All Gold All Day

A #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax takes a look at some new Topps Gold Label. 

Topps Gold Label is back. It seems like production (??) issues have delayed so many products that the baseball release calendar is heavily weighted towards the end of the year, but such is life in one of the final years of Topps as we know it. Crackin' Wax had a half case of the new shiny stuff on offer, and I was tempted as ever by the chunky framed autographs and had to check it out.

The Cardinals have four players on the base checklist this year, up from the usual three. As always, there are Class 1, 2, and 3 versions of each base card, which different photos popping up in the foreground of each.

You've now seen all three flavors of Arenado. I can't complain about that.

Dylan Carlson is on the checklist and gets his own gold RC logo to go with his Class 3 card. The Class label is difficult to read on the base cards in certain lighting.

Of course, there are color parallel versions of each version of each base card, because of course there is. Along with some numbered colors are these unnumbered black parallels. These tend to look better than their base counterparts, but I have noticed some printing issues on every black parallel I've seen so far.

You didn't think they would leave Yadi off of the checklist, did you? Assuming 2022 is really Molina's final season, it's going to be weird not seeing him in practically every set anymore. (I'm also not going to assume that Fanatics is going to make "sets" in any form that we know and are used to. It's best not to assume anything at this point.)

My scanner tends to make these look a lot more blue than they really are, but foilboard cards are always a bit tricky. These don't quite "pop" the way they have in other recent sets, but I am still always looking out for Gold Label cards that I don't have.