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Trader's Retreat - 2 Box Break and Review!2015 Topps Series 2 Baseball and 2015 Topps Stadium Club Baseball!by Jim Van NestJuly 8, 2015
    Is it really time for Topps Series 2 baseball already?? Must be, because we have a big fat box of it and it's awesome. As they do every year, the style of the cards is the same as Series 1 and the photography is top notch. As you can see in the scan, we scored probably the biggest card in the set and that's Kris Bryant of the Cubs. Of the base set, we pulled 297/350 cards (84.9% of the full set) with NO duplicates. This is one of the biggest things I like about how Topps does business. In a box with 360 cards, we pulled no duplicates. There are two types of variations in Series 2. The Sparkle variation is back, but alas, we didn't pull one. They're hard to spot as the only difference between the Sparkle and the base is a little spark of light somewhere on the card. We did pull one Photo Variation, though. As you can see above, we pulled two Andrew McCutchens. The best way to tell whether your card is a photo variation is that the variation cards are generally not in-game action shots. So the card with McCutchen swinging is the base and the one where he holds the picture is the variation. Series 2 has plenty of parallels. Not as many different parallels as something like Chrome, but you get more of them in your box. In our box, we pulled 11 different Gold parallels. As is the case every year, the Gold are numbered to the year, so #/2015. The 11 players we pulled are Danny Duffy, Anthony Gose, Jake Marisnick, Drew Smyly, Brett Cecil, Ken Giles, Rookie Jose Pirela, Michael Brantley, Jose Fernandez, Jarrod Parker and Rookie Rafael Ynoa. What I like about these is that not only are the cards bordered in gold, it's sort of foil-ish. As you get to the bottom of the card there's also some design down there...so they're very nice looking cards. The next parallel is the Rainbow Foil parallel. Promised at a rate of 1:10 packs, we pulled three of these in our box. And these are really pretty sweet looking. They're not exactly chromed, they're more like reflectors and when moved in front of the light, you see the rainbow effect. The three cards we pulled in our box are Jaime Garcia, Gerrit Cole and Yan Gomes. These cards are not numbered. Our final parallel is a Snow Camo parallel of Padres utility man Alexi Amarista. These cards have a blue and white camouflage border and is numbered 61/99 in silver foil on the back of the card.       Inserts are usually where it's at in the flagship sets and Series 2 is no different. We have eight different types of insert cards and three different kinds of "enter the code" card. All told, we have 49 insert cards. At 1:4 packs, the Highlight of the Year insert set is the most prolific. This horizontal card set highlights a season and an event of significance. As an example, we have a card commemorating Mariano Rivera's 500th save in 2009. The other eight cards are for Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, Ozzie Smith, Bob Feller, Mark McGwire and two different Babe Ruth entries. Next up at 1:6 packs is the Heart of the Order set. This horizontal set focuses on the sluggers in the middle of the lineup. Hank Aaron makes an appearance in this set, too. We also have Yasiel Puig, Edgar Martinez, Chipper Jones, Jose Canseco and Jeff Bagwell. The next set is also 1:6 packs and is called Stepping Up. This vertical set features those guys that always step up in the clutch. We pulled six of these: David Ortiz, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, Corey Kluber, Ryan Howard and Johnny Podres. After that comes the First Pitch set which continues from Series 1. These cards show some of the celebrities that throw out the "first pitch" in their home towns. In our box we pulled Stan Lee and Metallica's Lars Ulrich throwing out the first pitch for San Francisco. Chelsea Handler and Kevin Hart both throw out first pitches in Chicago. Handler for the Cubs, Hart for the White Sox. We round it out with Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias tossing the first pitch for his hometown Miami Marlins.
The next two sets both come in at 1:9 packs, giving us four cards each. They are the Eclipsing History set which highlights players who overtook legends. We have Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock commemorating Rickey breaking Lou's career stolen base record. We also have Jim Rice/Nomar Garciaparra, Darryl Strawberry/David Wright and Sandy Koufax/Nolan Ryan. The final horizontal set is the 'Til It's Over set. This set features players who took part in some of the most amazing comebacks in the history of the game. We pulled David Freese, which cites Game 6 of the World Series where the Cardinals just refused to lose. Also pulled in our box is Willie Mays, Evan Longoria and Omar Vizquel. The final two insert sets are promised at two per box. The first is a really sexy set called Baseball Royalty. These are thicker card stock featuring some of the greatest players in the history of the game. In our box we pulled Jackie Robinson and Randy Johnson. The pictures are in a nice sepia tone with gold foil logos and text. Beautiful cards. The other set is the Stamped Buybacks. These are a great feature in Topps sets. These cards are old school cards, but stamped with foil linking them to this set. In our box, we pulled a 1979 card of John Wathan and a 1973 card of Roger Metzger. Love seeing the old school designs showing up in a fresh box! The last insert cards in the box are all contest cards where you have to go to a website and enter a code for a chance to win prizes or play games. IN our box we pulled four Babe Ruth Call your shots cards, four Topps Bunt 2015 cards and three MLB 15 - The Show cards.  The final card in our box is the one hit promised. In our box, we pulled a Career High relic of the Mets' David Wright. This card highlights his 2008 season when he tallied a career and team high 124 RBIs. This horizontal card is a thicker stock card with a nice bright orange swatch of game used jersey on the left side. The card is not numbered. Final Thoughts on 2015 Topps Series 2 Baseball Priced around $65, you know what you're getting with Topps Series 2. You're getting a high quality, lower end set. The cards are great; the inserts are great. This is not a set for someone looking to score that huge hit or turn around and make a profit. Topps has plenty of those (Tier 1, Museum Club, etc.) The main brand always needs to stay affordable and feature a lot of cards for those set, team or player collectors out there. And Series 2 does just that. We completed almost 90% of the set and brought in over 60 inserts and/or parallels in our box. Any baseball set collector has to bring in all three of the main Topps set and this is the second. So go out there and get a box...by the time you're done ripping it and organizing, it might just be time for the Update Series for 2015. If you'd like to see the live break of the box that accompanies this review, well, just click Right Here! Ratings Innovation: 3 Fun: 5 Value: 5 Rebuy: 4 Total– 17/20 - I'd rate 2015 Topps Series 2 a B+! NPN Information NPN 2015 Topps BB Series 2 PO BOX 2220 Duryea, PA 18642 Limit – 1 Request Per Household Postmarked by: September 2, 2015 Received by: September 9, 2015 For our Canadian collectors, your entry will need to be accompanied by the answer to this skill question: 12 x 4 + 3 – 7 = ?
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