I’ve become a sucker for Heritage. I love it.
It’s a perfect set builders product, it still has hits to chase, and the inclusion of errors, box toppers, and other variations provide some variety that many other products don’t have.
The 2019 version brings us into the 70’s with the grey bordered 1970 set being the focus. Some early reviews have proclaimed this to be their least favorite design so far, but I like it!
Base and Parallels
Once again, the base set is 500 cards with cards 401-500 being short printed. This year, the majority of the stars will be in the short print run which has singles sellers rejoicing and set collectors reeling. Instead of the $2-3 short prints sold for last year, they are going for 3-$10 pretty regularly on eBay.
It seems some early eBay pre-sellers haven’t fully picked up on this fact and have kept their set prices similar to last year, instead of raising the price to reflect the star power of the short print checklist.
Black Border and Flip Stock parallels will be included in hobby boxes and will be limited to print runs of 50 and 5 respectively. French Back parallels are new this year and it appears they will be found in both hobby and retail packs. Chrome cards are back with a 100 card checklist and include a variety of colors and print runs ranging from unnumbered Hot Box refractors to the 1/1 Superfractors.
A 100 card Silver Metal parallel is new this year, and it appears to be similar to the retail “foil” cards of years past. There is some overlap between the Silver and Chrome checklists, but they are not identical. These will be numbered to /70. Last but not least, the mini-parallels will be found for 132 subjects and will be numbered to /100.
Inserts
Here’s my first box of 2019 Topps Heritage!
Several insert sets are spread across the hobby and retail offerings. Candy Lids are a Target Exclusive, Cloth Stickers will be found at Wal-Mart, and Player Story Booklets are another retail exclusive. A 24 card Scratch-Off insert set will fall one per hobby box which makes it tough for those master set builders. Baseball and News Flashbacks, New Age Performers, and Then and Now sets are back again and fall anywhere from 1 in 12 packs to 1 in 20.
The Box Toppers will be a bit different this year with the inclusion of a 15 card Supers set, a 30 card Posters set /70, a 18 card “Teammates” set, and the traditional stamped buyback card. Once I opened one of these Supers I became a big fan. They aren’t quite as thick as the originals, but they sure look sweet. They seem to be holding their value pretty well too! Check out this link to see some of them for sale on eBay!
On Card autographs and a variety of game used relic cards can be found at a rate of one per hobby box with a typical case yielding 2-3 Autographs and 10-11 relic cards. Both Autos and Relics can be found in retail as well, but they are much harder to come by.
Break Review
Some large breakers have directed the pack odds and similar to the story with 2019 Series 1, master sets will be harder to build and serial numbered content will be more watered down across the larger print runs. After opening my whole case, I ended up four inserts and 12 short prints short of a master set. Needless to say I’ll be picking up those last few cards to finish it off!
Check out one of my hobby boxes below and while you’re at it, I’d appreciate if you subscribed to my YouTube channel!
This was my first box, and after that the next 8 or 9 were pretty weak. I pulled a couple low end autos and nothing else to get very excited about. Then finally in box 11 I pulled the beauty below. I can barely describe my excitement! I’ve wanted a Nolan Ryan Auto for quite a while, but I never really felt drawn to a specific card. The vintage look and feel to this one, combined with the on-card nature of the auto makes this a perfect addition to my collection.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m again pleased with my Heritage experience. From a financial perspective, many flippers and breakers will find it harder than ever to get a good return due to the increases in production, however some new items like the super box toppers have been a surprise value add. From a collector’s perspective, there is a ton to love. The look and feel is great, the variations and short prints create a bit of a challenge when building sets, and the inserts and box toppers provide some variety that we don’t always see in other releases.
Did you open any? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
If you like the vintage style cards, you may also like reading about the Topps Living Set.
To complete your own set, I’d recommend checking out what is available on both eBay or Sportlots.
