Just Could Not Wait

I am sure I was not the only collector looking forward to 2021 Topps Series 1 being released on Wednesday.  For me it signals the beginning of baseball season.  With spring training starting next week, hopefully it will be no time before the real games start.  With the uncertainty of finding retail packs, I went the online route and was able to get 2 blasters from Target before they sold out.  I did not realize I still had part of a gift card left, so they cost a little less than $40.  They should arrive next Tuesday or Wednesday.

That is a long time to wait to open some new packs.  Yesterday I volunteered to make a quick Walmart run for the wife so I could cruise by the card isle.  The first time went by I quickly checked for blasters, but did not see any so I did my regular shopping.  Good thing I went back to check out in the same isle.  No blasters, but plenty of fat packs and loose packs.  I chose 3 fat packs that contained 40 cards for $6.98 each.  That is a little better deal than the blaster boxes that contain 99 cards for $19.99.  Lets see what I got.  

Each fat pack contained 1 blue parallel.  It was nice to score a Cardinal out of those.  I was really excited to pull the Carlson base card.  I already have most of the Cardinals base set coming from a hobby box break, but it is always nice to get an extra of a hot rookie.

The other 2 blue cards were not that outstanding.  Maybe I can find a team collector to trade them to.

I received 2 1952 cards in each pack. I assume that is the stated odds.  The print was so small on the back of the backs I was not for sure.  Some nice names there, but not thrilled to pull a duplicate.

The 1952 Chrome cards are nice.  Seems like Topps incorporated a few other brands into Series one by including these cards and the ice parallels from the Bowman line.

My first pack of cards I ever opened was 1986 Topps.   These bring back great memories for me of trying to track down the Vince Coleman rookie card from that set. 

My other inserts included a Home Run Challenge card and a 70 Years of Topps insert.  Nothing too flashy here.

One of the big selling points of Series 1 is the deep rookie class.  I pulled some nice ones to go along with the Carlson.  The best one was not a base card though.

I was shocked to see how much the Rainbow Foil parallel of Adell was selling for on EBAY.  I know they will come down some once the newness dies down.  I am not a fan of selling on EBAY, so I sold this to another collector on the Bench for $30.  That more than paid for my 3 packs.

Overall I will give the 2021 design a solid 8.  I like the borders, but the name plate is very small.  From what I have read, Topps produced a ton of these because parallels like Gold and Rainbow Foil are tougher to pull this year.