By Kelly:
I have been looking forward to the 2013 Topps Series 1 for a long time. This years design is my favorite since 2009. The card has a white border (which I prefer) and has a baseball diamond outline on the card with the team color. The name of each player is in a silver foil and the team logo is in the bottom right hand corner.
Every year they have a theme that goes with that years cards. This years theme is “The Chase”. The chase of finding your favorite players card and favorite teams cards. Most of the insert sets have something to do with “The Chase”, Chasing History, Chasing the Dream, Cut to the Chase and this years code cards are The Million Dollar Chase.
One thing I noticed on the back of the base card for each player, there is a line that says career chase. For example on Matt Kemp’s card it says, with 526 RBI’s Kemp is 1,771 away from Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 2,297. I thought that was interesting and I have never seen anything like that before.
The past two years Topps had Diamond or Golden Parallel cards, this year they are Emerald. This years mini cards are the 1972 Topps. The top of the card has the team name in bright neon like colors and almost looks 3-D. I pulled a Buster Posey and Chris Sale. I may even try and get one of these autographed at Spring Training next year. They still have the serial numbered gold bordered cards (1;5) but this year they also have pink (1;157) platinum (1;10,436) and Desert Camo Foil (1;79). I would really like to pull one of the Desert Camo cards.
I bought a booster box from Walmart for $20. I like these because its a little cheaper and you still get all the good cards. I don’t think I have ever gotten an autograph from the booster boxes but each box comes with a patch card. This years patch is either a Commemorative Rookie Card Patch or a Commemorative Patch. I pulled a Willie McCovey Rookie Card Patch. Each box comes with 10 packs with 8 cards so including the patch card you get 81 cards. Normal packs come with 12 cards for $2 and jumbo packs come with 36 cards for $5, so its a better deal. I always seem to get better cards when I buy the jumbo packs anyways.
A couple of my favorite pulls from this booster box was a David Wright Chasing History Game Used Jersey Card, 1972 Mini Ted Williams, Bryce Harper Chasing the Dream and a Adam Greenberg Rookie Card. Greenberg is the guy who in his 1st official at bat got hit in his head. It took him 7 years to make it back to the big leagues so I thought that was a pretty cool card to pull. A lot of these cards I end up selling on eBay and the money goes into my AFL and Spring Training fund.
One last thing, I really like Topps slogan for this year’s cards, so I will end it with that. RIP A PACK BASEBALL IS BACK!!!!!!