Its difficult to imagine a time when refractors weren’t part of the hobby. Virtually every product today has a certain amount of parallels to collect. Topps changed everything in 1993 with their first Finest Baseball set. Products from that era for the most part don’t carry much value today. Boxes of ’93 Finest Baseball are one of the rare exceptions. People are willing to spend $500-$600 for a single box. That’s quite a lot considering there are no autographs, relics, and only one level of refractor you can pull.
Topps switched 2017 Finest Baseball back to the normal distribution method compared to the online only version of last year. The complete set consists of (125) cards with numbers (101-125) being short prints. Parallels include:
- Refractor
- Purple Refractor #’ed/250
- Blue Refractor #’ed/150
- Green Refractor #’ed/99
- Gold Refractor #’ed/50
- Orange Refractor #’ed/25
- Red Refractor #’ed/5
- Superfractor #’ed/1
Autograph parallels include:
- Blue Refractor #’ed/150
- Green Refractor #’ed/99
- Gold Refractor #’ed/50
- Blue Wave Refractor #’ed/25
- Red Wave Refractor #’ed/25
- Orange Refractor #’ed/25
- Red Refractor #’ed/5
- Superfractor #’ed/1
Inserts are plentiful, but not overly done. We’ve got ’94-’95 Finest Basketball Recreates, Finest Breakthroughs, David Ortiz Finest Careers Die-Cuts, Finest Finishes Autographs, Finest Firsts, and Finest Originals Buyback Autographs. Parallels and autographs can all be found, except for the buybacks. The buybacks don’t have parallels, just autographs.
I think my favorite looking cards are the ’94-’95 Finest Basketball Recreates and Finest Breakthroughs inserts. Especially when it comes to the parallels. It was a neat idea for Topps to use that classic ’94-’95 Topps Finest Basketball design for baseball cards.
After seeing what I pulled from my box, you’ll agree it was extremely good. I’m still in a state of shock. This was one of the greatest boxes I’ve ever opened. Boxes of 2017 Topps Finest Baseball are currently selling for $140. A majority of baseball products are running high right now because of Aaron Judge’s popularity.
Here is what I pulled:
Autos
- Aaron Judge Blue Wave Refractor RC Auto #’ed/25
- Rob Segedin RC Auto
Short Print
Parallels
- Yu Darvish Purple Refractor #’ed/250
- Jorge Alfaro Green Refractor RC #’ed/99
- Chris Sale Refractor #38
- Corey Seager Refractor #25
- Stephen Strasburg Refractor #49
- Dansby Swanson Refractor RC #32
Inserts
- Bryce Harper Breakthroughs
- Anthony Rizzo Breakthroughs
- Willson Contreras Breakthroughs
- Aledmys Diaz Breakthroughs
- Ichiro ’94-’95 Finest Basketball Recreates
- Bryce Harper ’94-’95 Finest Basketball Recreates
- Dansby Swanson Finest Firsts RC
Notable Rookies
- Alex Bregman RC #89
- Dansby Swanson RC #32
- Andrew Benintendi RC #66
- Aaron Judge RC #2
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged: 2017, baseball, box, break, finest, review, topps | 1 Comment »
