Coffee Break:2021 Topps Heritage Baseball Hobby Break

*takes a sip, begins the day. Another new post on Cards Over Coffee is heading your way!*

It was only just a few days ago when I posted my blaster box break of 2021 Topps Heritage, now I am going to show off what you could find in a Hobby Box break.

So sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee and let's see how we do with this rip.

*takes me a sip, begins to rip*

There are 24 packs of 9 cards in every hobby box of 2021 Topps Heritage baseball. There is one autograph or relic card per box with most boxes giving you that relic. At least that's my past experience with breaking Heritage. Each Hobby Box will run you $130.

Boxes will also come with a box Topper that could be either a Oversized 1972 Topps Baseball or a 1972 Topps Baseball Posters or a

1972 Topps Baseball Originals which literally popped out of the box into my hands when I opened it. Luckily for me the coffee was on the other side.

*takes another sip feeling fortunate that Fergie didn't take dive into coffee, though I wouldn't blame him this morning if he is as tired as I am*

The product takes you back to the 1972 design and is also a pretty large set for modern day collecting. I believe Heritage is the biggest base set out there with this one coming in with 500 cards. Say it with me....FIVE....HUNDRED. That's 5 and two 00's.

The base set focuses on player poses more than actual action photography. It also breaks down into Veteran Base and subsets of

League Leaders

Postseason Highlights

Boyhood Photos Of The Stars

In Action (and another League Leader appearance)

Rookie Stars

 

MLB Awards

There are also short prints, no surprise there. Cards 400-500 are short printed and found 1:3 packs. It will be a challenge to complete this set, fortunately for me I have no interest in chasing it. I also didn't include a picture this time of the short prints because they look just like base.

As in past releases of Heritage, there are Variation cards to find as well.

I pulled this Action Variation of Fernando Tatis Jr. These fall 1:52 packs.

What I like most about their Variations is you don't need to stare down the codes on the back as they tell you what the variation is up by the card number on the back. Most of the time the variation cards will be facing downward in your pack letting you know you pulled one.

*takes a gulp and thinks about what the breakfast plans could be*

Now to take a look at parallels. Parallels in Heritage are not crazy like in other releases out there.

Here are the base cards parallels you could find, Red Border (3 per Target Mega Box), Black Border (50 copies), Flip Stock (5 copies) and French Variation for Cards 1-400.

There are also chrome parallels to find as well. I think most consider these inserts more than parallels, but not me. It's a parallel of the actual base card, so it's a parallel people!!

 

I pulled a base Chrome of Keston Hiura. These fall 1:92 packs now.

Of course with anything chrome, you find more parallels. The ones you could find are,

Blue Sparkle, Purple Hot Box, Base Refractor /572, Red /372, Black /72, Gold /5, and SuperFractor 1/1.

*takes another sip before moving onto the inserts*

The Great One is a 25 card set of Roberto Clemente falling 1:18 packs.

New Age Performers. There are 25 of them to chase and they fall 1:15 packs.

Baseball Flashbacks that fall 1:25 packs.

News Flashbacks have 15 cards to collect and fall 1:25 packs. I like the non sport version of these and need to find the Price Is Right version for my collection at some point.

And my final insert,

Then And Now of Seaver and DeGrom. Overall there are 15 cards in the set to collect and fall 1:15 packs.

*takes another sip, gets up to stretch since this review has already taken an hour to type. Goes and grabs some Cherry Turnovers to bake. Turns on the oven, gets ready to finish up the box breakdown*

Well, as I thought would happen, I pulled a relic. Picture my shocked face.

*done typing, needs to get on with the day as a lot of things to do around the house now that the sun and warm weather has finally appeared.*

I like the base card design for this years Heritage. Box prices are a tad high for one hit but it's expected with the way the market has been as of recent.

There are some really nice hits to find in Heritage, you just need to have better luck with it than I do.

Ratings (ratings based on 1-5 🍵 on this break. Ratings are not based on overall product run)

Design 🍵🍵🍵
Photography 🍵🍵
Inserts 🍵🍵
Hits 🍵
Price 🍵🍵
Value 🍵

The New Mentality

*brews his cup of coffee, pours the last little bit of Peppermint Mocha creamer that's in the bottle and decides that's probably it for the Christmas season on that.*

  

The New Mentality in the hobby is spreading and spreading fast.

When I got my father back into the hobby three years ago, he was all about adding cards to his collection and opening packs for the thrill of the chase. 

Then 2020 hit and he caught The New Mentality.

He started to see how others were making big time money off from retail flips and decided to dip his feet in. That's the starting point of The New Mentality. First it was a fat pack. Then a blaster. Then a blaster and a hanger. And then he started to do the thing I hate most, clearing off most of the shelves of products and even attempting to flip the unflippable products like Score. It had gotten so bad where he wouldn't even tell me what products were on the shelves when I texted for him to pick me up something. He preferred to flip it for more than have me be able to open some. 

That was a painful realization.

The New Mentality is an ugly disease in the hobby. It's when greed and money means more than card collecting. It's all about the money and not about the fun. I believe the only cure for people who have caught The New Mentality is to show them how to have fun collecting again.

I am currently working on that with my father. It's a slow, slow cure especially if someone has had that mentality for awhile.

*takes a sip of coffee while game planning the next part of my cure*

Before The New Mentality fully hit him, I was able to land myself one more blaster box from him in trade. It wasn't the hottest product on the shelf but it was better than nothing at the time.

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

In every blaster box of 2020 Panini Optic baseball, there are 27 cards. There are 6 packs of 4 cards of Optic then an extra 3 card pack of Pink parallels. Each blaster is $20 unless you are buying from a flipper.

There wasn't much in terms of names of note for base, so I will skip to the rookies which I was impressed with. There was almost two in every pack which seems odd to me. Feels like the last time I ripped Optic on here there was maybe a couple total. 

Even found a Gavin Lux Rated Rookie. He's no Luis Robert in terms of value, but maybe down the road he will be.

*takes a sip happy at what I have seen already*

 

Now onto the shiny stuff and inserts

Nelson Cruz Silver

Inserts of Illusions with Trevor Story, The Rookies AJ Puk and Stained Glass with Ketel Marte

This Lindor was my favorite designed insert of the group, Mythical.

*takes another sip before another rip*

Now onto the bonus Pink Pack Parallels.

Each of these have three cards. Could be insert parallels, subsets or base. It's all a surprise.

Andres Munoz. Not sure who this is.

Acuna! 

Hiura

Not too bad at all!

*finishes up cup of coffee with the remaining Peppermint Mocha creamer, now back to Hazelnut for the next cup and to finish up this post*

Remember above where I mentioned the spread of The New Mentality is fast, since my father started doing that, others around the area caught it. They have the disease much more than my father does as they follow the vendor store to store to store taking all they can and leaving the scraps. Scraps are known as Hockey cards. This has helped me out some in trying to fix my father's catch of The New Mentality. He isn't getting the opportunities as much to flip anymore and I have been trying to take advantage of that and remind him how great the hobby is just collecting again.

And believe me, collecting is great. So isn't coffee.

Before I close, I wanted to give you some insight on what to look for when you or someone else you know has caught The New Mentality.

Here are the signs to look for to know if you or someone you know has caught it, it's as simple as one, two, three.

1. Buys a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found
2. Looks up value online to see what it goes for.
3. Flips it.

It will be pretty obvious when you have or someone you knows does.

How do you know if you are cured or don't have it? Well, that's as simple as one, two, three as well.

1. Buy a pack, blaster, hanger or mega box of a popular product when its able to be found.
2. Barely make it to the car before ripping it. It's okay to rip it just outside the Walmart or Target door. We all have been there.
3. Enjoys the cards that were opened.

I hope this helps. If you or someone you know has caught The New Mentality, remember to remind them why they got into collecting in the first place. It may or may not work but it's worth a try.