Totally Topps

New Topps Total cards from @padrographs and much, much more. 

The Topps Total brand came and went before I returned to collecting, but it always seemed like the right kind of set to me. It was generally a huge set with few frills and put documenting players in their proper uniforms a priority over above anything else. While I was disappointed that Topps revived the brand in design only and definitely not in spirit, it was exciting to be able to snag a few of these online exclusives from fellow Portlander Padrographs. I had made a meager contribution to his autograph project, and he responded by blowing me away with a bunch of cool stuff that I didn't have. (My 2020 New Year's resolution might be to stop saying the word "need" on this blog, because I don't truly need any of this stuff. You know how it is.)

I appreciate that the font is very much like what you'd expect from a Topps Total card. The gloss is kind of weird, but it's reminiscent of what (few) other online exclusives I've seen have in terms of finish and thickness. It's also helpful to remember that the very first Topps Total set was actually glossy.

I don't have a lot of Yairo Munoz cards as he's an unheralded utility player. This is exactly what I want out of Topps Total, though. Did they squeeze any relievers into this, outside of the usual star closer suspects?

Nothing everything was Total (Totality?), though, as Rod also sent over a bunch of other Cardinals cards. The generically named Jose Lopez represents the Johnson City Cardinals even.

Dom Leone has had a pretty dreadful season and will likely be left off the playoff roster (yes, I said it... playoffs!). He gets his moment in the sun here, however, on his gold parallel from last year's Update set.

Topps Gallery is one of those revived brands that I seem to miss every year, because it's a Walmart (?) exclusive. I haven't been to one of those stores in quite awhile as they don't really have a huge presence in Portland proper. The one that's actually closest to me had stopped carrying cards at one point, and I'm not sure what's going on there now. It seems like online shopping is probably the better way to go with this stuff.

I've never quite known what to make of Sport Kings cards, but they're quite cool to have in hand even with the lack of licenses. The only other one I own, to my knowledge, is some sort of sealed/uncirculated card from a box that probably cost a fortune to break.

Rod also sent me a huge stack of Franz Blazers cards, filling plenty of holes in my collection. I'd like to go for a complete run of this stuff, but some of the old (especially Star era) cards are going to be difficult. I have some pretty beat up/gross looking cards from the early days, as they actually used to toss the cards into the loaf of bread unprotected.

I actually never realized that they kept the Franz cards going beyond when I left the city for college (and when Drexler eventually left for Houston). It's been one of my better recent discoveries that they continued to do these team issued, bread brand sponsored freebies for a number of years. After going from Star to Fleer to SkyBox, and seeing the total size of the sets shrink from year to year, the team even self-released a small set as recently as the 2000-01 season before apparently wrapping it up for good.

Thanks again to Padrographs!