Time to say goodbye?

All good things must come to an end and it looks like one of the greatest baseball products is coming to an end. Topps just released the presale info for their 2009 Heritage High Number series and it has collectors scratching their heads. The presale material shows "big hits" as they always do, but what we see is a Jay Bruce autographed jersey card and a Dick Burwell real one autograph.

Jay Bruce is a popular player with collectors but he has appeared en masse recently in topps products including 2009 topps heritage. Dick Burwell is, well, I don't
really know. So I went to the baseball reference site and looked him up. Dick Burwell played with the Chicago Cubs for the 60 and 61 season, he pitched a total of 13.2 innings. He had "retired" at the age of 21.

If you collected topps heritage in the past then you have seen this before. The 2009 edition was chalk filled with these 3-inning career guys. Most of the players on the autograph checklist didn't play even a month. Is this what topps new game plan for heritage is?

Let me remind you all who appeared in last years product. Guy like Kaline, Snider, Frank Robinson, Kaat, and Cepeda, with minor stars such as Skowron, Muary Wills, and Tommy Davis. They also added in some of the hottest current players in the majors, guys like Pedroia and Soto.

I have to ask myself why topps is opting to cheapen the heritage brand so much? Do they really think the base set alone can sell this product? The autograph odds already make this product a 2 per case venture, but what fun is pulling a Dick Burwell autograph as your case hit?

Yes all good things must come to an end and this might be the end of topps heritage. In todays economy this lack of effort will not fly, even with your
most loyal collecting base, and I dare say that no other product, save for bowman
chrome, has had a more loyal following. I had hoped after seeing the presale info
that 2009 topps heritage would have some nice surprises in it, well it did, an even more watered down autograph checklist and players missing from the set that were actually pictured on the promo material. Topps also made a "mistake" by putting 80% of the super SP's into a few boxes of retail cards.

I know many heritage collectors like to pre order this stuff, but if last years product is selling for way less a box than it did when it came out, then what is this stuff going to be selling for next year? 35 a box? It might be worth the wait.

7th and Final Heritage Super Short Print Found

The 7th and final super short print in 2009 topps heritage has just shown up. It features Adrian Gonzalez with the the Rangers logo on the front of the card. These super short prints are not numbered but appear to be very very rare. Most of these
commanding 150 to 250 dollars in ebay auctions. I think many of these will be missed by casual pack rippers and many may be found in the commons box. The 7 super short prints are:

#58 Conner Jackson with the Rays Logo on front
#70 Tom Glavine with his first name spelled "Thom"
#102 Adrian Gonzalez with the Rangers Logo on front
#346 Fred Lewis picture on front is Randy Winn
#407 Randy Winn pictured on front is Fred Lewis
#445 John Smoltz pictured in Red Sox uniform
#488 Hanley Ramirez AS pictured in Red Sox uniform

Caution to all, there are people on ebay attempting to pass off the Aramis Ramirez
card as a variation, while his chrome card has his complete name on the front the regular base card only has Aramis. There is NO VARIATION of this card.

Good Luck checking your commons box!

Topps Confirms Heritage Super Short Prints **Updated**

Topps has just told me that there are a total of 7 super short prints in the new
2009 Topps Heritage. 4 of them have already been found by collectors and a 5th
Randy Winn is assumed to match the Fred Lewis variation. I will add more information as it becomes available!

We have gotten conformation from topps that there is a Randy Winn variation and also a Conner Jackson Rays variation, to date we have not seen either of these. The 7th and final variation should show up soon!

Smoltz Variation Take II

I was just informed by my friend Brent that he just pulled another variation. This one of John Smoltz in a Red Sox uniform. It features the lighter back just like the
other ones. He should have it on ebay soon. It appears for now the key to the
super short prints are the light colored backs! Check your cards!

New Heritage Variations

I learned about two possible super short prints today in 2009 heritage. The first which has shown up on ebay is a name variation on card #70 Tom Glavine. The variation lists his name on the front as "Thom". This apparently duplicates an error card in the original 1960 set (see the card list above). It looks like this one might be just as rare as the Santana and Smoltz variations. Stay tuned for more on this card!

I also learned from my friend Brent that it appears the Hanley Ramirez All Star
short print card is featured as a regular back AND a light back. I have noticed
several light variations in regards to the olive back, but none have been apparent
enough to call variations. I have been informed that this light back SP is very
noticeable. These light backs were also present in the 1960 set.

The first retail has also made an appearance. The walmart packs will have Mayo
inserts in them. It will be up to collectors to decide if these belong in the
master set, as they do not have the word heritage on them.

Stay tuned for more information. I would like to thank Brett (brettandbecca) and my pals over on the collector's universe message board for breaking this info.

Then & Now

The main idea behind topps heritage is to pay homage to the older topps sets by using the old design but with modern players. Even though these are modern sets,
the vintage players still take on a big role in the sets. This is no better shown than with the insert set called "now and then". This set matches a star of the vintage set with a current star, usually a star at the same position or with the
same team. These comparisons also haunt the base set, as the card numbers usually
match up too (a trait that only hardcore heritage collectors will notice.)

However as this set goes on there is becoming another kind of now and then...a
now and then within the actual heritage set!

Take the career of Gil McDougald. Gil came up the same year as Mickey Mantle and even won the rookie of the year that year barely edging another heritage mainstay, Minnie Minoso. He would play almost every infield position for the Yankees and would lead the league in double plays turned. He is perhaps most notably known for hitting a ball that struck pitcher Herb Score and ended his career, it is almost ironic
that Gil would be hit with a ball years later and that would lead to the end of
his career...at the age of only 32!

Gil signed in the first heritage set back in 2001, the card above was his rookie card. He has also signed for the 2009 set being the only vintage player who has spanned so far the entire heritage run in autograph form. There are other heritage mainstays also. Duke Snider comes to mind, also Yogi Berra even though he wasn't on the checklist in 2001.

Gil's playing career was over in 1960 and his last appearance was in the famous game that Maz beat the Yankees in. A true now and then, heritage has now span the lifetime of some players. Gil will most likely never sign another heritage card and
as times goes on and more players retire "again", they will leave their legacy behind in the topps heritage autographs of the past.

The Incredible Disappearing Checklist!

So we enter day 2 of topps heritage and as the clouds lift, we start to see more product, and are learning more about the checklist. What might be remembered more about this product isn't what is in the product, but what isn't!
Topps has once again promised us great cards only to change course at the release. Take the card above. This is what topps heritage is about...pairing a legend with a current star. Ryan Howard is coming off a championship season and everyone knows Sparky Anderson...mostly as a manager. Now where it gets confusing is that this picture is not from a box bust, but from the presell sheet that topps had on it's
website. It shows some nice cards from the new 2009 Topps Heritage, but the only problem is that several of these cards are NOT in the product, as a matter of fact large parts of valuable cards that showed up on the presell sheets and checklists are now gone!

We have seen this before, mostly recently with Topps Mayo football. The autograph checklist promised was amazing and what came out with the product after all the presales were made, was less than great, and in the case of topps heritage, really not that great at all. I don't see any autograph on the checklist that should break the 80 dollar mark, and if you know the history of topps heritage then you will know this is very unheard of.

I will be contacting upper managment at topps over this and see what they say. I will post a response here. I would caution anyone who is doing this set, to avoid paying a high price because a dealer says this stuff is limited. We have already seen popular websites selling this stuff in the 840+ range for a case. I have estimated the hobby print run at half a million packs and retail will hit very soon!

I estimate the price of boxes and packs to take a huge dive over the coming weeks as people will realize just how weak the value is. I know there are plenty of you out there who do the master set every year (as I do) and the prices for boxes can go up as demand gets higher, but I can tell you that there is plenty of product out there and there will be few other collectors buying this product who won't collect the set.

In the mean time, find a good price on a box, sit back and enjoy the simple elegance of this set but pay close attention to the team cards and their checklists on the back and maybe ask yourself..."where did all the good cards go?"