Helping to keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time in the Baseball Card Hobby for the current week. Check out our Discord for more discussion on this and any other hobby chatter - Prospects Live Discord.
This week there is one scheduled release - 2024 Topps Heritage.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2024 Topps Heritage
The low-end nostalgia product is scheduled to release on Wednesday, April 10th.
There is one hobby configuration - a regular Hobby box. It comes with one auto OR relic per Hobby box with the odds heavily weighted towards relics. Each Hobby box also come with a “Box Loader” which is usually an oversized version of a base card. In rare occasions, those oversized cards will have autographs. You can also hit an original card from the set the cards were designed off of - in this case, a 1975 Topps baseball card. That card will be stamped to indicate it was a buy-back that was inserted into 2024 Topps Heritage boxes. These buy-backs are rarely if ever in pristine condition or of any of the most valuable cards from the original set (George Brett and Robin Yount rookies being the most valuable cards from 1975 Topps). Hobby boxes are going for around $100 online right now. There are all of the various retail configurations as well - blaster/value boxes, monster boxes, hanger boxes, giant boxes and fat packs. Monster boxes likely will have three exclusive blue sparkle refractor parallels, while blasters (and Hobby) will have a chance at purple refractor parallels. Giant boxes are exclusive to Target and will have exclusive red border parallels. Topps pre-sold Hobby boxes in March for $94.99 (limit 2) and cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $1,099.99 (limit 1). ***Update - as scheduled, Topps dropped Heritage on Wednesday in various configurations. Value/Blaster boxes were $25 with a customer limit of 10. Monster boxes were $49.99 with a customer limit of 10. Hobby Boxes were $94.99 with a customer limit of 6. Cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) were $1,099.99 with a customer limit of 2.
The design, as mentioned above, is a throwback to the 1975 Topps product. This is a two color, thick border split horizontally in the middle, often using two vibrant, contrasting colors to make the cards really pop. The colors will not be the same either, so some will be yellow and red while other cards will be green and purple and various other combinations. This is a really popular design in vintage collecting circles, and a lot of that is driven by the two big rookies in the original product - George Brett and Robin Yount. In addition, there are Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, and Jim Rice rookies, but they were on the less-desirable multi-player cards (which we will see again with the 2024 version). Variations will be present, as always, with Heritage - color swap, error, missing facsimile signature, nickname, and throwback uniforms will be the ones to search for. Typically Topps indicates the variation somewhere on the back of the card, so make sure to always check the card backs when opening Heritage. Autos are on card, and the super-desirable red ink versions (numbered out of 75 in this year’s version) are a favorite of mine. There will be inserts aplenty, with the chrome versions of the base set essentially considered an insert rather than a parallel since the full checklist does NOT get chrome cards. Chrome Heritage cards of the desirable rookies can be some of the most sought after cards in the hobby.
Throwback Uniform Variation
The checklist is heavily based on the 2024 Topps Series 1 checklist when it comes to rookies. The primary chases are Elly De La Cruz, Jasson Dominguez, Evan Carter, and Junior Caminero, with PCA, Jordan Lawlar, Heston Kjerstad, Colton Cowser, CES, Noelvi Marte, Gavin Williams, Nolan Schanuel, Ronny Mauricio, Sal Frelick, Zack Gelof, Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez, Luis Matos, Kyle Harrison, Marco Luciano, Bryan Woo, and Masyn Winn as the potential secondary chases. Veterans and ex-MLB players comprise the remainder of the base checklist. For some reason, Topps has flipped the 500 card checklist almost upside down, pushing the “short prints” that usually fall in the back of the checklist to the top of the checklist with the exception of card 407 being a short print (Leody Taveras) and card 87 not being a short print (Nate Eovaldi). At least, that’s according to the Topps checklist - we’ll see if that was a mistake or not when Topps created the checklist, because that is really odd. These “short prints” fall one in three packs, so if you’re not familiar with Heritage, they really aren’t something to get overly excited about as their rarity isn’t as much as you would think with the “short print” tag.
I’m a big fan of Heritage in general as I love getting old designs given the new product treatment. That’s no different here, even if 1975 isn’t my favorite nostalgic design. But 1975 stands out because it is so “different”, and that keeps me interested in it. It’s not a product I would buy sealed Hobby boxes of for personal rips given the high likelihood of hitting relics, but if I was high rolling, I wouldn’t mind a case rip (I wish). PYT breaks, singles, and even retail are places I spend my money on Heritage rather than single box rips, but ultimately don’t expect to make money on the product. I do it more so because I enjoy the product/nostalgia and getting my PC cards, especially the variations and chrome versions of them.