2015 Topps Series 1 Review

By Kelly:

I always look forward to the beginning of February every year for the release of Topps Series 1 and this year didn’t disappoint. They shook up the design big time. The white borders are gone and it now looks like a stone color that fades into team colors. The checklist is bigger this year, checking in at 351 cards (minus the #7 card in honor of Mickey Mantle). As a Dodgers fan I love that Yasiel Puig is the cover boy for Series 1.

All the parallels are back with a few changes. Red Foil went to Rainbow Foil (1;10), Desert Camo went to Snow Camo (#/99) and still the same are the Gold Border (#/2015), Black Border (#/64), and Pink Border (#/50). As always tons of insert sets. Some of my favorites this year is the Archetypes, First Pitch, Free Agent 40 and Robbed. One of the new things for 2015 is the Babe Ruth’s Call Your Shot game. It’s a scratch-off card that you can win autographed cards, relic cards and a Grand Prize trip for two to 2016 Spring Training, Opening Day, All-Star Game and the World Series. I pulled 1 of them.

I bought a Blaster Box and each box comes with a First Home Run Commemorative Medallion card, I pulled a Chipper Jones. They are really cool and extremely heavy. It’s not just a plastic coin. Blaster Boxes have 10 ten card packs plus the Medallion card, so 81 cards in all. For $20 it’s a pretty good deal.

In 2013 is when Topps first introduced the Desert Camo borders, they looked awesome and really wanted to pull 1. I was lucky enough to pull 2 of them. I didn’t have any luck in the 2014 Topps cards, I pulled not 1. They changed to Snow Camo this year and with my 1^st pack I opened I pull one (Anthony Rizzo). Truthfully I didn’t even realize it until I went back through the cards.

I don’t really have anything I don’t like about the set. One big surprise was that they didn’t include a Joe Panik rookie card yet. I would imagine he will be in the Series 2 cards. Some of the rookie cards they did have were Trevor May, Dalton Pompey, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, Joc Pederson, Maikel Franco and many others. Future Star cards are back this year featuring more of the more successful rookies from the past few years including Evan Gattis, Jacob deGrom, C.J. Cron, Jose Abreu, Gregory Polanco, Billy Hamilton and many others.

I would have to say my favorite insert set is the First Pitch cards. They were some of the more famous first pitches of the 2014 season, some great and some not so great. The set includes Jeff Bridges, Jack White, Makayla Maroney, Eddie Vedder, Biz Markie, Macklemore, 50 Cent, Meb Keflezighi and many others.

Good luck to all everyone who buys and I hope you pull something worthwhile.

Some of the next cards to look forward to coming out are Donruss Baseball (Feb 25^th), Topps Heritage (March 4^th), Topps Opening Day (March 18^th), Topps Gypsy Queen (April 15^th) and Bowman Baseball (April 29^th).