One of the elements of collecting cards over the last year that has been sadly diminished due to the gold rush mentality going on is having fun. It’s easy to get caught up in the money side of the hobby right now, but I want to put the spotlight on the product I had the most fun with in 2019, and it wasn’t particularly close - Topps Holiday Baseball.
Back on November 1st, Topps tweeted this:
And that quickly brought back how much fun I had opening up packs of 2019 Topps Holiday Baseball. With the 2020 version due to hopefully hit the Walmart shelves any day now (it’s a Walmart exclusive), it is the perfect time to take a look at this product. It began back in 2016 and, all the way through 2018, it was a relatively bland take on the Topps flagship product with the addition of a somewhat subtle snowflake overlay. It wasn’t really special, and it wasn’t really that interesting from a collecting, money, or a fun perspective.
And then Topps knocked it out of the park for 2019. I have no idea why they decided to change it up, but they need to give whoever made that decision a hefty raise.
Design
Base/Autos - Let’s start with the design. As in years past, the cards have the basic flagship (Series 1/2/Update) layout. Rather than leaving that design untouched, they went full “hollyday” with it. The borders and coloring are pure Christmas, green and red with the holly theme running throughout the border. The snowflake overlay of previous years is also now a holly overlay.
Base Relics - Topps went full-blown Christmas here as well with the gift theme in team colors and gift tag with the player name. Spot on choice and so much better than in the past. 2016/2017 was nothing more than the base design with a relic cut-out, while 2018 was at least a different design with red ribbons as the main element.
Manufactured Relics - There are two manufactured (fake) relic style cards - a player-based version and a Christmas character-based. The player-based card is an ugly christmas sweater competition winner background with a santa hat white or red fur bursting from the card. Again, hitting the nail on the head theme-wise. The Christmas character-based relics showcase Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the Workshop Elves, Scrooge, and Frosty the Snowman. Relics will be things like glove material for Santa’s gloves, wood from Santa’s sleigh, etc. Great additions to the product for the kids and the Christmas lovers.
Short Prints - This is where the fun becomes all caps FUN. First the odds and types - there are three levels of short prints in this product. The most common short print, and just referred to as “short print” or “sp”, is found 1 in every 7 packs. The second level is the “rare short print” or “ssp” and is found 1 in every 20 packs. The third level is the “super rare short print” or “sssp” and is found 1 in every 161 packs. These odds guarantee that in each blaster box you buy, retailed for $20 and the only configuration you can buy, you will get at least one short print card. Now let’s talk about the actual short prints - it is basically the same photo that you see with the base card, but that has added holiday/Christmas elements. Sometimes these can be subtle, like a bat wrapped in Christmas lights, and sometimes they can be not-so-subtle, like an armful of Christmas gifts. Other fun additions will be snowballs, snowmen, Christmas trees, ornaments, Santa hats, Christmas stockings, candy cane bats, and more.
Putting a Bow on it
It looks like Topps is mostly continuing the successful new elements to the product in 2020. So go to your local Walmart over the next few months, buy a couple of blasters, and open these cards with the prime goal being to enjoy the cards. Unless you have a Scrooge streak in you, I guarantee you will end up having a smile on your face by the end of the box. Better yet, open them with your kids and see how their eyes light up when you find the funnest short print in any baseball card product created.