Thursday, December 12, 2013

2013 Topps Baseball Update Series Trading Cards Box Break Recap And Review


Full of late trades, mid-season rookies and All-Star selections, 2013 Topps Baseball Update Series is the final act of this year’s flagship product.  This set includes a wide variety of inserts, continuing this year’s theme of “the Chase” along with continuations from sets from Series 1 and 2 and all new inserts, plus short print photo variations and cards dedicated to “Boston Strong.”

For the purposes of review, we classify Update Series as trading cards.  You can find Update Series in a wide variety of configurations in both retail and hobby.  We opened a hobby box that contained 36 – 10 card packs with a promise of 1 autograph or 1 relic card per box.


Here are some of the cards we pulled.



Base Set
Yasiel Puig, front and back
Miguel Tejada, Ian Kennedy, Michael Pineda
Francisco Liriano, Randy Choate, Kevin Youkilis
Mark Reynolds, Aaron Harang, Jeff Francoeur
Shin-Soo Choo, Roy Oswalt, Mike Olt
Wil Myers. Trevor Bauer, Matt Garza
Alfonso Soriano, Dan Haren
Carlos Martinez, Jonathan Villar
Gerrit Cole, Kevin Gausman

Base Set - All-Star Game 
Jason Kipnis, David Wright, Yu Darvish
Andrew McCutchen, Miguel Cabrera, Matt Harvey
Paul Goldschmidt, David Ortiz, Chris Davis
Adam Wainwright, Prince Fielder, Robinson Cano
Felix Hernandez. Hisashi Iwakuma, Carlos Gonzalez
Madison Bumgarner, Adam Jones, Jose Bautista
Joey Votto, Carlos Beltran, Joe Mauer
Ben Zobrist, Mariano Rivera, Mike Trout
Brandon Phillips, Yadier Molina
Jean Segura, Jose Fernandez
Manny Machado, Matt Moore
Dustin Pedroia, Clayton Kershaw

Base Set - Home Run Derby
Robinson Cano, Prince Fielder
Yoenis Cespedes, Bryce Harper

Base Set - Rookie Debut
Jose Fernandez, Yasiel Puig, Zack Wheeler
Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jurickson Profar, Shelby Miller
Anthony Rendon, Wil Meyers
Gerrit Cole

Base Set - Record Chase
Tim Lincecum, David Ortiz
Yoenis Cespedes, Yasiel Puig

Base Set Parallels

Green
Wil Meyers, Anthony Swarzak, Kyle Gibson
Joel Peralta, Mariano Rivera, Jose Fernandez

Gold #/2013
Yasiel Puig, Vance Worley, Willie Bloomquist
Bryan Petrsen, Jim Henderson, Eric Hinske

Inserts

Making Their Mark
Yasiel Puig, Matt Harvey, Starling Marte
Jose Fernandez, Aaron Hicks, Tony Cingrani

Chasing History
Ozzie Smith, Jurickson Profar
Joey Votto, Reggie Jackson
Manny Machado, Bo Jackson
Dustin Pedroia, Roberto Clemente
Troy Tulowitzki

Franchise Forerunners
Mets - Harvey & Wright, Pirates - Cole & McCutchen
Dodgers - Puig & Kemp, A's - Cespedes & Henderson

Postseason Heroes
Sandy Koufax, Jim Palmer, Greg Maddox
Buster Posey, Roy Halladay

1970 Topps Baseball Minis
David Ortiz, Robinson Cano, Ian Kinsler
Justin Verlander, Nomar Garciaparra, Wil Meyers 
Stephen Strasburg, Mariano Rivera, Yasiel Puig

Photo Variation SP
Yoenis Cespedes

Boston Strong SP #/50
Daniel Bard

The Hit
Ben Zobrist All-Star Stitches Relic


Overall Look
I like this year's base card design, even more than the insert design. While I'm digging on these 1970 minis it is unclear to me why Topps didn’t stick with 1972 Baseball design to match what was done in Series 1 & 2. Hit cards are rather standard design, what we've come to expect from Topps flagship.

Quality and Variety of Players
Topps has gone a long way this year to secure some of the best legends of the game.  This was a particularly strong mid-season group of rookies.

Do the hits hold up?
Some of the non- hit SPs will be enough for collectors but there is the usual offering of basic flagship hits to be had here.

Will you want to collect them all?
You will definitely want a complete base set to wrap up your year.

Rating
 4 1/2 out of 5

2013 Topps Baseball Update Series comes really close to upstaging the releases that came before it based on the high demand rookies.  For those that normally just stick to collecting Series 1 and 2, Update is a set that should not be ignored this year.


Review box provided by Topps

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