Group Break Highlights from 2023 Topps Series 2 (Hobby Box #1)

On Tuesday evening of this week, I held another group break.  This particular break was heavy on 2023 products - I ended up ripping two boxes each of 2023 Topps Series 2, Topps Heritage, and Donruss. 

Today, I thought I'd show off some of the highlights from the first of the two Topps Series 2 boxes.

2023 Topps Series 2:  Hobby Box 1

Each box has a silver pack as a box topper so let's start with those.  This particular box ended up having four rookies featured in the pack.  

I will say that I do like the 1988 Topps design with the silver pack treatment.  Nice and shiny...and best of all, it's not the 1987 design!  

For the most part, you buy Topps flagship for the base cards and our box didn't disappoint there as we ended up with a huge stack of cards for me to sort.  In addition to the J.P. Crawford at the top of the post (which was probably my favorite card from the base set), here are a few more that caught my eye for one reason or another:

Good stuff, definitely a nice flagship set this year (nice enough that I think I'll try to collect Series 2 to go along with Series 1 which I already put together).  

In addition to regular base cards, our box also produced four parallel cards of the base set.  We pulled two foilboard cards:

Plus a Gold parallel (#/2023):

And, the big parallel "hit" of the box was this retro Aaron Civale parallel numbered out of only 99 copies!

As you can see, a pretty good box for the Guardians...and we aren't quite done yet with Cleveland goodies.  More on that in a moment but first, let's turn our attention now to the inserts.

We'll start with a trio of World Baseball Classic cards.

I have to admit, I like the design of the WBC cards this year, everyone who reads my blog probably knows that I'm a sucker for "flag" cards.  Of course, it also doesn't hurt any that we pulled an Ohtani card - probably the best card in the set if I had to guess!

Next, a pair of inserts based on 1988 Topps nostalgia.  We found three of the 35th Anniversary cards:

Plus three of the 1988 Topps All-Star cards:

I like both of those sets a fair bit, though if I had to choose I'd pick the All-Star cards simply because that design is still embedded in my brain from my childhood.  I had a few 1988 Topps All-Star cards as a kid and I distinctly remember thinking how cool and special they were compared to most of the other cards I owned.  

Finally, a hodgepodge of the remaining inserts from the box:

That Rickey Henderson card is kind of cool but it looks more like a Topps Big League design to me.  The Favorite Son set is another flag themed set, this time using state flags (so of course I like that).  The Correa is the Home Run Challenge card for this box (those are seeded one-per-box).  

Finally, we return to the Guardians because they scored the lone hit of the box!

Yep, a Major League Material relic of Bo Naylor, rookie card for the Guardians.  

Overall, I thought that the Topps Series 2 box was a fairly fun rip.  There's enough interesting stuff to keep you on your toes as you open the packs but Topps (correctly) put the focus back on the base set this year.  Luckily, this year's base set design works and so having that be the star ended up being a good decision.  

PS:  If you are interested in joining in future group breaks, I invite you to join my Discord channel here.  You can also watch the full group break (all six boxes) over on my YouTube channel or via the embedded video below.