The Collector’s box includes 20 packs and two autograph cards, along with Private Issue parallels, at a cost of $69.99. A blaster box contains seven packs, with four cards to a pack. In addition, a bonus pack includes four exclusive Artist Proof parallels. As usual, blasters cost $19.99. A fat pack costs $5.99 and contains 12 cards and a pair of Canvas parallels. These parallels are exclusive to the fat packs.
In 2005, Topps Gallery was a 195-card set, with the final 45 cards short-printed. There also were 10 variations. There also were Artist Proofs, along with sketch cards from longtime New York Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo and cartoonist/columnist Murray Olderman. The prolific Olderman, who wrote and usually illustrated his own columns — kaff-kaff — turned 95 in March (if you don’t know this reference, you never read any of Olderman’s stuff) and has published 19 books.
Some of the same elements return to 2017 Topps Gallery, but it is a fresher, more vibrant look. The artistry of Mayumi Seto and Dan Bergren dominate the product. Seto has drawn the cards in the base set, of which there are 200. That number includes 50 short-printed cards. Bergren is the artist mainly handling the inserts.
The card back has a rustic look at the top, with the colors feathering into the Gallery Notes — highlights from previous seasons. The player’s name, position and team are in white type against the rustic background, with the card number situated in the upper right-hand corner. In a nice touch, the statistics do not follow a year-by-year template, but a month-by-month breakdown of the 2016 season.
I pulled 24 base cards from the blaster box I opened, and four Artist Proofs from the special pack. The Artist Proof cards features Jose Bautista, Evan Longoria, Hunter Pence and Justin Verlander (and Kudos for displaying Verlander in an Astros uniform). The difference in these cards is a gold foil, “Artist Proof” stamped in gold foil in the bottom right-hand half of the drawing. At first blush, they are hard to distinguish from the base set; perhaps a different color border would have worked.
The base set also has parallels in green (numbered to 99), blue (50), orange (25) red (1/1) and printing plates (1/1).
The Hall of Fame Gallery is an attractive insert, consisting of 30 cards. The player is outlined against a rustic, marbled-looking background. Their names are stamped in gold at the bottom of the card front. The player’s induction year is on the card back, along with a descriptive paragraph. I pulled two cards: Al Kaline and Sandy Koufax. Collectors also could find parallels in green (numbered to 250), blue (99), orange (25) and red (1/1).
I also pulled a Masterpiece insert. There are 30 cards in the subset, and I found a Mark McGwire card. The card front features a pair of drawings of McGwire — a large portrait and a smaller action pose to the right of the former Oakland Athletics slugger following through on his swing. The set concentrates on current players and stars from the 1980s and 1990s, like Frank Thomas, Derek Jeter, Nolan Ryan, Bo Jackson and Ken Griffey Jr. I also applaud the inclusion of players like Andres Galarraga and Omar Vizquel. Parallels come in the same configuration as the Hall of Fame Gallery.
The 40-card Heritage insert set pays a shiny tribute to the 1951 Bowman set, and the card I found was of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge.
The final insert I pulled came from the two-card Artist Promo set, and was a photograph of Bergren at his work station. The back of the card provides an interesting biography.
The blaster box for Topps Gallery has a short note tucked inside one of its flaps: “The art of collecting.” All collectors are artists, in a sense. They just use different palates to create their collection. Topps Gallery is a nice tribute to that idea.