2009 Topps American Heritage is a set that is a historical set builders dream. It also has some of the nicest high end hits in a set for quite some time with cut signatures of former Presidents, and the CMG guys that Topps signed last year. I got in a box to review, our review follows after the link.
Topps released a set that sprinkles a little bit of everything in for a basic collector. If you are a die hard sports fan, this probably isn’t the set for you. But for a historical buff, or an enormous gambler, this is the set for you.
The Look – Topps included the designs from 1953 Topps for writers, 1955 Topps for Explorers, Military Heroes were represented by 1956 Topps. The Revolutionary War cards looked fantastic with the 1962 Topps design. 63, 68, 73, 74, 75, 83, 61, 71 and the classic 1952 Topps designs were also used for the set.
There are little things that I really liked with these designs. Having the facsimile autograph much like the original cards was a very nice touch on a lot of the cards. It’s hard to mess up looks wise when you are using classic designs. I did find it funny that the parallels are numbered to 76 or 1776 and the 1976 set was not represented. “Why are these cards etched and Bowman Chrome is not???!??” Was a question I heard on UStream when we broke these boxes. I have no answer for this. Bring Back Etching!!! The cards look great, but since they are all older designs I can’t do any higher than a very solid B.
The Value – You have the potential with this set to get some insane hits. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, was already pulled but there are still some insane cards in this product including a Ted Williams / Theodore Roosevelt Dual cut, Michael Phelps second autographed card, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Cy Young, and from my own town of Falmouth MA, Susan B. Anthony. My personal box did pretty poor on autographs or relics. I hit no autographs, and a relic of Rip Torn and a Rudy Gulliani Yankee Stadium seat piece. I did beat the odds and hit a refractor though. But I like to rank the total potential of a set and for the hits you can get, this set definitely ranks an A.
The Total Package – This is not the set for a typical sports card collector. However, it does include some of the best cut signatures of any product in recent memory at this price point. If you look at this set from a different point of view of a sports card collector it is a very cool set. If I had children, or was a teacher this set could be used as a good learning tool. Taking all these things in to consideration this set is an A+ in it’s niche market, but overall with collectors I would give it a B.
Popularity: 41% [?]
These are really interesting cards for history buffs or literary geeks. I am making an attempt to get the writer’s refractor cards and so far have manged to acquire “2″ .. a Mark Twain 76 that I pulled from a box and a Hemingway refractor that I purchased online. It seems that the writer cards on ebay are averaging about 20$.
Although I’ve been an avid baseball card collector for years I have found myself not as enthused about them as before and much prefer these cards (perhaps it’s because I’m an English Ed major?).
One problem, however ! I am finding it difficult to find individual packs or even boxes to purchase in my area at the local stores (such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart). I’m not certain if this is because the demand for these cards is high or if the stores don’t believe there is a great interest in the cards to purchase many.
Crystal