2018 Topps

 I stopped at Target today, and lo and behold, 2018 Topps was on the shelves. My wife, son, and I went to Wal-Mart last night, and they had nothing. I was hoping to get a blaster, but when I saw you were guaranteed a Derek Jeter card (yuck!), I opted for 3 hanging packs. My first card of 2018 is.....

Wow, Jose Reyes. That could've been alot better. I would've almost preferred getting some common no-name guy than Reyes. Oh well. On to the good stuff. I got a few guys for my Favorite Player Collection, including Keon Broxton, a Kenley Jansen Award Winner insert, 2 Max Scherzer league leaders (1 will go in my PC binder, the other will go in the Nats one), and Andrelton Simmons. As far as Tigers and Rays, I got James McCann, Daniel Norris, 2 Jordan Zimmerman's and a team card for the Tigers, 2 Chris Archers, and a Kevin Kiermaier for the Rays. Doubles suck, especially when they are of your 2 favorite teams, ones that you hardly ever see in packs. I got a Lance McCullers, Jr. World Series card for the highlights binder, and the rest are inserts. 

I think I want to take this time to express my dislike for some things in the 2018 Topps cards. The Superstar Sensations and Legends in the Making insert cards are, to me, basically the same insert. A silver Topps logo on the top right, a player photo (in the Superstar Sensations case, two) where the player is coming out of a graphic, the white insert name on the bottom with the graphic kind of blending in with it, and the white player name below that. On top of that, they really remind me of one of the last years Topps Bunt designs (last year, maybe? I can never keep track of sets I don't open packs of anymore) and that Topps Fire set had kids. I'm just not into them. 

So I got a few of those inserts, including a Judge Legends in the Making one, which I might bring to tomorrow's card show and flip for a pack of '52 Topps. I got a regular? Legends insert of Frank Thomas (War Eagle!), and a Rookies insert of Nick Williams. These ones are nice looking inserts and I actually like them. I got an '83 insert of Justin Upton. Those are ok besides the lack of cardboard stock. Finally, I got a Gold insert of Dylan Bundy. Those are horrible. I was expecting some kind of different texture or foil on the Gold cards this year, just like in years past, but these are just a regular card with a little gold behind them. I honestly thought it was a regular card before looking at it closely. Go ahead and look at the picture and you can't really tell anything different from it and a regular card. Way to go and get cheap, Topps. 

 Here are the rest of the cards I got. The collation wasn't as terrible as I expected. I did get 2 cards in a row that were the same as a previous pack, but not the 5 and 6 that I have been used to seeing. The cards were kind of different than what I was used to out of the pack, not being in a single brick, but almost like when you shuffle cards and some are sticking out a tad and you have to tap them against the table to get them in a nice stack.

I'll probably get a few more packs the next time my wife asks me if I want cards, and maybe wait and get some '18 Donruss and Heritage once I get sick of Series 1. I guess I did ok with the packs. Wish the inserts weren't as mailed in as they are this year. Topps needs to bring back First Pitches and Pride and Perseverance.
Tomorrow is the big day, my first card show. Hoping to pick up some PC cards, Devil Rays, Rays, and Tigers, and I would love to get a jersey card or two, but we'll see what's in the dime boxes and what the budget allows. I'll be sure to post about it soon after.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy