2012 Topps Museum Collection - First Look

First, and probably, only, look. This is a new super-premium set issued by Topps this year. I never buy much from a set like this. For one thing, they don't sell blasters of sets Like Topps Museum Collection down at the local Enormous Mart. For another thing, the price. A box of this is going to set you back a minimum of $200 on eBay, most likely closer to $225. There are 4 packs per box, 5 cards per pack. At $200/box, that 1$10 a card!. OK, you get 4 hits per box. But you know as well as I that there are hits and there are hits.

For sets like this I generally troll eBay looking for Phillies cards. I can usually find enough at a price I'm willing to pay without too much trouble.

The base cards a certainly attractive. They are printed on heavy white card stock and have a nice fell to them. I wouldn't say that the design is very original in appearance. Upper Deck A Piece of History, anyone (but this is much nicer)? I picked up Halladay and Cliff Lee from the same seller for a total of $3.83 including postage.

This gives me a righty-lefty set.

Then there is this card.

There are 4 variations to the base set, Blue, Copper, Red and Green. This us the Blue Variation, numbered17/99, for $5.00.  All I need is to get some variation on the Hunter Pence and Cole Hamels cards and I'll have all the Phillies from the base/base variation set.

I also went for one relic card.

 This card is a Topps Museum Collection Primary Pieces Single-Player Quad Relics. Try holding your breath while you read off the name. I nabbed this for $10.45 including postage. A fair deal I thought. There are at least 2, and maybe 3 separate bits of cloth on the card. The upper left is clearly a different weave. I think the upper left is separate as well. Not sure about the bottom two pieces.  Do you notice something odd about the text in the "Quad Qualities" box. The 2 quality is written with a smaller type font and the spacing between the lines isn't consistent. It's like it was typed up in Microsoft Word by someone with a poor understanding of the format controls.