2000 Topps Tek: Box Review (Hobby)

I've got a fun review lined up for today's post - a review of my recent box break of a box of 2000 Topps Tek.  I'm a huge fan of the Topps Tek line and while the 2000 set isn't my personal favorite (after all, there's no Barry Larkin in the 2000 set), it's still a set that I enjoy busting!  This particular box was for a group break that I held over on my Facebook group break page (see here for that).  

So, how'd we do?  Well, in a single word:  Awesome!

The 2000 Topps Tek set features 40 base player cards (#1-40) plus five short-printed rookie cards (#41-45).  The five rookie cards are all serial-numbered to 2000 copies.  Each card has 20 different background variations. Out of the 20 different variations, the final five variations are short-printed color variations.  

As I mentioned earlier, this box was a group break box where I sold slots based on the player (i.e. each paid slot corresponded to one randomly assigned player).  I have to give Topps a TON of credit here because we managed to pull at least one card of every single player in the set!   Absolutely no one in the break ended up shutout (which is all anyone can hope for considering the box only had 80 cards in it total)!

Here's the full checklist for the set with the number of each base card we pulled in our box to the right of each player's name:

1 Mike Piazza  1

2 Chipper Jones  1

3 Juan Gonzalez  1

4 Ivan Rodriguez   2

5 Cal Ripken, Jr.  1

6 A.J. Burnett  1

7 Jim Thome  2

8 Mo Vaughn  2

9 Andruw Jones  2

10 Mark McGwire  2

11 Jose Canseco  1

12 Shawn Green  2

13 Barry Bonds  1

14 Bernie Williams  2

15 Manny Ramirez  2

16 Greg Maddux  3

17 Carlos Beltran  2

18 Pedro Martinez  2

19 Jeff Bagwell  1

20 Sammy Sosa  1

21 J.D. Drew  2

22 Randy Johnson  1

23 Larry Walker  1

24 Frank Thomas  2

25 Orlando Hernandez  2

26 Scott Rolen  2

27 Tony Gwynn  2

28 Rick Ankiel  1

29 Roberto Alomar  1

30 Ken Griffey, Jr.  1

31 Vladimir Guerrero  1

32 Derek Jeter  1

33 Nomar Garciaparra  2

34 Alex Rodriguez  1

35 Sean Casey  2

36 Adam Piatt  2

37 Corey Patterson  2

38 Josh Hamilton  1

39 Pat Burrell  2

40 Eric Munson  1

41 Ruben Salazar  3

42 John Sneed  2

43 Josh Girdley  2

44 Brett Myers  2

45 Rick Asadoorian  2

Even those final five short prints showed up in our box (and remember, cards #41-45 are each numbered out of 2000 copies).

Out of the base cards listed above, two of those were the short-printed color variations shown below (we also pulled a color variation of John Sneed).

Moving on to the inserts and parallels, we'll start with the ArchiTEK cards (seeded 1:5 packs):

With 20 packs in a box, the odds suggest we should have pulled four ArchiTEK cards but we ended up with only three.  Normally that might be disappointing, but as you'll see in a moment I think I know what replaced our fourth ArchiTEK card!

Next, we pulled a pair of DramaTEK Performers inserts (seeded 1:10 packs).

We were spot on in terms of what the stated odds suggest we should have found here.  Personally, I think I like the design of the more common ArchiTEK cards a bit more but the DramaTEK cards are certainly cool in their own right!

Our final insert was this AWESOME die-cut Tektonics card of Chipper Jones.

The TEKtonics are seeded 1:30 packs so weren't guaranteed to pull one of these.  I love the look of this one - it's gloriously cheesy in all the right ways.

Finally, here's what I think probably replaced our fourth ArchiTEK insert:

That's a gold parallel of Sammy Sosa that is serially numbered out of only 10 on the back (this card happens to be #2/10)! 

That does it for the box.  I can't complain at all here!  Getting at least one card for each player on the checklist was great for group break purposes and then we topped it off with that awesome TEKtonics die-cut and the Gold parallel (also die-cut, technically speaking) that was numbered out of 10.

Overall, I give the 2000 Topps Tek (hobby) box the following rating:

Set Design:  A

Collation:  A

Opening Thrill:  B  

Overall:  A- 

This is definitely a great box for group break purposes.  It's probably less so a good box for a single player collector to buy - sure, you'll probably get at least one card of the person you collect but based on our card distribution it's quite clear that you won't get a ton of different cards of the same player within a single box.  Again, that's normally a good thing but it's a different problem when a set caters more to player collectors than it does set collectors.