Friday, August 7, 2015

2015 Topps Archives Baseball Cards Box Break Recap and Review

I’ve always enjoyed the nostalgia of Topps Archives Baseball. Yes, this sort of thing is done with Heritage and other reprint inserts but Archives allows for seamless interchangeability between players photos and card styling from different decades done in combinations you don’t see in other products.

2015 Topps Archives Baseball Cards concentrates on previous design years of 1957, 1976 and 1983 with a little bit of 1990 thrown in as an insert. It still provides a reasonable challenge for set builders, while also servicing hit seekers looking for fan favorite pulls that can’t be found anywhere else.  

For collectors who were around during the original releases of these cards, this redo will feel familiar while, at the same time, seem current and should bring back feelings of when you first opened these packs. Unlike the popular Heritage line, collectors won’t have to wait 50 years to see their favorite releases get the updated treatment.

This year Will Ferrell’s stadium hop playing all positions is featured along with buyback stamped and autographed cards. 

Archives Baseball falls under our classification of trading cards. Hobby Boxes contain 24 – 8 card packs with 2 on - card autographs per Hobby Box.

Here are some of the cards we pulled from our hobby box.


Base Set

1957 Topps
 Clayton Kershaw, front and back
Willie Stargell, Jose Altuve, Cal Ripken Jr.
 Jorge Posada, Buster Posey, George Brett
 Miguel Cabrera, Ozzie Smith, Yasiel Puig

1976 Topps
Jacob deGrom, front and back 
Sandy Koufax, Salvador Perez, Rickey Henderson
Willie McCovey, Jose Abreu, Ty Cobb
 Eddie Mathews, Deion Sanders, Bob Feller

1983 Topps
 Justin Verlander, front and back
 Yu Darvish, Lou Gehrig, Reggie Jackson
 Tom Seaver, Jacoby Ellsbury, Joe Morgan

Base Set Color Parallels

Wade Boggs silver #/199, Carlos Carrasco gold #/50

 Inserts

Original Stamped Buybacks
1976 Topps Fran Healy

1990 Topps #1 Draft Picks
Adrain Gonzalez, Sonny Gray, Buster Posey 

 1968 Topps Game
 Anthony Rendon, Mike Trout
 Carlos Gomez, Joe Mauer

Presidential Chronicles 
 Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover

Will Ferrell
 Oakland A's Shortstop

The Hits

 Fernando Vina Fan Favorite on-card autograph silver #/199

Bernie Williams Fan Favorite on-card autograph

Overall Look
Topps has selected some of the best and most loved designs from their past. The mix and selection of photos is excellent.

Quality and Variety of Players and Subsets.
300 base and 30 SPs make for a well rounded checklist.   There are excellent choices of players from the past, present and future

Do the Hits hold up?
Topps has brought back some of the bigger names to sign 1990 #1 draft pick autos and original card buyback autos. Still the majority of hits will come from the fan favorite category and if the box matches your tastes in teams you will be happy with your pull. In partiular, this Bernie Williams on-card autograph made me extremely happy because his auto, on-card is very rare.  Thanks to Topps for getting him to sign.

Will you want to collect them all?
Absolutely.  Topps has put their best foot forward with Archives and you will want to get your hands on as many packs as you can manage.

Rating 
4 1/2 out of 5

2015 Topps Archives Baseball Cards is a wonderfully mastered set of cards with lasting appeal.  It reminds you of why you started collecting cards in the first place.


Review box provided by Topps


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