Straight up Heritage vs. weird mutant Heritage we won't know what box to file in 5 years from now in our second matchup.
The packs:
2007 Topps Heritage
30 Ichiro
160 Richie Sexson
368 Travis Hafner
79 Cory Patterson
280 Mark Grudzielanek
11 Rob Mackowiak
453 Akinori Otsuka
55 Felipe Lopez
2006 52 Rookies
190 Cory Morris
170 Bill Bray
182 Emiliano Fruto
TCRC85 Jim Johnson
215 Eude Brito
227 Shin-Soo Choo
Number of Cards:
Heritage edges out 52 Rookies eight to six.
Heritage 8, 52 Rookies 6
Number of cards that are actually good:
Heritage charged out of the starting gate and then completely derailed. Ichiro, Sexy and Pronk aren't bad though. The Rookies pack had a bunch of people I never heard of before, but according to this thread the Morris, Fruto and Johnson are true rookies. Well the Johnson would be if it weren't an insert, that is.
Heritage 11, 52 Rookies 9
Inserts and Short Prints:
This is literally the first Heritage pack I've seen without an insert or a short print. To add insult to injury, Grudzielanek is in the money spot of the pack. Rookies delivers with a Chrome card of Jim Johnson numbered 0836/1952. Ut oh, 52 Rookies is threatening an upset...
Heritage 11, 52 Rookies 12
Attractiveness of the design:
1958 Topps is a brilliant design, simple and eye catching. 1952 Topps is a classic design more for the historical value than anything else. It doesn't help that the design has been waaaaay overused lately. The design on the back are remarkably similar, except that the 58 version is much more efficient. 58 manages to fit in the exact same amount of information while still adding a cartoon that takes up about a quarter of the card. Plus '58 has fielding stats, beat that!
Heritage 16, 52 Rookies 14
Best card in the pack:
Heritage: 30 Ichiro
Rookies: TCRC85 Jim Johnson
Ichiro takes the crown in Heritage, good looking card of a great player. Mr. Suzuki normally ends up short printed in these sets, so it's nice to actually pull one. Oddly, Suzuki is the only card in the pack whose background color is not Yellow. Johnson Chrome wins for the Rookies pretty much by default.
Heritage 20, 52 Rookies 19
Spokesman on the pack wrapper:
No spokesmen because they didn't do that sort of thing back in the 50's. Heritage has a faithful reproduction of the original '58 design, while 52 Rookies has a weird evil shadow version of the 1952 wrapper. Seriously, that thing looks sinister. Bonus points for 52 Rookies.
Heritage 22, 52 Rookies 23
Intangibles:
Topps must have wanted to get a little more use out of the photo transmogrification program they use to retro the players' mugshots. They use it more subtly on the Heritage cards, Ichiro looks like he got put through the soft focus lens they used on Bette Davis in the 40's. Not sure why this is necessary, since Topps was using real live photos on their cards in '58. The job on the 52 Rookies is a bit more hit and miss, the Morris card looks very much like it could pass in the original set, while the Bill Bray card just looks like crap.
While the two packs are at a dead heat (more due to the lousy pack I got than anything else) Heritage has one last trick up their sleeve. The little smiling baseball dude that holds the card number on the back of the 58 design has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. Besides, Heritage has gum.
Final score:
2007 Heritage 25 52 Rookies 24
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