A run of Topps Heritage near master sets — in this case every single card in the product — for the first decade of the popular brand as well as a pair of autograph proof sheets featuring cards that were never produced have hit the auction block via Robert Edward Auctions.
The run begins with the first Heritage set from 2001 — a product among a few celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary that year, and one that offered us a re-do of the iconic 1952 Topps set but with today’s stars and nods to the past — and runs to 2011 when Heritage hit the memorable wood-bordered 1962 Topps design.
The two proof sheets are from 2009, when the product revisited the 1960 set. A 28-card sheet (above) includes 13 cards that were never signed — George Strickland, Chuck Tanner, Al Grunwald, George “Sparky” Anderson, Humberto Robinson, Ray Narleski, Henry Mason, Tom Acker, Zach Monroe, Bobby Thomson, Ernie Johnson, Jerry Davie and Fred Kipp — while a second includes 15 cards and two of them have never surfaced in signed form, according to the long-time collector. The two sheets carry $200 opening bids.
The first Heritage set in the auction includes 585 of 772 possible cards and already has a $2,500 bid in the auction, which runs for just the next eight days or so. This one includes 110 Chrome cards, 74 autographs and 13 Relics. All other sets also open at $2,500.
How close are these sets to complete? The 2002 set has 633 of 685 cards, the 2003 set is at 682 of 799, the 2004 set is at 848 of 1,010, the 2005 set is at 1,059 of 1,198, the 2006 set is at 857 of 992, the 2007 set is at 1,038 of 1,144, the 2008 set is at 1,945 of 2,227, the 2009 set is at 1,507 of 1,800, the 2010 set is at 1,050 of 1,537 and the 2011 set is at 1,362 of 2,113 cards made.
These brands, of course, include autographs and memorabilia cards from some of the greatest players in the history of the game from the original years as well as today’s stars. And some years include notoriously difficult variations as well as cards that, for whatever reason, just don’t surface such as the 2008 Chrome insert of Jerry Hairston, which is in that year’s set here.
A sampling of auction images can be seen below, while you can see all auctions here.
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