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.
I’ve always enjoyed the nostalgia of Topps Archives Baseball. Yes, this sort of thing is done with Heritage and other reprint inserts but Archives allows for seamless interchangeability between players photos and card styling from different decades done in combinations you don’t see in other products.
2015 Topps Archives Baseball Cards concentrates on previous design years of 1957, 1976 and 1983 with a little bit of 1990 thrown in as an insert. It still provides a reasonable challenge for set builders, while also servicing hit seekers looking for fan favorite pulls that can’t be found anywhere else.
For collectors who were around during the original releases of these cards, this redo will feel familiar while, at the same time, seem current and should bring back feelings of when you first opened these packs. Unlike the popular Heritage line, collectors won’t have to wait 50 years to see their favorite releases get the updated treatment.
This year Will Ferrell’s stadium hop playing all positions is featured along with buyback stamped and autographed cards.
Archives Baseball falls under our classification of trading cards. Hobby Boxes contain 24 – 8 card packs with 2 on - card autographs per Hobby Box.
Here are some of the cards we pulled from our hobby box.
