Thursday, September 22, 2022

Easily Distracted


A #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax brings a familiar design. 
 
While I spent the bulk of my card hobby summer working on adding to my collection on TCDB, there was quite a dearth of new baseball cards sets. One set that did make it out the door and onto the shelves was 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary. This one really smacks of "stupid customers, they'll buy anything!" as people really seemed to eat it up in droves. I'm not certain how or why a 2021 product was delayed for so long (there was a more plausible explanation with Big League, I guess), but it seemed like it was all baseball card people were talking about for awhile there.

I told myself that I was going to stay far away from the stuff, but Crackin' Wax recently put up some breaks on the website for the first time in awhile and I got the itch. I ended up with three teams in the break due to the way it was configured, but I've already traded off some of the unwanted cards.


I did end up with three Cardinals cards. As you can see, the set is a mix of current and retired players, in Chrome form, using the familiar 1952 design. While the cards do have a certain appeal, nothing that Topps has done in recent years has seemed so entirely unnecessary as this set. The set is huge and the number of cards you actually get for the price is miniscule. It's hard to know exactly who this set is supposed to appeal to.


The Cardinals cards from the base set will remain on my want list for the time being. They do look nice. They just feel a bit frivolous, but in a way that will seriously damage your wallet.


Here's a look at one of the card backs, which is a very imperfect take on the original 1952 set. Others have noted a plethora of typos and factual errors on these, but I am not noticing anything too screwy here.

4 comments :

  1. The layout of the back is pretty bad.

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  2. I'm glad that someone else finally said this, because I haven't understood their appeal at all.

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  3. This is one of the only Topps products I've actually considered busting this year (the other being Opening Day). I know the 1952 design is more than played out... but I like the large checklist and mix of retired and current players. This is one of those sets I'd love to binder up one day and put on my shelf... although I doubt that'll ever happen since sellers are asking $400 to $700 for complete sets.

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  4. Agreed, I've come across the boxes of this at Target but didn't pull the trigger because of the price...but they'd be all gone by the next time I took a look.

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Comments are highly encouraged, but then again, so is eating your fruits and vegetables.