Box Break: 2019 Topps Gallery

 I did a thing.

I...haven't been the hugest fan of Topps' Wal-Mart exclusive Gallery sets, as they're a bit too rookie-centric for no reason, and have the weirdest checklist logic. But they're a modest wintertime seatfiller, so I deal. I kept coming back to Wal-Mart in order to see if the Holiday Boxes had finally hit my area. They hadn't, but the Gallery mega-boxes had. I got one, thinking it'd be the same price.

It wasn't. But...whatever, I have a birthday coming up.

This is pretty much a...traditional box of this. Like, it's patterned like a hobby box, with 20 packs, 5 cards per, two hits, and a box-topper. But...it's a Wal-Mart product. So because Topps can't sell hobby boxes in hobby shops because it's a retail-exclusive, they're selling them...in the retail store?

Because in a retail store like Wal-Mart, people aren't exactly looking for hobby-box amounts of cards. Target did the same thing, presenting HOBBY BOXES of Fire. And back in the day, Upper Deck deployed a similar strategy for Sweet Spot, selling a 30-dollar tin of the product in Targets everywhere. The goal, I guess, is to get kids into the more competitive stages of the hobby through a simple climate like a retail store. But to established collectors, it looks...backwards.

 Like here. Here is a BOXLOADER I got out of a box of product I bought at a RETAIL STORE. Boxloaders don't usually come out of retail products. But here we are anyway.

It's Jacob deGrom, the now two-time Cy Young winner, and NY sports hero. Not a ton of complaints here.

 Pack 1- This is what the base design looks like this year. It's fancier, but it's the same ol Gallery as the last two years. Note that they continued the trend of getting multiple artists to cover the product, rather than getting Mayumi Seto to do it all, because Topps doesn't like nice things. Like Chicle, having incongruent art-styles allow for some, like Story's and McCullers', to stand out in the wrong way.

 Pack 2- Base favorites. Again, the checklist puzzles me. Domingo Santana and Lance McCullers found a way into this set. Thankfully so did Cavan Biggio.

 And here's an amusing insert, a 1965 style reprint of JD Martinez. These look nice.

 Pack 3- The Kyle Tucker overexposure tour continues. Nice to get a cool-looking Phils Harper, and a routinely cool Thor.

And here's our first auto. Good news is it's a hometown Philadelphia Phillie. Bad news is it's reliever J.D. Hammer, who had a 3.79 ERA in 20 appearances out of the pen. He's...fine. But I'd have preferred Adam Haseley as an obligatory Phils rookie auto.

 Pack 4- Good enough pack selection, with Hoskins, Yelich and Sevvy, but the emphasis on unneeded rookies brings this one down for me.

Pack 5- Topps heard me there, as this one is ENTIRELY made up of unneeded rookies. Which is one of the reasons I don't love this product. At least Harold Ramirez' looks cool.

These inserts I really like. They are called Master & Apprentice, and it's a well-painted shot of two team legends, a former and a current. Yount and Yelich sounds about right.

 Pack 6- I like all of these. The Yu is a bit crunched, but it works as a horizontal.

And another one for the Kyle Tucker overexposure pile. This one does look cool, though. Kinda jarring that the banner says 'Houston' rather than 'Astros' though.

 Pack 7- Some more triumphs. Getting Acuna and Albies in the same pack is pretty cool. I really hope Giancarlo comes back around for the Yanks.

And we've hit our first parallel- this Freddie Freeman green-border is numbered to 99, and that's a pretty solid pull, too. Freeman's pretty awesome.

 Pack 8- Standard stuff, though nice of them to include Voit.

Ken Griffey is our obligatory Hall of Fame insert. Surprising they went for a picture from his 2009-2010 tenure in Seattle, rather than his legendary 90s run.

 Pack 9- Solid lineup here- three team heroes and a star rookie.

 This is a pretty cool Masterpiece insert of Randy Johnson. Kinda wish the rest of the set was set-up this way.

 Pack 10- More rookie nonsense. Paddack and Newman at least made it this year. And a Miguel Andujar, because sure.

This pack's Master and Apprentice, regardless of my hatred of the Cardinals, is pretty cool- Stan Musial and Paul Goldschmidt.

 Pack 11- Freeland and Luciano are good early-season estimates as to how 2019 would go. Ohtani and Jimenez are a bit more accurate.

 And here's a 65T of Miguel Andujar. I'm not complaining that I'm getting Andujar stuff here, but considering that Andujar is looking less and less like a part of the Yankees' future, I'm not sure how much use I'll have for him.

 Pack 12- Standard fare here. Ichiro looks awesome. Freddie we've seen.

 Pack 13- Rookies, an awesome Devers, and a well-painted Lindor.

And our second auto. I was worried this would be my second Sean Reid-Foley auto of the box. Thankfully it's only Reese McGuire, a sharp catching rookie who might go for a starting job in 2020.

 Pack 14- Arenado and Vlad Jr. are great and all, but A CARD OF NICHOLAS CASTELLANOS AS A CUB. AN ACTUAL TRADED CARD IN A FRIGGING FALL RELEASE FROM TOPPS. GLORY BE.

Even better, I pulled a blue parallel, which are numbered to 50. Now granted, it is a Red Sox player, but as evidenced by a box break from earlier this year, Pedroia is one of the few lawful Sox pulls I will allow these days. Ya can't help but respect the way he plays.

 Pack 15- NOLA! Goldy! Not a bad smattering here.

Regardless of blurriness, this is another cool Master & Apprentice card of Frank Thomas and Eloy Jimenez. Honestly, I would have gone for Jose Abreu instead of Jimenez, but this still works.

 Pack 16- Hader's looks really cool, but that Judge is damn near perfect.

And a 65T insert of a guy I love pulling cards of, Buster Posey!

 Pack 17- Two Giants rookies, but both did things this year- Shaun Anderson was a solid low-rotation man, and Mike Yastrzemski was awesome. Lester and Bieber ain't bad either

 A LEGENDS SP of the great man on the package, Willie Mays!

 Pack 18- Nothing too special here, though I love that Boagerts card.

 A second HOF insert of another guy I can't go wrong with pulling cards of, SANDY KOUFAX.

 Pack 19- Well, here's the Reid-Foley I was expecting earlier, only this one's not an auto. Kluber's looks good.

 My second Masterpiece insert, a really cool one of Johnny Bench.

 Pack 20- The last of the base, including that needed Tatis rookie, and an awesome Folty.

 Of all the Master & Apprentice cards, this is the one I truly wanted- Vlad Sr. and Vlad Jr. This one looks so damned cool, and does both justice. I love it so much.

There was one more parallel left, a private stock parallel, #'d to 250, of 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts. Yes, I got Sox again, but...not a bad one to get.

So...as much as I gripe about this set, it's not BAD. It commits no sins. It just does some annoying things that are indicative of Topps' current release strategies. Base design is fine, inserts are great, hits are...expectedly meh, and I didn't feel gypped. So, all in all, not a bad deal.

2018 Topps Gallery, or Night of Too Few Stars

Last week, I examined a product by Panini that, while it nominally attempted to raze the spirits of dead card products and concepts, could only do so by sacrificing their own original ideas.

Today...Topps tries a similar approach.

2017 Topps Gallery was a gallant, if inadequate, attempt at bringing back a once-beloved product from yesteryear, and revitalizing it for the new generation of collectors. Design-wise, the set was impressive, though there were some hiccups in translation, as well as the low card-per-buck ratio that seems to inhabit Topps' better products these days.

For 2018, they tried again, using a similar approach. Additionally, they continued the idea of releasing it as a Walmart exclusive. Which is a novel, if flawed idea.

I bought a blaster of this today, and we're gonna see how it holds up. Not to old Gallery, but mostly to last year's. My standards aren't THAT high.

Each blaster comes with an exclusive quartet of Artists Proofs, which is such a Donruss idea that I'm surprised Donruss didn't do it first this year.

These are the artist's proofs we got: What you'll notice immediately is that, design wise, this is pretty spot on, though it's a bit more reminiscent of Donruss Diamond Kings in its static photo usage. It's also, as you'll see, very rookie-based, as Kingham and Fried are here along with Sandberg and Jones.

You'll also notice that Mayumi Seto, the artist of last year's set, is not responsible for a lot of these, as Topps credits different artists for this year's product. While that is nice, as it brings back memories of National Chicle, it also loses some of the impressive quality of Seto's work from last year, not to disparage any of these artists.

Pack 1-

Now...you'll notice that there aren't any established stars in this pack.

You can make a case for the legitimacy of Walker Buehler (which I wouldn't argue with you on), or of Michael Taylor (which I...WOULD...argue with you on), but even if Buehler is a star, he's a rookie. As is 3/4ths of this pack.

I must bring hindsight value into this: if I were to open this box in 2028, at which point the careers of all of these people may either be over or on their last legs, would I be excited? Will I feel redeemed by it? And the answer is probably no, even if Villanuena learns to hit for average, or Buehler churns out 10 more seasons like this one. Taking out established stars, and secluding most of them to short print status, ruins the case for any pack of merely base cards to stand on its own. You can argue Flagship is like that, but there I still have a chance to pull someone from my team, a fringe player that wouldn't generally be in a set like Gallery, or an insert of a star. There's a chance to pull star cards in Flagship, and...less of one here.

Now, would this have been easier if Gallery was made a set simply consisting of rookies and second-year players? Possibly. We'd know what we'd be getting into. It'd also be similar to something like 2007 Heritage '52 Rookies. Yes, Topps' exclusive license would mean they may have to pepper in either retired stars or established ones in some caliber, but it'd be a little more contextually exciting than this.

I don't know, maybe it turns around, but...this isn't a great start.

Pack 2- This is an improvement, but not by much. Smoltz and Pujols are here, as established stars and Legends, but...just that. I'm not really seeing a middle ground yet.

Good news is the art and design are better here, especially with Smoltz and Peters. I dunno, the yellow is kind of nice.

Pack 3- Again, only rookies and second-year players are here, although Matt Olson is pretty close to an established star. It's also interesting to note that both A's photos are obviously Photo Day shots that have been redone. The hell's the point of just doing artist's portraits of publicity shots? They're artists! They can add in different backgrounds, change uniforms, edit in a goddamned T-Rex or something! It doesn't need to be just the exact same as the photo, or else it spells out how lazy the decisions are!

Pack 4: Okay, this is more like it. Posey is an established star, and McGwire, while a juicing cheat, is a fringe legend. So, even with Dominic Smith there, this still makes more sense than the last few packs.

We also have, more than halfway through the box, our first insert! And it's a really cool one of Reggie Jackson as a California Angel. Yes, doing a HOF insert set is kinda low-hanging fruit, but at least these look good.

Pack 5- The best pack yet! Not only are all four legitimate stars, despite rookies, but these four would be in a pack of this product if it wasn't so rookie-oriented. Plus, the Hoskins '52 insert is pretty cool, Didi looks great, Goldy's beard is cool on here, and that's a RC of the NL ROY. So...well done, Pack 5.

Pack 6- I'll admit things have gotten better, but only slightly. All four of these cards look great, and the Soto does have some artistic license taken with the background. Bregman's is a short print...and while I'll save my rant about short-printing stars for the hell of it for another day, the Bregman does look pretty cool.

Pack 7-
We finish with another rookie, some really cool Donaldson and Story cards, and a Sandberg that sort of counts as a double. A ho-hum finish to a ho-hum box.

So...guys, that was pretty underwhelming. Not just the box, but the set as well. It's a step-backward from the 2017 set...which was itself a step-backward from the entire 00's Gallery run. Aside from a nice design and decent inserts, the player selection for the base set is horrible, giving showcases to rookies that don't really need to be here, and shoving several established stars to short print status. And yes, Topps' argument is 'if they don't find base cards of stars initially, that'll get 'em to keep pulling more packs of the stuff'. Yes...OR...ALTERNATIVELY, it could have people stop buying the product altogether. Which...barring some mid-January card drought, I might.

This is a noble failure by Topps, proving once again that they would still rather sacrifice creative ideas for what works.