It feels like 1969 again, as the 2018 Topps Heritage baseball sports the design of that amazin’ year of baseball. There is something soothing about that large white frame that surrounds a bright color photo of the player, with the team name in big block letters across the bottom. Add the player’s name is positioned inside a circle near the top of the card. Classic 1969.
What memories. I was a 12-year-old during the summer of ’69, and if a man could walk on the moon, how far-fetched was it to believe that the New York Mets could win the World Series?
A blaster box of Heritage contains eight packs, with nine cards to a pack. The format remains consistent, as it has through the years — a 500-card base set, with the final 100 cards in the set designated as short prints. Short prints will generally fall every three packs, so pulling two from the blaster box was right within the expected average.
Just like the original 1969 set, the 2018 Heritage issue will contain subsets like league leaders, rookie stars, World Series highlights and Topps News All-Stars (a subtle variation from the original Sporting News subsets. There are variations too, including throwback uniform cards and action images, but I did not pull any of those cards.
What memories. I was a 12-year-old during the summer of ’69, and if a man could walk on the moon, how far-fetched was it to believe that the New York Mets could win the World Series?
A blaster box of Heritage contains eight packs, with nine cards to a pack. The format remains consistent, as it has through the years — a 500-card base set, with the final 100 cards in the set designated as short prints. Short prints will generally fall every three packs, so pulling two from the blaster box was right within the expected average.
Just like the original 1969 set, the 2018 Heritage issue will contain subsets like league leaders, rookie stars, World Series highlights and Topps News All-Stars (a subtle variation from the original Sporting News subsets. There are variations too, including throwback uniform cards and action images, but I did not pull any of those cards.
The blaster box I opened contained 65 base cards and two short prints. There was a game-used card, too: A Clubhouse Collection uniform swatch belonging to the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt. Clubhouse Collection cards also come in parallels that include dual relics numbered to 69, triple relics numbered to 25 and quad relics numbered to 10.
The inserts I pulled should be familiar to Heritage collectors: New Age Performers and News Flashbacks. The New Age insert was of Nationals slugger Bryce Harper, while the News Flashbacks card featured the Beatles.
Baseball Flashbacks and Then and Now inserts also should be found in blaster boxes. I just didn’t pull any in the box I bought.
A familiar insert from the 1969 product was the 33-card Deckle set. The 2018 version has 30 cards, and I pulled a Cody Bellinger card from the blaster box. Unlike the original, which had two variations, there are not two players sharing the same numbers (remember card No. 11, which featured Jim Wynn and Hoyt Wilhelm; and No. 22, which was shared by Rusty Staub and Joe Foy?).
A Collectors set of 13 cards are exclusive to Target, and I pulled one card — Joey Votto.
Heritage continues to please nostalgia buffs with modern players in a vintage design. It has settled into a nice pattern and beginning next year the product will tackle the 1970s, which featured fun sets (1972 and 1975 come to mind), condition-challenging sets (1971) and the bland (1973 was particularly vanilla).
Regardless of the beauty — or lack of it, in some cases—the next chapter in Heritage history should be an interesting one.
The inserts I pulled should be familiar to Heritage collectors: New Age Performers and News Flashbacks. The New Age insert was of Nationals slugger Bryce Harper, while the News Flashbacks card featured the Beatles.
Baseball Flashbacks and Then and Now inserts also should be found in blaster boxes. I just didn’t pull any in the box I bought.
A familiar insert from the 1969 product was the 33-card Deckle set. The 2018 version has 30 cards, and I pulled a Cody Bellinger card from the blaster box. Unlike the original, which had two variations, there are not two players sharing the same numbers (remember card No. 11, which featured Jim Wynn and Hoyt Wilhelm; and No. 22, which was shared by Rusty Staub and Joe Foy?).
A Collectors set of 13 cards are exclusive to Target, and I pulled one card — Joey Votto.
Heritage continues to please nostalgia buffs with modern players in a vintage design. It has settled into a nice pattern and beginning next year the product will tackle the 1970s, which featured fun sets (1972 and 1975 come to mind), condition-challenging sets (1971) and the bland (1973 was particularly vanilla).
Regardless of the beauty — or lack of it, in some cases—the next chapter in Heritage history should be an interesting one.
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