Collector Type: Set
Its time to hop in the DeLorean and travel back to the year 1972. Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash, video game fans were introduced to Pong, and The Godfather dominated theaters.
Seeing people wait outside of Target hoping to get their hands on the latest trading card release is becoming quite common today. And that’s just for retail blasters, hangers, and fat packs. I feel very fortunate to have been able to rip into this hobby box of 2021 Topps Heritage Baseball.
The 2021 Topps Heritage Baseball set is modeled after the 1972 Topps Baseball set. That means lots of bright colors, and classic Hollywood cinema font.
A massive (500) cards make up the 2021 Topps Heritage Baseball set. Subsets include Boyhood Photos of the Stars, In Action, League Leaders, Rookie Stars, MLB Awards, and Playoff Highlights.
Its important to note that the Cavan Biggio #216 base card did not make it in due to a production error. If you go looking for it, you won’t find it. Topps has mentioned that they’ll include it within the 2021 Topps Heritage High Number set which comes out later this year. With all of that being said, you will find the Mini version #’ed/100 and French Back variation in here.
The last (100) cards (#401-#500) are Short Prints. Parallels are short and sweet – Red Border (3 per Target Mega Box), Black Border (50 copies), and Flip Stock (5 copies). (132) cards from the base set have Mini parallels #’ed/100, and (100) cards from the base set have Chrome parallels. It shouldn’t surprise you that the Chrome cards come in various colors too – Blue Sparkle (3 per Walmart Mega Box), Purple Hot Box (Hobby/Blaster), Base Refractor #’ed/572, Red #’ed/372, Black #’ed/72, Gold #’ed/5 (Hobby), and SuperFractor #’ed 1/1.
A staple of the Heritage brand are the variations. Heritage wouldn’t be the same without them. Variations to look for this year include Action Image, Error, Nickname, Team Name Color Swap, Missing Stars, Alternative, and French Back. CMP codes are traditionally the best way to identify these variations. But over the last few years Topps has just labeled the card back (usually around the card number) which type of variation it is. This holds true for 2021 Topps Heritage except for the French Back variations. I’ve also realized that Heritage variations tend to be facing downward in the pack.
Hobby boxes should yield (1) autograph or relic. Usually its a relic. In the past I’ve only pulled (2) autographs from Heritage boxes.
A very solid box in my opinion. Tons to look for between the hit, variations, and all of the rookies. Honestly, all I wanted to pull was an Alec Bohm base rookie. I was able to do a little better than that.
Checklist
Here is what I pulled:
Relic:
- Xander Bogaerts Clubhouse Collection Game-Used Memorabilia
Variation:
- Alec Bohm RC Action Image #11
Short Prints:
- Yoshi Tsutsugo #415
- Kwang-Hyun Kim #443
- Jake Arrieta #442
- Zack Britton #494
- Lance McCullers Jr. #428
- Edwin Encarnacion #413
- Joe Jimenez #491
- Robinson Cano #426
Inserts:
- The Great One – Roberto Clemente #17
- Baseball Flashbacks 1972 – Johnny Bench
- News Flashbacks 1972 – 1972 Winter Games Kick Off In Japan
- Then And Now – Dick Allen/Jose Abreu #12
- New Age Performers – Casey Mize RC #16
- New Age Performers – Keston Hiura #24
- David Peterson RC Jumbo 1972 Topps Box Topper
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged: baseball, topps, box, break, hobby, heritage, review, 2021 | 1 Comment »
