It’s a shame that Topps lost its license as the WWE’s official card trading manufacturer. It was a product that Topps excelled at, but now they are getting dropkicked out of the pro wrestling market.

I am sure that Panini, which takes over the card sets and stickers beginning in 2022, will be focused on making its WWE product a good one, but there is plenty of history linking Topps and WWE together. Topps and WWE originally signed a deal in 2005 and most recently renewed its deal in 2018.
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Topps Heritage WWE for 2021 looks at current stars with a nod toward the past. Its 100-card base set borrows the design from the 1990 Topps baseball card set.

I was never a fan of the ’90 design, perhaps because it reminded me of how many billions (I am exaggerating) Topps baseball cards were produced that year. Go to any yard sale or thrift shop these days, and inevitably you will find a stack of 1990 Topps baseball.

But that’s OK. Cards look better these days, and even the 1990 design has a boldness to it.

I bought a blaster box, which has 10 packs plus a “bonus” pack. There are seven cards in each pack.

The base set has 100 cards and has competitors from Raw, SmackDown and NXT rosters. The blaster box I bought had 18 Raw competitors, 15 SmackDown cards and eight NXT members.
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I also pulled five Rainbow foil parallels — three from Raw and two from NXT.
What I find more intriguing is the Allen & Ginter-styled inserts, which come two to a pack on average. It’s the first time since 2012 that Topps has used an A&G design in its pro wrestling product.

It’s no secret that I love the A&G design, and the 30-card insert set is represented by some of WWE’s biggest names, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Charlotte Flair, AJ Styles, Eddie Guerrero, “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Vader, “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig, the Ultimate Warrior (Jim Hedwig), Razor Ramon and “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt.

Sadly, some of these pro wrestling competitors have died, including Hennig, Guerrero and the Warrior. Also, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, whose card I did not pull out of the blaster.
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The only negative to this insert is that the card backs have very little information, other than telling the collector that “You have just received an Allen & Ginter Card from 2001 Topps Heritage WWE.” No kidding.

Another insert is a 20-card Superstar tribute to The Miz, highlighting his 15-year career that includes two heavyweight title reigns. I pulled five of these cards. 
 
The Superstars Speak! is a 10-card insert set that includes big names such as Ric Flair, The Undertaker and John Cena. The subset concentrates on a wrestler’s catchphrase. The card I pulled from my blaster was Goldberg with the phrase, “Who’s Next?”

There are 18 Superstar Stickers to chase, and I pulled three of them — Alexa Bliss, Cena and D-Generation X.
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Wrestlers always tell the best stories, and Topps Heritage WWE has told some great ones through the years.

Topps refers to its Gallery baseball set as “The Art of Collecting,” and it’s hard to argue, unless you want to throw in terms like “state of the art,” or “the art of the deal.” I’ll stay with Topps’ choice.

The 2021 Topps Gallery set is available as a retail exclusive at Walmart, and I just happened to be at the store today and saw several boxes. Even though the price for a mega box is $79.88, I bought two of them to ring in the new year.

Each mega box guarantees 100 cards, which include a pair of autograph cards.

It is a card set I really like because of the museum-like theme. Although previous sets used original artwork, this year’s set uses player photos. Surprisingly, it does not detract from the overall look and feel of the set.

The main photograph is still surrounded by an inner border that reminds you of a picture frame. The backs are the same with the frame theme.
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The 2021 version of Gallery has 200 cards, consisting of veteran stars, greats of the games and rookies.

The set also has image variations, which are difficult to detect. Normally, the photo would be an action shot, as opposed to a mug shot. Not this year. Some of them are very subtle. The best way to tell is to look at the codes on the back of the card. Right there at the bottom, in the last line of type, is a string of letters and numbers. Base cards will end with 290, while variations will end with 345.

That being said, all of the cards I pulled in the two boxes I opened are base cards. No super short prints this time.

The first box I opened yielded 84 base cards, seven rainbow parallels, a blue parallel of Stephen Strasburg numbered to 75 (that happens once in every 113 packs) and one Private Issue parallel of Jarred Kelenic numbered to 250.
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As promised, there were two autograph cards, and both were rookies. One was of Tucker Davidson while the other was of Jordan Weems. The players’ signatures are on stickers, which is a disappointment.

​As for inserts, there were two of the 20-card MLB Originals subset cards, which drop once every 18 packs. I got Randy Johnson and Bo Jackson.

A 19-card insert set called Modern Artists yielded Christian Yelich, and there was a Next Wave insert card of Cristian Pache. That insert set contains 25 cards and falls about once every 15 packs.

Rounding out the inserts in box No. 1 was a Masters of the Craft card of Strasburg.

The second box I opened also had 84 base cards. For my collecting purposes, 63 of those cards were ones I did not have from the first box. So, only 21 doubles, which is really not bad at all.
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Now I only need 53 more cards to complete the base set.

Like the first box, there were two autograph cards. One was a green parallel of Trent Grisham, numbered to 99, while the other signature card was of Chris Rodriguez.

The second box also had seven rainbow parallels, a blue parallel of Akil Baddoo numbered to 75 and a Private Issue parallel of Randy Arozarena numbered to 250.

Unlike the first box, there was only one MLB Originals insert card. This was a good one, though: Shohei Ohtani.There was one Modern Artists insert of Jack Flaherty, and a pair of Next Wave inserts of Kyle Lewis and Luis Robert.

There was one Masters of the Craft card of Yadier Molina.
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Overall, a nice haul. The Gallery set is an attractive way to end the 2021 baseball collecting season. The cards are crisp looking, and if you get to Walmart at the right time, available to buy.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the five-card 1978 Topps Zest set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1978-topps-zest-cards-a-quirky-tribute-to-hispanic-players/

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2021 Bowman Draft baseball set, which will be released just before the new year:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2021-bowman-draft-baseball-puts-focus-on-future-stars/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the online exclusive 2021 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2021-topps-all-star-rookie-cup-pays-tribute-to-first-year-players/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a 1904 scorebook from Anniston, Alabama -- which contains two months of home box scores that chronicled the first pro season of Ty Cobb:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1904-scorebook-from-teen-ty-cobbs-first-pro-season-set-for-display/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2021 Panini Prizm football set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/paninis-2021-prizm-football-offers-larger-set-new-crop-of-inserts/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a game-used Tom Brady jersey from this season that is being sold at NFL Auctions:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/tom-brady-autographed-game-used-jersey-an-nfl-auctions-fundraiser/