special to the TTO
When I was a little kid, you always knew that spring was around the corner when the local Convenient Food Mart put out the first box of Topps baseball cards.
There was usually still snow on the ground when we'd stop at the store on our way to church so my dad could grab a cup of coffee and pick the three of us up a package of those little chocolate doughnuts that John Belushi famously kept on his training table to fight over while we made our way to our Lakewood parish.
The day he'd come out with a pack for each of us--warning us not to even think about putting the gum in our mouths until after mass--was a big treat. Usually, I'd find a way to cheat or steal the best cards of my brothers' packs to get a leg up on my collection.
I collected for 7 or 8 year stretch, covering what I consider to be the Golden Age of card collecting (1987-1990), until I found more important things to do with my time and money.
Back in the day, you had three choices: Topps, Donruss, and Fleer. We collected only Topps; even after the glut of sports cards hit the market in the late 1980s, we were strictly a Topps household.
During that stretch, my dad, brothers and I embarked on an ambitious plan to put together a complete Topps set for every year that my brothers and I had been alive (1979 and later). We were pretty much successful, missing only a few cards that were out of our price range from some of the early sets.
Now, with Baby-Neg due to make his Major League Debut this summer, I decided that I'd get a leg up on the collecting and start putting away a complete set for every year of his lifetime. Later, when he's older, we can collect them together and when he decides he's too cool for me, he can do it on his own.
I started off at Target. I grabbed two packages of plastic pages and took in the chaos on the baseball card racket--I was shocked.
First of all, there are only two brands of baseball cards left--Upper Deck and Topps. It figures that once the market hit rock bottom in the mid to late 90s that only a few companies would be left, and Topps and UD were always among the best. But, each brand had several different varieties of cards.
From what I saw on the shelf, Topps has at least 5 varieties cards on the shelf this spring: Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2 (due May 2008), Topps 2007 Updated and Highlights, Topps 2008 Opening Day, Topps Bowman Heritage, etc. It's ridiculous.
With a little help from the Internet, I figured that I'd stick with the Topps Series 1 and, later, the Series 2. They seem to be the most "basic" of the card sets--the closest thing to the ol' 792 card sets of our youth.
However, the Series 1 cards come in two separate types of packs: hobby packs and flow packs. Hobby packs are the easiest to find. Each pack (10 cards) comes in at a whopping $3--a lot different from the $0.40 per pack that 1987 Topps went for. Not to mention that there are about 104 different subsets and special cards that you can find in the Hobby packs. I think that you can even pull a card with a piece of A-Rod's jock strap built into it.
The flow packs are the way to go. The packs come in at 7 cards and a piece of gum for about $1-$1.25. Better, though, is that they only come with the basic cards--you cannot pull any of the special subset cards from the flow packs. Sure, I might miss out on a one-in-a-million gold leaf Daisuke Matsuzaka "Elite" card, but really, with all of the special cards out there, haven't these lost all meaning?
The worst part about the flow packs is finding them. You can buy them by the box online, but the shipping charges make them even more expensive than the Hobby packs. The only local store where I've found them so far is Dick's Sporting Goods, and they only had a few packs on the shelf. According to the guys and gals on the Topps Message Boards, though, that the packs "repeat" themselves, leaving you with tons of doubles and lots of holes in your collection.
So, I've bought a few packs and I'm off to a pretty good start. I'm short on Indians players (I've got Wedge, Barfield, Byrd, and a Sizemore ALDS card), but I've got some other big names. I think that I should be able to put together a complete set of the 330 Series 1 cards by June without dropping a ton of cash. I suppose I could have waited until August and bought a complete set for a fraction of what I am paying for trying to collect the set, but what's the fun in that?
There was usually still snow on the ground when we'd stop at the store on our way to church so my dad could grab a cup of coffee and pick the three of us up a package of those little chocolate doughnuts that John Belushi famously kept on his training table to fight over while we made our way to our Lakewood parish.
The day he'd come out with a pack for each of us--warning us not to even think about putting the gum in our mouths until after mass--was a big treat. Usually, I'd find a way to cheat or steal the best cards of my brothers' packs to get a leg up on my collection.
I collected for 7 or 8 year stretch, covering what I consider to be the Golden Age of card collecting (1987-1990), until I found more important things to do with my time and money.
Back in the day, you had three choices: Topps, Donruss, and Fleer. We collected only Topps; even after the glut of sports cards hit the market in the late 1980s, we were strictly a Topps household.
During that stretch, my dad, brothers and I embarked on an ambitious plan to put together a complete Topps set for every year that my brothers and I had been alive (1979 and later). We were pretty much successful, missing only a few cards that were out of our price range from some of the early sets.
Now, with Baby-Neg due to make his Major League Debut this summer, I decided that I'd get a leg up on the collecting and start putting away a complete set for every year of his lifetime. Later, when he's older, we can collect them together and when he decides he's too cool for me, he can do it on his own.
I started off at Target. I grabbed two packages of plastic pages and took in the chaos on the baseball card racket--I was shocked.
First of all, there are only two brands of baseball cards left--Upper Deck and Topps. It figures that once the market hit rock bottom in the mid to late 90s that only a few companies would be left, and Topps and UD were always among the best. But, each brand had several different varieties of cards.
From what I saw on the shelf, Topps has at least 5 varieties cards on the shelf this spring: Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2 (due May 2008), Topps 2007 Updated and Highlights, Topps 2008 Opening Day, Topps Bowman Heritage, etc. It's ridiculous.
With a little help from the Internet, I figured that I'd stick with the Topps Series 1 and, later, the Series 2. They seem to be the most "basic" of the card sets--the closest thing to the ol' 792 card sets of our youth.
However, the Series 1 cards come in two separate types of packs: hobby packs and flow packs. Hobby packs are the easiest to find. Each pack (10 cards) comes in at a whopping $3--a lot different from the $0.40 per pack that 1987 Topps went for. Not to mention that there are about 104 different subsets and special cards that you can find in the Hobby packs. I think that you can even pull a card with a piece of A-Rod's jock strap built into it.
The flow packs are the way to go. The packs come in at 7 cards and a piece of gum for about $1-$1.25. Better, though, is that they only come with the basic cards--you cannot pull any of the special subset cards from the flow packs. Sure, I might miss out on a one-in-a-million gold leaf Daisuke Matsuzaka "Elite" card, but really, with all of the special cards out there, haven't these lost all meaning?
The worst part about the flow packs is finding them. You can buy them by the box online, but the shipping charges make them even more expensive than the Hobby packs. The only local store where I've found them so far is Dick's Sporting Goods, and they only had a few packs on the shelf. According to the guys and gals on the Topps Message Boards, though, that the packs "repeat" themselves, leaving you with tons of doubles and lots of holes in your collection.
So, I've bought a few packs and I'm off to a pretty good start. I'm short on Indians players (I've got Wedge, Barfield, Byrd, and a Sizemore ALDS card), but I've got some other big names. I think that I should be able to put together a complete set of the 330 Series 1 cards by June without dropping a ton of cash. I suppose I could have waited until August and bought a complete set for a fraction of what I am paying for trying to collect the set, but what's the fun in that?
by J-Neg
