I picked up a hobby box of 2019 Topps Series 1. I know the cards and hits are not fancy, but I appreciate (and expect) comprehensiveness, traditionality, and tradeability in the flagship releases. Other than that, my expectations were not particularly high. I wasn’t disappointed lol. Since then, I also picked up a blaster, fat pack, and three retail packs, and have about 90% of the 350 card base set plus about 8 million doubles. Don’t ask me why I bought so many. 🙂
The base design has its strengths and weaknesses. I like the photos this year. It seems like there are more action shots than usual. The curved border design with the “almost full bleed” image is also cool. However, I think the capitalized last names and the social media handles are corny.
The parallels are nice. There are the rainbow foils, “150 years of professional baseball“ stamps, and image/player variations that are not numbered. The foils look particularly good with this design. I like the #/2019 gold camo pixel thing better than the faint gold wedge effects they’ve used the past couple of years. There are cards #/150 with the regular front and new age “advanced stats” on the back. Maybe I’ll use the card I have as an opportunity to learn more about the new acronyms, how the numbers are calculated, and what they actually mean. 🙂
The 35th anniversary retro 1986 subsets (regular and Silver pack chrome) bring back a great design. Hard to complain about this one lol.
In my opinion, most of the inserts are boring. They cover a wide range of baseball’s history, too wide in my opinion. I prefer how the Heritage historical inserts focus on a particular year. There is also an overemphasis on the Yankees in general. I know the Yanks are the most popular and most successful baseball franchise, but c’mon man, the other teams count too! I do like the 150 years manufactured relic card more than I thought I would, and the Home Run Challenge cards are fun. (I actually won a #’d card from one of my players last year!)
This Albert Pujols retro GU bat relic is a pretty cool hit, much better than I expected! I’ve not had positive experiences trying to get his autograph at the ballpark, so I’m not much of a Pujols fan. However, I certainly respect his baseball accomplishments and have accumulated some nice cards of his, so I think this one also goes in the keeper bin. 🙂
Overall, I appreciate the comprehensiveness, traditionality, and tradeability of this flagship release. Although I would prefer more exciting inserts, I like the base, parallels, and 35th anniversary subset designs. The hit was better than I expected. It could be better but it could be way worse. It is what it is. 🙂 I give 2019 Topps Series 1 Baseball 3 out of 5 stars.
