Topps Heritage Baseball Variations Announced
Topps Heritage is my favorite baseball card series. Every year since 2001, Topps has released a baseball card set based on a classic design, beginning with the 1952 design in ’01, the ’53 design in ’02, and so on. This year, it’s the 1961 design, with plenty of variations to boot. Beckett.com has announced the list of variations and short prints, which include short-printed base cards (#426-500) that can be found at the rate of 1 in every 3 packs. A 45-card 1961 HR Chase insert set is broken into three portions — with the 15-card Babe Ruth set only found in hobby packs, while the Roger Maris cards will only be found in Walmart packs and the Mickey Mantles will only be found in Target packs. The Relic parallels for those cards are numbered to the player’s jersey number: only three cards for Ruth, nine for Maris and seven for Mantle. There are short-printed base cards of the trio: Ruth (card No. 60), Maris ( No. 61), and Mantle (No. 56). The following players have dice-game back variations: Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Grady Sizemore, Justin Upton, Adam Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Matt Kemp, Ichiro, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Lincecum, Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler, Derek Jeter, Hanley Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Chipper Jones. There are 10 short-printed cards with color variations. The changes appear on the player and team nameplates at the bottom of the card. They are Albert Pujols (Black-Black), Joe Mauer (Black-Black), CC Sabathia (Green-Yellow), Derek Jeter (Red-Yellow), Grady Sizemore (Green-Red), J.A. Happ (Orange-Blue), Zack Greinke (Yellow-Blue), Ryan Braun (Blue-Orange), David Wright (Green-Yellow), and Pablo Sandoval (Yellow-Green). Finally, all of Juan Marichal’s “Real One Autographs” were signed in red ink and none are numbered.
