Tuesday, March 24, 2015

2015 Topps Opening Day

I took a quick look at some other card blogs and I didn't see anything about Topps Opening Day. Either nobody cares about this product or nobody's gotten around to it.  Into the breech...

You all know what Topps Opening Day looks like, and this year it looks even more like Topps since the regular Topps set dropped most of it's foil. Here's the first card out of the first pack.

2015 Topps Opening Day #43 Nick Castellanos

The only difference between this and regular Topps is that the Topps logo is not foil and, of course, the Opening Day logo. Note that the logo has had a design change, the first change since 2011.

Topps Opening Day used to be a pretty simple set. But over the years Topps has larded it up with inserts and parallels. There are about the same number of insert sets but at least one new parallel.

This year there is a 1/1 parallel, Topps Opening Day Black which I didn't expect to see and didn't. I bought a 77-card blaster and a 20-card rack pack.

I pulled four of these.

2015 Topps Opening Day Foil #6 Matt Carpenter

This looks a lot like the Rainbow Foil cards in the base set. This card is not serial numbered. According to beckett.com and baseballcardpedia.com, there is supposed to be a parallel numbered to 2015 as there has been for the past few years. I didn't get any of those. No mention is made of a foil card or another non-numbered parallel. I tried to get some clarification on Topps worthless website. I found a checklist for Topps Opening Day but it didn't mention there were parallels at all.

2015 Topps Opening Day Mascots #21 Mariner Moose
The Mascot insert is back. The Moose may have been around for 25 years but I've never seen it on a card before.

2015 Topps Opening Day Franchise Flashbacks #4 Robinson Cano
I pulled 4 of this 20-card insert. New for 2015, these cards put you in the way-back machine all the way back to Opening Day 2014!

2015 Topps Opening Day Franchise Flashbacks #13 Elvis Andrus
Another insert new for 2015, I got 2 of the 15-card set.

2015 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations #9 Clayton Kershaw
This insert set has been around for a few years. I pulled 3 of the 20. I like how the description on the back of the card in no way resembles the scene on the front of the card. Except that there are Dodgers involved and presumably Kershaw is in the middle somewhere. The other two I have are similar.

2015 Topps Opening Day Team Spirit #9 Jorge Soler
Another new insert, only 10 cards. This is the first card of this player I've scene. Looking him up, I see he made his major league debut with the Cubs last August. In 24 games he hit .292 with 5 home runs. I also see that the Cubs signed the now 23-year-old Cuban back in 2012 for $30,000,000 through 2020.

2015 Topps Opening Day Stadium Scenes Safeco Field
This 17-card set features photos taken by fans. Wouldn't you love to see a photo you've taken on a baseball card?  beckett.com and Topps.com calls this set "Topps Live". baseballcardpedia.com and I call it "Stadium Scenes".



2 comments:

night owl said...

You didn't look at enough card blogs. There's been several Opening Day posts, including mine.

http://nightowlcards.blogspot.com/2015/03/ashamed.html

capewood said...

I saw your twitter mention of Opening Day but didn't follow through to your blog.