"Unfortunately Topps has helped by letting you know which blasters are which. How stupid! Now instead of multiple purchases to get the cards you know exactly which one."I hit Wally World on my lunch break. Since Hand Collated stated that Topps told him the variation blasters were marked as such, I wanted to check 'em out and maybe walk out the store with one. The two black border Topps series 2 blasters were still there so I took a closer look.
I was wrong about them, there is a notification on the blasters. It's hard to tell the two apart at first glance, but there is a little black oval in the middle of the blaster stating that black border cards are inside.
Two packs of black border cards.
So instead of a full blaster of black border variation cards like in series one there's two packs of 'em. About 12 black border cards per box instead of 60. So if you like the black borders better and wanted to build a set of them instead of the normal base cards, you will now be spending over five times as much on blasters if you chose to do so. Which you might have thought about doing if you already invested heavily in series one black border blasters building that set. and if you bought up a bunch of white botrder blasters planning to buy the black bordered ones when they came out, well, now you just got a whoooooole lot of white border doubles if you do so. Nice one Topps. Yep, I made a mistake.
My mistake was buying a single pack of 2009 Topps base cards and not just going with the factory set like I planned.
I'm tired of being jerked around. I'm tired of having the rug pulled out from under me by some new gimmick every time Topps releases a series of their base set. Even though I have been building Topps sets since 1981 and have at least 10% of every damn set they've put out since 1951 I'm officially completely utterly sick of the Topps base set now and I'm not wasting any more of my money on it. I'd rather waste my money on Heritage or Goudey or A&G or O-Pee-Chee or Goodwin because while they are difficult to build gimmicky messes, at least they're not annoying difficult to build gimmicky messes. 2009 Topps is done for me and 2010 is looking bleak.
Anyone who still likes Topps base cards, watch this blog this weekend.
5 comments:
That does seem frustrating. It seems like the best idea is to avoid blasters, period. I realize not everyone has a good hobby shop, but online mega-retailers are a great alternative that almost anyone can order from.
If you are not collectiong them now do you have any Retra version Red Sox? I'm a few short for a team set. Or do I smell a Topps base card giveaway this weekend? Sometime we need to kick the dust off of that vintage trade we started working out awhile back. That Robinsom would still like to take a trip to Georgia.
I understand your frustration. First Topps jerks us around by putting out "stealth" blasters. Now you say that the black border cards are only coming two packs to a blaster. Were these cards well received (I think they were) and Topps decided to pack them out this way to make more money? I remember back when Topps,Leaf,Ultra,Upper Deck,Score were making parallel sets and only packing them out one to a pack (or a hot pack full on occasion in Ultra). Heck, I even think the original Topps Gold cards came one to a box in 92! I do not like parallels, or insert sets, as I think they take up space intended for base cards. That is why I have only bought factory sets since 91. That, and it is just to expensive to complete a set by buying boxes and picking up singles at a card show. I could trade with other bloggers, but I can't see myself paying what companies are charging for a box of cards these days.
I guess that I am just turning into an old fart who gets his undies in a bunch to easy. Oh well, I am going to a minor league game tonight so I can enjoy the fine game of baseball.
I wasted over $200 buying badly collated boxes of the Target parallel. I paid $30 for a Wal-Mart Series 1 set. Now I wonder if I will even be able to finish the sets. I just finished the Target set 1 last week through Sportlots.
This is as crappy as your use of Lucy is fantasyical.
As for your kicking yourself about not getting a boxed set, don't fret. I have picked up Series 1 and 2 master sets for under 60 each. Look around. Lot cheaper and less stressful that way.
Adam - Post you want list for the Target. I have about 200 extras. I will see what I have.
Ugh, I completely agree. It seems I ended up wasting a lot of money (almost) completing the black and retro sets in addition to the regular white set for Series 1. Like you, I was expecting the same type of distribution for series 2 but it certainly looks bleak. I sent Topps an email about the issue last Friday (along with a link to my blog article) but I haven't heard anything back...they were good to me and responded back when the stealth blasters made their way to my hand so I'll give them until the end of the day before I also give up on all series 2 variations.
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