards? Please don't take this the wrong way. BTW, even though this is the correct section I am going to move this to get some more feedback. It's interesting. (this was first posted correctly in the sports - water-cooler section)

Good comparison to gambling. These packs these days cost more than a meal at a fairly decent restaurant or a case of beer. With that high of a cost, it is just like purchasing a lotto ticket, they should put warnings on the label for people to call gamblers annonymous if they feel they have an addiction.

? A pack is $2-3, racks 5-6 and the "blaster box $20

Where are you getting a case for under twenty bucks? Maybe generic beer, or something like red,white and blue. But Those barely count as beer.

A decent meal can be had for under twenty for sure.

This year they stopped putting the "better" inserts in the blaster boxes, at least for the regular Topps set.

Steve B

I agree with Leon's gambling analogy; however, how is it different then 1989 when people were spending $15 on packs of '84 Donruss looking for Mattingly rookies?

I know some modern card collectors who are very knowledgeable about today's game and get very excited about cards of prospects that most people have probably never heard of.

Leon, I guess it depends on how you look at it. I buy a case every year, and have no expectations of getting anything valuable. It's all manufactured scarcity anyway. My goal is the same as when I opened '71 packs as a kid- to put together a set, and to see the players I see at the ballpark.
Every year I get pretty close to a full set, with typically 2 extra near sets. The nice thing is that since the cards are worth very little everyone just sends each other whatever they need, with no worry about value.
To me it's just entertainment, not gambling. If the set rises in value over time (and Heritage seems to be one of the few modern exceptions that does, albeit incrementally) then fine, if not it's still fun.
Just like collecting as a kid.

You made the mistake of opening the packs and boxes yourself instead of a high profile company doing it for you, then you could have got something good, and it would have been just a coincidence of course!

It's kewl Anthony. I wasn't really trying to put it in a bad light I was only making an analogy. Heck, even gambling is entertainment....as long as there isn't addiction going on. I am sure there are no pre-war card addicts on the board. (as my nose grows). I just hope it keeps on going and some of those old-looking new cards get people interested in what we do. I surmise it does for some. If anyone remembers too, I had a brief encounter with some new card collectors in hotel lobby a few years back. They and I spoke for several minutes and it was cool understanding what they were doing, though I think they were opening a bit older Topps, if I recall correctly. Then a short time later that found our board and corroborated the experience. We all had a good time. And that my friend is what it is all about :).

I am basically averaging the cost taking into consideration some of those packs that can run $50 a piece or more or a little less. Of course those are not sold at the grocery store. I even heard of some that cost $200 a pack. A case of Miller Lite cans is about 14.99 a case up by me.

Wow that's cheap. Around here almost everything is a bit over $20. Not like the old days when red white and blue was cheaper than Pepsi. ($6 a case or less compared to $8)

I won't even get into how much the stuff I like costs:(

The packs at $50+ are pretty much just special inserts with sometimes a few "base" cards included to make it look like a set. I bought a couple of the equivalent ones - Edge graded football - when they were new and haven't bothered since. I do think the base cards that come in those packs will eventually be better than junk if only because of the cost of just getting close to a set.

Steve B

Past years Heritage has been a nice product. The base cards, based on old Topps designs, are quality. Made on old time stock so the cards look and feel old. Collectors of vintage Topps cards will get a kick out of them. You could get, for example, a 1959 Topps Chipper Jones that really resembled a 1959 Topps. I don't know if they still do it, but it past years you even got a stick of gum in the pack.

I'm also a fan of Topps Chrome.

Wow holy crap $20 a case! I thought we had it bad in Illinois. The City Of Chicago is probably that high though, luckily I am about 20-25 miles outside Chicago.
Oh I see it is special packs that are high priced, I get so confused with cards since 1992; hence, one of the reasons I quit collecting as a kid in the 1990s, just got too confusing and difficult to get what you wanted. It all started with the 1990 Upperdeck Heros Reggie Jackson Auto card, then 91 Donruss Elite.

Our local (and only) card dealer in the Plano area is very much up on all the new stuff. He has a lot of "older" card singles for sale in stock (going back to 1979 :o), but his bread-and-butter is the new stuff. The Topps regular series packs are $1.79, and the Heritage are $2.99/pack. Other more premium issues are higher. It dismays me to see packs as high as $35, $50, and even $100+ for the "premium" stuff.

Having said that, the Topps Heritage (and formerly Bowman Heritage) are pretty nice issues, already echoed on this post by others about simulating the older card look and feel. It is kind of a nice way for the "older" collector to buy a pack or two of cards and feel like he felt as a kid opening up a wax pack of cards.

I plan on trying to complete the Topps Update Series that will come out in August of this year. I have not ever done this with modern cards, but being a Padres fan, it will allow me to pick up cards of their new uniforms. I also did enjoy Topps promotion last year in the Update Series (I bought about 100+ cards) in which special codes could be redeemed online for vintage cards, and you built a "collection" of virtual cards that you could offer as trade bait for vintage cards you wanted. I was able to pick up 13-14 cards from Topps over 40 years old and had them mail them to me.

it's also a nice way for kids to get into cards. A few years ago one of the coaches on my sons team gave a few packs of Heritage to each kid (it was the '58 style cards) and when I explained that they were replicas of cards from '58 they all wanted to see the originals. When they found out they could buy "ancient" 50 year old cards for less than a pack a few of them starting collecting.

Red, White and Blue? That was definitely a gamble when i was in college at Indiana. You might wake up in an unfamiliar place... Do they still make that? Way off topic, but I was joking around with friends at work the other day about getting a case of red, white and blue in Bloomigton for about $6. We had to sneak it onto campus.

Blasters, racks... I remember rack packs at Toys R Us, you could see the fronts and backs, so you might get lucky and find a Mike Greenwell rookie on the back and buy it for $.99. I have glanced at the ball cards at the store now and again, but the price and the gambling factor is a turn-off. The whole baseball card thing went out the window in the late 80's. Can't imagine buying the new stuff...

What the heck is a blaster...?

Cheers,

Jim

What just happened???
 

Original post: "I was in the checkout lane today at Wal Marts and saw the new 2012 Topps Heritage baseball. Before I knew what was happening I had 12 Jumbo Rack
packs (16 cards per) and 2 Blaster boxes (8 packs each) Total price was $115."


I have had that same experience with cards all my life. Somehow before I knew it a bunch jumped into my cart or whatever and I owed someone $100. :)

[QUOTE=jalex;977886]Red, White and Blue? That was definitely a gamble when i was in college at Indiana. You might wake up in an unfamiliar place... Do they still make that? Way off topic, but I was joking around with friends at work the other day about getting a case of red, white and blue in Bloomigton for about $6. We had to sneak it onto campus.

Our beer at Illinois State University was Keystone Light, stuff went down like water back then, now if I take a sip I wanna hurl.:p

Heritage is the *ONE* product I buy each year no matter what. Having collected the originals back in the day it is great to get the feel for the old designs with the modern cards.

This year though there were WAY WAY too many SP's issued. Topps is overdoing a good thing and needs to tamp down the SP's and SSP's to go back to basic levels.

At this point, the base set should be 600 cards with the final 100 cards being SP's instead of the 500 cards/last 75 pattern being used currently.

I have other comments which I may make later

Rich

Modern
 

I always buy a few packs each year. It's only gambling if you are trying for a big score and chasing whatever manufactured "error card" Topps cooks up. I just like to open the packs and see the designs and players. Trying to relive childhood I guess

would have been better off with a $100 Pujols graded rookie card..

why try for todays prospects? are you looking for the next PUJOLS? there isnt going to be one...just go for the greatest right off the getgo...

remember Ruth Williams Pujols, then the rest...
best righthanded hitter EVER

Leon is correct its a form of gambling,I get suckered into it from time to time with no luck.but today got my 64 Aaron in the mail feel happy with that:D

As recently as a few months ago I use to pick up a modern pack or two everytime I went to Target.One day my girlfriend told me she saw a guy there weighing the packs out on a scale.I havent purchased any since and wont be in the near future.

Here's a list online from a fairly big package store. The little places will usually be a bit higher.
http://www.capecodpackagestore.com/c...iquor-beer.asp
The Mass legislature is fond of "sin taxes" so we get a bit added on every now and then.

Yeah, things have goten crazy since then. Nice basic packs are usually under $2 and most retail ones are 2.99 for "fancy" stuff like heritage and Alen and Ginter.

Tha blaster boxes are $20 boxes with around 8 packs or so. (7 packs plus one bonus pack!:eek:) A bit discounted, but the packs also usually have a card or two fewer and sometimes the mix of inserts is diferent. And usually they have some special card that only comes in those boxes. The big 3 retailers left often have their own special inserts. Red borders in Target, blue borders in Wal Mart. Nothing in Toys r Us this year plus a $26 price tag! (Won't be buying from them...)

There is a bit of a gambling element, but At least there's cards to collect. Scratch tickets just don't work for me.:D (I get the sports ones for free - The scratch ticket people also litter and my yard is apparently just far enough away from the store that I get a bunch of them.)

Steve B

a small box wrapped in cellophane with typically 5-12 packs inside. Lots of people like buying blasters at retail locations because they then know the packs weren't "searched".


Edit- heres a pic...


http://i55.tinypic.com/iw7mag.jpg

I used to go for the Heritage products (Bowman mostly), Topps T206, etc. I somewhat liked the homage to vintage, but it was not the same as the real thing. I finally quit buying modern stuff and have concentrated on the real thing. While I miss the excitement of ripping packs, getting mail and ripping that is almost the same! Plus, I love the cards I get every time.

Couple of more notes
 

1) If you are going to purchase cards at the Wally Worlds and Targets of the world you should ONLY buy the unopened blaster boxes or the value boxes. Anything more will probably have been searched by the time you got there.

2) This year's Heritage had special cards for Target and WalMart similar to what Topps does in their basic product for those two chains.

3) With the 2 Sp's that should be in every blaster box, Heritage is one of the few products that BV is just about a guarantee to at least break even from in retail. With the chance of other decent hits, (I pulled 2 autographs last year), that is why I purchase Heritage at retail as well as Hobby.

regards
Rich

Be careful when buying blaster boxes. People have been known to buy them at Walmart & Target and when they get home and open them up, they find that the packs have been restuff with crap cards from past years. The crooks even go to the trouble of reshrink wrapping the box before they return it. This has never happen to me, but I've read about it on other message boards.


Jantz

If that happens
 

There is usually a note on the box that it was returned. Funny story, I missed that on a value box I bought in 2010 so I missed the good card being taken out -- BUT the contest cards were left in.

One of the contest cards became the 2010 Strasburg which was not only booking for over $100 at the time but was also the key to free shipping.

Rich

People are easily fooled into thinking that a product is NEW, UNOPENED -- and all it takes is shrink-wrap! There's a movie that came out a couple years ago, "Hotel For Dogs," and it shows these two down-on-their-luck kids who would buy an iWhatever, take it home, open it up, put a brick or other weighty object inside the box, shrink-wrap it, and return it to the store for a full cash refund. Sure, it's a fictional film, but as they say, art imitates life!

What surprises me even more is the comment further up on this thread about some guy weighing unopened packs in Target. It makes sense, as the different insert cards, with varying thicknesses, would weigh different amounts. You'd think store security would step in and say something, but if the store cops can't even stop most shoplifters, I'm sure they'd ignore a guy who's actually paying for something.

Well now they have "filler cards" in packs now to avoid this, have been doing it for a couple of years. They are super thick cards, that weigh the same as an insert card to help throw the people weighing cards off. They're usually like a "topps.com" advertisement, or just a white blank thick card, which is actually pretty nice to get player's autographs on lol.

The Heritage product is a bit softer this year. Even though my local store is still at $74 per box, I suspect that hobby "on-line" retailers may end up going under $50 per box.

In another place, I'll give my argument for all the lesser known autograph players in this product

RIch

With that in mind, the card companies do put "Decoy cards" in some packs. Decoy cards are thick blank (or advertisement) cards to throw off people weighing the packs or feeling them up.

Also with the Shrink wrap, just make sure the company logo is on the shrink wrap and you will be fine.

The "decoy cards" were a joke. Only half the packs in a box would have a decoy card in them, so this just helped the pack searchers pinpoint the pack with the game jersey/bat card in it.

I worked in retail for years and saw my share of pack searchers & all their techniques.

Some were very sophisticated too. Once saw a guy at another retailer with a homemade miniature hand-held metal detector. Of course I had to ask. The metal detector was to find autographs. Factory autographed cards have that little foil certification sticker or a foil sticker where the player signs & that was all it took.



Jantz