General Forum

I'm just about done going through this set. I'm wondering what y'all think. I have a few comments. 

1. Crisp, good photography. I'm on the fence about the style though. They've generally focussed on the player, blurring out the background. This gives a nice shot of the player, but kind of kills the action feel. 

2. The ubiquitous rookie and future star cards are just part of the landscape, I know. But why show only minor league stats for players then refer to how they've done in the majors? Just show me all the stats. There's plenty of room. 

3. Really?!?! Did they really only include the World Series games that the Giants won? Don't even bother with the subset then. I always loved the World Series cards, but not like this. 

4. I like the team cards. 

5. I like the expansion to 700 cards. 

6. I still miss manager cards. 

That's all for now. 

Thoughts?

v3

I agree with your views. With this big of a set, a card for each world series would have been a better way to go. I am a bit old fashioned. I'd like to see the leader cards together also. Plenty of room for the manager cards as well. I like to think of each set as a little bit of history about the year, and leaving the managers and world series out doesn't help that.

V3 - I'll add my thoughts on the 2015 Topps set.

1 - Photography is very nice. I prefer the focus to be on the player who's card it is.

2 - Totally agree about full stats. And I don't like the cards that say they played on 2 or 3 minor league teams and give the one line of stats. Boo!

3 - Topps has been off and on for WS cards in sets since I can remember. I wish they would either do them every year or drop them altogether. Just glad they did them in 1981 for the 1980 WS. :)

4 - The team cards are cool - but I would also like to see team checklists again.

5 - 700 cards? Whatever. Since I include the Update set, we're going to be looking at over 1,000 cards. That may be too much (1991 UD anyone?).

6 - Team checklists on the back of the Manager cards? :) Actually - I liked the 1978 Topps manager cards. Do them like that.

7 - The borders - Dislike. In fact, my son and I didsliked them so much, we decided to go for the gold - we're attempting the gold parallel set. Those cards look real nice - and are a huge improvement over the gold bordered cards from the past few seasons.

8 - Intentional variations/SPs - Stop it already. Fix the actual mistakes (which there were plenty of). And the sparkle variation has to be the most ridiculous variation EVER. Who really looks at those and says "Oh cool, a sparkle!"? (Caveat - I did go after ONE SP card - the 2014 Mauer with Snoopy)

I hope more people join in this discussion. I love these discussions! Thanks v3.

Good thoughts, all, Dan. Update sets? Yeah. It's all too much. That's why I just stick with the base sets. 

Agree with most of the comments and I completed series 1 and 2 and now I think I want to sell it. Just not that motivated by it. I may try to put a rainbow foil set together similar to what dan is doing with gold. I have about 70 of them already.  The stadium club is much more interesting and I enjoy the GQ and A&G minis way more. So I am going to pass on the update series even though I pulled a 5$ off card. My 2 cents. Also look for more (2500) junk wax cards on my trade list later this week. 

I actually like the borders. Right colors. Kind of fun.

Even two manager of the year cards would have been nice. 

I never really liked team checklists. 

I did actually like combining the NL and AL leader cards. 

I'm glad the award cards seem to be a staple now. 

I hate all parallel sets. It's akin to submitting three NCAA brackets. Make your picks and stick with them. Make a set and stand by it. 

Again, the photography is sharp but often only the torso of a player. Looks odd somehow. 

And again, skipping three World Series games is unforgivable. 

Overall, an improvement. I'd consider switching brands or sets, but after just collecting Topps base sets since 1971, I just can't break the habit. 

V3

I would be happy to collect sets by different companies (I did for Donruss & Fleer for 1981 - about 1992 or 1993, Score for 1988 - 1992, and Upper Deck for 1989 to about 1995), but only if the company is licensed to do MLB. The recent Panini/Donruss issues look very nice card-wise, but the photos done without the logos just look weird and I don't particularly like how they crop off the tops of the player's heads/hats to remove the logo on the hat. I wish there was competition again.

RE: Team Checklists - as a single team collector, I like to have the team checklist as the first card on the page, then the rest of the cards, in the same order as on the checklist (unless the checklist has an error and it's not alphabetical). Plus, a nice team photo yearly adds a nice touch to the "team" collection concept. (As opposed to some of the sets that only had the same 5-9 players from each team, therefore I have a slew of Howard/Rollins/Utley/Hamels, but relatively few of the other players from the last 10-15 years.

I love seeing all the varying opinions on this (and other sets). Let's keep this one going.

I see your point on the team checklists. I've always been a complete set guy, so it's less relevant. I do like the team pictures, but as a Cub fan, I'm not sure I recovered from the heads of the 70s. 

We're the only ones keeping this thread alive. I'm likely to pull the plugs shortly. Good chats, though. 

V3

I like the varied color borders.  I can only think of 2 other Topps Baseball sets that have done this: 1975 & 1990.  I didn't notice the Royals World Series thing until you pointed it out.  I don't have the whole set, so I guess I just assumed I was only opening Giants.  Now I see there aren't Royals.  That is dumb.  There should be manager cards, although I think Topps Heritage does cover this so every manager should get a Topps card of some sort if he survives a full season.  It would be a shame if Bruce Bochy had no cards to show for the Giants' recent amazing run.  No doubt a future Hall of Famer.

with the borders being colored this year in topps, I put all (not that many, about 100) of my 15 topps in penny sleeves right away as they will show corner dings so easily.

they look good though..

mark