Heritage Retail Premiums

My second Heritage hobby box was packed full o' doubles, hobby wax got expensive due to stupid gimmick cards, and dayf is in set building despair. Big Box Stores to the rescue! Target and Wal-Mart both have exclusive insert cards in 2008 Topps to help push those packs and blasters out the door. Target has a fifteen card T205 style set, while Wal Mart has a ten card set featuring Dick Perez paintings. Topps had never had bonus cards in their Heritage product before, but apparently the market is so bad that they need a little extra oomph in their retail packs to get them to move off the shelves. Two more insert sets? Groan! Who needs two more insert sets? Well, check them out:

Yep, Target recycled the T205s but these are MINI cards! Joy!!! No, I'm not being sarcastic, I love the hell out of T205s and I REALLY love mini cards. I'd marry them if it wasn't a felony in my home state. Damn blue laws.

I pulled an Ichiro out of some Target packs I bought. It looks like they are inserted 1 in 4 packs. I'm assuming the blasters will have a box topper pack, but I haven't seen any Heritage blasters yet so I don't really know. This card is perfect. It's got the exact design from the T205 set, the card stock looks good, it even kind of smells like stale tobacco. Oh wait, those are the neighbor's kids smoking cigarettes behind the house. At least I hope they are cigarettes... Those kids need some cards. Wally World recycled their Dick Perez cards too, but look at the fantastic result:


Maaaaaaaaan that looks slick. It might just be the black border or the fact that I'm a Howard fan, but that card kicks booty. Bigboote, even. I think I'll have to work out the checklist from eBay auctions because these are a couple of sets I'd like to build. They're a heck of a lot better than the News Flashback set, that's for sure. Anyone want to trade a Penguin card for a T205 mini Vlad? A Clutter Family Shotgun Murder card for a Dick Perez David Wright? Anyone? Beuller?


I sure hope there's bonus packs of this stuff in the blasters. I'd rather build the set through boxes rather than having to deal with loose retail packs. I'll give Topps credit, they sure know how to reel in the suckers like me.