This post was originally written (and posted) in February of 2008 on my SportingNews Blog.
As an avid baseball card collector, I have often scoured the web looking for good, honest reviews of different baseball card products. Most of the reviews are generated by paid writers who opened boxes of cards provided to them directly from the manufacturer. I assure you, I have no such luxuries. That said, my reviews take into account the investment put into the purchase of the product. Whether you want to buy baseball cards for fun or profit, I hope my newest series (which will occasionally venture outside the realm of baseball cards) is of interest to you. Thanks for the visit.
Review: 2007 MLB Topps Heritage
The Basics:
What I opened: A hobby box, containing 24 packs, 8 cards per pack.
What I paid: Approximately $55.00, after shipping, on EBay.
Box Breakdown: 175 (out of 350) base cards (plus 1 duplicate – Brandon Webb) (12 of base cards were actually short prints, 2 were yellow name variations, and 2 were yellow team name variations).
1 Hobby Exclusive box loader: Philadelphia Phillies team emblem (felt)
Inserts: 15 different (see below)
Most reviews I’ve found focus solely on the insert cards. Does set X have a great autograph or perhaps an amazing historical relic within the set? The truth of the matter is, most people, especially those who only buy a few packs or a box or two, will never see those hard-to-find cards. What they will see is the base card – and that is what should make or break a given set for any casual collector.
The 2007 MLB Topps Heritage set has a great, retro base set. The base cards (almost entirely) feature the given player’s face with clear, easy-to-read player and team names at the top and bottom of the card. There are a few “action” photos sprinkled about the set, but they look nothing like the “action shots” in products like the old Topps Stadium Club or the new Upper Deck base sets. In addition to the base card, there exist approximately 175 different short print and variation cards. The variation cards are (admittedly) a bit lame in that the only variation is the coloring of either the player name lettering or the player’s team lettering. The short prints look exactly like the regular base cards (and are numbered within the set). In fact, if you use 9-pocket pages, each page will have 7 regular cards and 2 short prints within it. The base cards (and actually, all the inserts except the hideous A-rod insert cards) are printed on thick cardboard stock. Furthermore, since each pack comes with a piece of (individually wrapped) bubblegum, the cards all smell good too!
As for the aforementioned inserts, my box contained 15 different inserts – some good and some not-so-good. The worst of the inserts I got is the A-Rod Road to 500 card. For some unimaginable reason, Topps decided to print a card for each of A-Rods homeruns and then put them into EVERY SINGLE SET they made in 2007. The A-Rod card is flashy, and printed on thin stock…it looks nothing like any other insert card within the set and is clearly the only insert set that is a total dud within the 2007 Heritage set.
My box also contained 2 Flashback cards (of Eddie Yost and Al Kaline) and 2 Then & Now cards (Lew Burdette/Johan Santana and Warren Spahn/Chien-Ming Wang). Both of these insert sets fit the “retro” theme of the set and are pleasing to look at – not to mention they give a bit of information about players of the past as well as today. My box contained 4 Mickey Mantle Homerun Champion Cards (HR #2, 6, 20, and 30). These cards, like the A-Rod cards chronical Mantle’s homeruns one card at time. However, the Mantle cards are only found in Heritage and are printed on a heavy stock (with no foil). In that regard, at least they fit within the confines of the set. In a similar fashion, the New Age Performers insert cards (of which my box contained 2, Frank Thomas and Johan Santana) are also “new card” inspired but at least printed on heavy stock without any foiling. Clearly not the best of the inserts, but not terrible either.
I was pleased with the aforementioned inserts for the most part, but my box held two better surprises! The first was a David Ortiz game-used jersey. The Ortiz card is part of the Clubhouse Collection of relic cards and features a star-shaped swatch of jersey. Better yet, my box contained an autographed Milt Bolling card – red-ink version hand-numbered to 58! This pull is rather amazing and pretty much pays for the entire box on its own. Needless to say, I was happy about that.
Finally, there were two more insert cards, both chrome parallel cards (Moises Alou and Austin Kearns). The 2007 Topps Heritage has a parallel set (actually 3 sets) of 110 chrome cards. There are chrome cards, chrome refractor cards, and black-bordered chrome cards, in increasingly difficult odds to pull. These cards are the same as the base card, except they are serially numbered and feature Topps (patented) Chrome technology. These are probably the most divisive of the insert cards, some people love them for their difficult-to-complete-the-set properties whereas others hate them because they are “shiny” in a retro set. Personally, I didn’t like them at first but after completing my Heritage set, I decided to try and complete the Chrome set as well for another “challenge.”
The Bottom Line:
I give the 2007 MLB Topps Heritage a 90/100.
Pros: Nice base cards, easy to read teams and names. Relics fairly easy to pull and feature decent players/relic sizes. Hobby box team felt emblems nice and collectible. Plethora of short prints makes putting together the set fun if willing to trade or use EBay.
Cons: A-rod shiny and out of place. Mantle insert set redundant, no way to tell variation cards without online checklist (or Beckett). Chrome cards hit or miss depending on individual taste. Base cards lack any action shots.
I hope you enjoyed my first entry – I look forward to writing more reviews in the upcoming weeks (a great way to pass the time waiting for baseball season to start back up)! Thanks, and as always, leave your comments below.
Until next time, keep readin’
-fanofreds
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