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Sunday, March 1, 2015

2015 Topps Baseball Series 1 Baseball Cards Box Break Recap And Review

For 2015 Topps has taken their flagship product, Series One Baseball Cards, in what appears to be a different direction from previous years when it comes to design, electing to go with bold graphics and plenty of color. We like that direction. This also makes it way to inserts and base auto hits. Another change is the expansion of the base card set from 330 to 351 base cards. Manufactured relics return and look great as do Coin & Stamp cards. Sparkles and Photo Variations also make an unannounced return. With great photo selection and cropping this year all of this adds up to one of the better Series on sets to come along in a while.

For the purposes of this review, we classify Series 1 as trading cards.  There are a wide variety of configurations in both retail and hobby.  We opened a box hobby box which contained 36 – 10 card packs with a promise of 1 autograph or 1 relic card per box.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.
To find any of these card on eBay, click the links on titles and player names, or use this link to find them all.
To visit our Complete Checklist of 2015 Topps Baseball Series 1 Cards, use this link to get there.
Yasiel Puig, front and back

Base Set Parallels



Ryan Braun SP Sparkle

We covered this with our 2015 Topps Series One Baseball complete visual checklist. Here is the location of the sparkle on this card. 
This card almost got put with my other base cards because I didn't spot the sparkle right away. I discovered it by check the backs of the cards for the code number.
On the left is a regular base card with this year's code which ends in 861. I spotted the sparkle code on the card on the right. Sparkle codes this year end in 903.

Inserts


Miguel Cabrera, front and back

Nolan Ryan, front and back

Robinson Cano & Ken Griffey Jr, front and back



Bryce Harper, front and back, Frank Thomas
Mark McGwire Gold Parallel #/99



Overall Look
This year feel like some bold moves were made and I like it. Card pattering and integration with excellent photo selection make this a winner.  The backs of the cards look great too.  Standout inserts for me are the Highlight of the Year, Gallery of Greats, and First Pitch inserts..  The gold parallels look really good this year, choosing to go more with border gold than an overall wash. Rainbow foil also works well. Short of the Postseason and World Series autograph only cards, which look a little backwards engineered to allow space for relics leaving a lot of white real estate for the sticker autos when they are alone, the hit cards look great too.

Quality and Variety of Players
There is a great mix here between the legends of the game on the insert cards and the expansion of the current players on the base set. 

Do the hits hold up?
A chance at autographs from Trout, Puig, Rivera, Piazza, Aaron, Koufax, Ripken Jr., Griffey Jr., Mays, Cabrera, and others, there are plenty of great hits to be pulled out of packs. Collectors can land some amazing hits so yes, they definitely hold up.

Will you want to collect them all?
A complete base set, yes. All the inserts too? Sure. This is a really good year for Topps flagship.

Rating
4 1/2 out of 5

2015 Topps Baseball Series 1 is great for both beginning and seasoned collectors.  Your Baseball collection is incomplete without them.


Review box provided by Topps
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