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The box: 2017 Topps Heritage High Number baseball cards (blaster box)
Where to buy: BlowoutCards.com
Packs per box: 8
Cards per pack: 9
Cards in this box: 72
Base set completion:
64 of 200 (32 percent)
Duplicates: 0
Notables on base cards – Cody Bellinger
Rookie Cards (20) – Cody Bellinger, Bradley Zimmer, Jordan Montgomery, Chad Pinder, Mitch Haniger, Dan Vogelbach, Carlos Asuaje, T.J. Rivera, Magenuris Sierra, Antonio Senzatela, Stephen Cardullo, Jeff Hoffman, Gift Ngoepe, Pierce Johnson, Adam Frazier, Boog Powell, Brock Stassi, Kyle Freeland, Renato Nunez, Christian Arroyo
Inserts/short-prints: 7 (all in gallery below)
1968 Topps Discs (1) – Jose Altuve
Short-prints (Nos. 701-725) (3) – Rich Hill, Shin-soo Choo, Tim Anderson
Now & Then (1) – Yoenis Cespedes
Rookie Performers (1) – Andrew Benintendi
Award Winners (1) – Kris Bryant
Autographs/Memorabilia: None
What’s Buzz-worthy: Perhaps I had some high expectations after standard Heritage this year — a release I bought like no previous version in terms of volume — but this one didn’t wow me even though I landed the biggest rookie in the product, Cody Bellinger. … High Number has historically been a release that doesn’t always have the strongest base checklist, which makes the typical breaks just not as flashy. That’s the case here. The inserts included appearances from Benintendi and Bryant, which helped, but the base cards excluding rookies were rough. And that’s just how this one is. Autographs are arguably the biggest deal in this release (some amazing cards in this one) and oddly the red-ink versions are easier to pull here (1:537) than the standard ink (1:904) — and the auto odds here are about three times higher than in the first series. (The ink seems more plentiful in hobby than it was in the first series and that’s what may have caused this.) Relics aren’t an easy pull in this one, either, at one in every 69 packs for the basic cards, another stat that makes this one a stiffer rip. If the base set were larger and loaded with a second base card for top stars (why not?) or some types of subsets showcasing alternate/throwback uniforms on a regular basis with a larger set, maybe this would be more fun of a rip. Right now, it seems boom or bust with Bellinger and ink. There’s plenty of good stuff in here — Superfractors, Relics, Derek Jeter autos, Hall of Famer autos, Bellinger ink — but you’ll need luck on your side to hit it big from a blaster. Heritage has always been one of my favorite brands but this one looks like a harder break than even last year, which I tore into often, knowing that I was fighting the odds hoping for ink.
Product Grade: B (thanks to the autographs)
Box Grade: A- (thanks to the Bellinger)
Fun Grade: B- (thanks to the Bellinger)
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