2008 Topps Heritage High Numbers Hobby Box Break

December 9, 2008 at 2:02 am | Posted in My Cards, Topps, Video | 8 Comments

I love Topps Heritage.  I even wrote a post declaring my love for it back in August when I first found out that the Heritage High Numbers set was going to be released.  So I excitedly bought a hobby box from eBay shortly after High Numbers came out.  The only problem is that I was sick when I received it last week and I wanted to wait until I was healthy to film my box break.  I finally opened the box on Saturday.

I was not disappointed in Heritage High Numbers, as you’ll see from my enthusiasm in the videos, especially because of the amazing “hit” that I pulled.  I still don’t understand why Topps felt it was necessary to include two Updates & Highlights cards per pack, but it bothers me less because I actually like Updates & Highlights.  I became interested when I found out about the huge amount of Evan Longoria cards that are in it.

By the way, I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube videos.  When you subscribe, you can get notified immediately after I upload videos.  I usually don’t get around to blogging about the videos until a day or two after I upload them to YouTube, so by subscribing you can see them early.  To subscribe, just go to my YouTube channel and click the subscribe button.

Here are the videos of my break…

Part 1:

Part 2:

Due to my incessant blabbering, I only managed to open 23 of the 24 packs before the video hit the 20-minute mark.  YouTube has a 10-minute maximum for each video.  So at the conclusion of the second video, I stated that I’d just open the last pack in private and post the results on the blog.  However, a few seconds later, I thought that the last pack felt thicker than the rest.  Forgetting that there’s only one hit per box of Heritage, I thought there was a relic card inside, so I turned the video camera back on to film the last pack break.  As you can see, I was wrong; there was no relic card.  But I did try a piece of the gum on video, and the result is unintentionally pretty hilarious…

Part 3:

The bottom line – don’t believe everything that you read on Cardboard Junkie!  dayf is wrong about the gum in Heritage High Number Series.  Yes, I like the gum!  It’s different than the regular Topps gum, but it’s good.  And my wife actually likes it better than the gum from regular Topps Heritage!

Anyway, here’s the breakdown of what I got:

• 111 base cards (including 1 duplicate – Jeff Keppinger) – giving me exactly half (110 out of 220) of the base cards in the set, and 8 of the 35 short prints (list available here)
• 48 Updates & Highlights cards – 48 out of the 330 in the set
• 14 black backs – they’re not one per pack as in regular Topps Heritage
• 8 chrome cards (#/1959) – George Sherrill, Takashi Saito, Maicer Izturis, Kevin Mench, Clete Thomas, John Bowker, Ben Zobrist, and Damion Easley
• 3 refractors (#/559) – Jair Jurrjens, Manny Parra, and Brett Gardner
• 1 black refractor (#/59) – Erick Aybar
• 2 Rookie Performers inserts – Armando Galarraga, Johnny Cueto
• 2 Then & Now inserts – Bob Allison & Dustin Pedroia, Sam Jones & C.C. Sabathia
• 2 Flashback inserts – Mark Teixeira, Josh Hamilton
• 1 Advertising Panel box topper – featuring Adam Kennedy, Nick Punto, and Mike Napoli
• 1 Redemption card for a “Certified Real One Dual Autograph” of Al Kaline and Curtis Granderson

Needless to say, I am thrilled about the Al Kaline and Curtis Granderson dual autograph redemption card that I pulled!  It’s very rare for me to pull a great hit, especially from a product that doesn’t usually yield great hits.  I’ve already redeemed it on Topps’ web site, and apparently I’ll have to wait until March to get the card.  But I’ve been waiting six months now for a Co-Signers dual autograph (Jeff Francis and Jason Hirsh) – so three months might not be so bad of a wait.

It was also nice to get a rare black refractor and the three regular refractors.  I bought three hobby boxes of the regular Heritage earlier this year and only got one refractor per box.  I like the inserts, especially the Josh Hamilton flashback from the Home Run Derby.  I’ll be trying to collect the whole set.  I’ll have to buy a bigger binder than the one that my regular Heritage cards are currently stored in so that I can fit both Heritage sets together.

As I mentioned in the videos, I also bought a blaster at Wal Mart and opened it before the hobby box.  The blaster produced an Evan Longoria card (which was also in the hobby box) and more importantly, a Longoria Rookie Performers insert:

Here are the highlights from the hobby box:

Navi is looking very cool with the shades…

I was excited to get a Rays team card, but seriously, why is Topps still using a picture from 2007 with the old green uniforms?  That’s pretty bad.  Here it is one month away from 2009 and this new card still has Jorge Cantu and Delmon Young in Devil Rays uniforms…

That was the greatest Home Run Derby ever.  I’m still in awe of Hamilton’s performance.  It’s too bad that his numbers dropped off in the second half, or he would’ve won the A.L. MVP.

Man, I love those Heritage refractors!  And doesn’t Jair Jurrjens sound like the name of a hobbit?

Here’s my black refractor (#44/59) of Willy’s younger brother.

Jay Bruce was the best Updates & Highlights card that I got.

And finally, my new treasure:

I’ll be combining the cards from the hobby box with the cards from the blaster and I’ll figure out how many cards I still need to complete the set.  Depending on how many I need, I may or may not buy any more boxes and packs of Heritage High Numbers.  I’ll post my want list and list of doubles to my Trading Corner soon.  And then I’ll start counting down the days until 2009 Topps Heritage is released!