2015 Topps Series 2 Baseball Cards Box Break Recap and Review

For 2015 Topps has taken their flagship product, Series Two 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 350 base cards. Manufactured relics return and look great as do Coin & Stamp cards and Photo Variations. 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.

Base Set

 Justin Verlander, Front and Back

 Andrew McCutchen, Mike Moustakas, Stephen Strasburg

Ervin Santana, Alex Rodriguez, Joe Mauer 

Robinson Cano, Albert Pujols, Jimmy Rollins 

Dee Gordon, Jay Bruce, Prince Fielder 

 Kris Bryant, Max Scherzer, Chris Sale

 Joe Panik, New York Yankees

 Alex Gordon, Clayton Kershaw

 Cleveland Indians, Jose Abreu

 Andrelton Simmons, Jimmy Rollins

 Roenis Elias, Nick Castellanos, Matt Harvey

 Jose Fernandez, Kolten Wong, Dellin Betances

 Mookie Betts, Rougned Odor, Jon Singleton

 Base Set Parallels

Gold #/2015

 Hector Santiago, Alfredo Simon, Will Smith

Christian Colon, J.A. Harp, Chris Davis 

Danny Santana, Kenley Jansen, Brett Oberholtzer

 Rainbow Foil

Lonnie Chisenhall, Seattle Mariners

 Jeremy Hellickson, Jordan Zimmerman

Black #/64

 Devon Travis

Code Cards

Babe Ruth's Call Your Shot Game

$4.99 credit for MLB 15 The Show, Coins for Topps Bunt app 

Inserts

Baseball Royalty

Mariano Rivera, Greg Maddux 

Highlights of the Year

 Willie Mays

Babe Ruth, Roger Clemens 

 Edgar Martinez, Clayton Kershaw

Tom Seaver, First MLB All-Star Game

 Greg Maddux, Bobby Doerr

Stepping Up

 Albert Pujols, Randy Johnson, Jacob deGrom

 Luis Gonzalez, Sandy Koufax, Joey Votto

Heart of the Order

Giancarlo Stanton, Mike Trout 

Ted Williamsm Paul Goldschmidt 

Freddie Freeman, Hanley Ramirez

First Pitch 

Chris Pratt, Lars Ulrich 

Gabriel Inglesias, Chelsea Handler, Stan Lee

'Til It's Over 

Ken Griffey Jr., Craig Biggio

Lou Brock, Matt Cain

Eclipsing History

Nolan Ryan & Sandy Koufax, David Wright & Darryl Strawberry

 Mariano Rivera & Whitey Ford, Rickey Henderson & Lou Brock

 Stamped Buybacks

1960 Topps Gene Conley, 1977 Topps Paul Mitchell

 The Hit

Yasiel Puig Career High Relic

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, Baseball Royalty, Eclipsing History, 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. 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 some major autographs in addition to some great looking manufactured relics provide plenty of great hits to be pulled out of packs, 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 2 is great for both beginning and seasoned collectors.  Your Baseball collection is incomplete without them.

Review box provided by Topps