2012 Topps Baseball Mini Cards Box Break Recap And Review

Sometimes simplifying things can lead to perfection. This is the case with 2012 Topps Baseball Mini Cards. 

Based on 2012 Topps Baseball Series 1 and Series 2 cards, this set consists of 661 base cards, border parallels in Gold #/61 and Black #/5, Printing Plates, 50 Golden Moments inserts, 50 different relic cards, 31 different autograph cards and nothing else.  It will be refreshing for set builders to collect a series of cards this focused. 

These cards are not like most of the parallel minis you have been collecting as inserts found in other releases.  Often times the minis do not retain the same aspect ratio, reducing the width, which causes the image to be altered.  At about 90% of the size of a regular base card, these are true mini versions of the base cards they parallel. 

For the purposes of review, we classify Topps Baseball Minis as trading cards.  These are hobby exclusive cards only available online at ShopTopps.com at the fixed price of $50 a box, shipping is free. Each box contains 24 – 10 card packs with a promise of 1 autograph or 1 relic mini card per box.

Here is a size comparison using Evan Longoria from Series 2 on the left and his mini on the right.

 Here are some of the other cards we pulled.

Base Set

 Mike Trout, front and back

 Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Ichiro

 Miguel Cabrera, Joe Mauer, Mariano Rivera

 Justin Verlander, David Freese

Gold Border Parallels #/61

 Chase Utley, Nolan Reimold

 Adam Wainwright, Brayan Pena, Alex White

Printing Plate 1/1

 Rafael Furcal, Cyan Plate, front and back

The Hit

 Carl Yastrzemski Game-Used Memorabilia Mini, front and back

Overall Look

These are true mini versions of the base cards they parallel so you should already be familiar with the design.  In its smaller format, the look of these minis are even better than their full sized counterparts.  The border cards work really well. The relic and autograph cards look great too.

Quality and Variety of Players and Subsets.

Just about every modern day, active player you would want to see on a card is here.  Retired stars are reserved for the Golden Moment inserts. 

Do the hits hold up?

They sure do thanks to the limited list of available hits.  There is a high likelihood of hitting something really nice.  While the card is a mini, the swatch is regular sized.

Will you want to collect them all?

Because of the limited amount of total cards, a master set is definitely something to consider.  Short of that, a complete base set is a must.

Rating

5 out of 5

2012 Topps Baseball Mini cards offer a fantastic set to collect at an extremely reasonable price point.  I wouldn’t wait too long to pick up some boxes of this limited release.


Review box provided by Topps