2023 Heritage High Number and DeLand Comic Show

 This weekend was just what the doctor ordered after a 3 day stretch at work that the boss made feel like 4 or 5. When I finished my shift on Saturday, Karen and Kyler were at the nearby Target, and I met up with them. They had 2023 Heritage High Numbers blasters so I got one to get a sample. It was a nice pickup which I’ll show later. After getting home, we changed clothes and went for a date at Fords Garage in Daytona, a new restaurant with automobile themes. The food was pretty good. I had a burger which probably ranked in the top 5-10% of burgers I’ve had in my life. I also had a flight of different beers. I’m more of a fruity beer guy with Angry Orchard being my poison of choice. I can’t remember exactly what I had but I got an extra cup as the waitress put the order in wrong. I know 1 was an Angry Orchard, another a My Boy Blue Blueberry ale, one was a pomegranate lager, there was a fruit beer from Persimmon Hollow, a local DeLand brewery, and the last was some kind of sour. 3 out of the 5 I would probably have again, those being the Angry Orchard, the pomegranate one, and the My Boy Blue. A nice evening, and Sunday was right up there with it. 

We went to church in the morning, and had 4 tricky kind of chordy songs, but I played pretty well, not really messing anything up that I couldn’t play my way out of, and then got home and was able to print out my Ultimate Topps Project wantlist and put it in a folder. 

After that, drove about 10 minutes away to the DeLand Fairgrounds for the 2023 DeLand Comics & Collectibles show. John from Johnny’s Trading Spot was there, so I met up with him and we hung out for a while. There weren’t many tables with baseball cards there, probably between 5-10 out of 40-50. The only table I purchased anything at had a number of vintage cards at 25% off. John was nice enough to get Kyler a Lego set from Fred’s table, a guy whose table he frequents at the Jacksonville show. It was a nice end to a nice weekend. Currently I’m chilling out on the couch for the rest of the night, I’ll have a nice easy day at work tomorrow, and then off again on Tuesday. 

As for the Heritage, I had a number of cards I’ll add to my special binders. Let’s take a look at the blaster. 

It was a little surprising to see big name guys like Kershaw in High Numbers, figuring they would add him to the first series. 

Looks like the Fanatics guys fixed the gaff with the blank flag for LA Angels players, but I swear, American League isn’t much better. Why can’t they just put Los Angeles or LA/Anaheim or something similar?  In my first pack, I pulled the Judge/Maris card, but I don’t know if it is an unannounced SP or what. More on that later. This blaster delivered for me on players I collect, teams I collect, and rookies. Nick Fortes is one of the newest guys I collect, a DeLand native who we met last year at a Marlins/Nats game in DC. Taillon lived in Lakeland, FL (where I grew up and lived for almost 20 years), and marks one of the first times I’ve pulled a jersey card of a player I collect. The Toussaint stamp insert was a surprise as I didn’t even remember he was with them, and certainly didn’t do impressively with them, only going 4-6. I guess the Sox didn’t have many players left to choose from, so I’ll take it. Next up are 4 Rays for the team set. Not sure how close I am to finishing it, but whenever I put the Rays on TCDB, I’ll know for sure. I pulled a card of the guy who will probably be their starting SS in 2024 in Caballero. If I were the owner/GM, I would just sign Matt Chapman to play 3B and slide Isaac Peraza to Short. Why have a good field/no hit SS replacing a great hit/decent field one? The Tristan Casas cards are nice pickups as I hope he does well for Boston. 

SWEET YANKEE$ MOJO HITTZ!!!!!!!! I could’ve swore that Volpe had a RC in the first installation of Heritage, but even if he did, I have one base one from High Numbers and a Chrome Refractor numbered to 374. The 2 SPs are #d 715 and 719 and are Night Owl’s if he is collecting the set. I was surprised that the set only goes from 501-725, as I figured the SPs would be at least 50-100 cards, but apparently there are only 25 cards for collectors to spend every last penny to get chase. 

Here are some backs. There is the back to the Judge/Maris card I mentioned earlier. Why is it card #100 if High Number is cards #501-725?  Was card 100 missing from the first edition?  I don’t believe I pulled it earlier and I just don’t know why it would be issued in High number packs if it wasn’t some kind of correction or something. The Volpe refractor back, and 2 SPs are the other cards. 

Let me go off path before I get to the show pickups. I recently watched a video on YouTube where the breaker on the channel theorized that 2024 Topps Series 1 would be delayed until March or April and gave reasons why. After getting the Heritage blaster I can understand why. The guy mentioned the 2023 Stadium Club product was delayed due to printing issues like blank backs. With the Series 1 Heritage Judge/Maris card getting into the High Number pack and the issues with Stadium Club and other issues getting delayed, I could totally see it. No reason not to have a design mock up, but hopefully they can get the qc issues fixed. 

The show cards were a mix of cards from 1958-1976. There was also a 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan record breaker card I somehow didn’t get in the picture. I felt like I got a decent deal on it, but John, the expert at getting a deal thought I could’ve done a little better. I was still happy with the cards I got and was happy to be leaving with cards. I didn’t really have enough cards to use my wantlist folder at the show, but I marked them out at home. Next time I am at a decent show or a big card shop, I’m sure it will pay major dividends. The one table I looked at just had a box of mostly HOFers and I focused on cards I thought I was getting for under their value. The ‘76 Aaron was my 2nd playing career-issued Aaron, as I have his ‘75 as well. The 2nd year Yount was a good deal. I believe the Sparky Anderson is a 2nd year. I was happy to add 4 Tigers to my collection. The ‘69 team set is slowly getting closer to getting done with the McLain Wins leaders card. 

That wraps up the account of a nice weekend. Hopefully next week will. E good and the weekend will be another one like this one. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy