2016 Topps retail factory set pick-up

I wanted to stop at a Walmart to see if there was any exclusive 2016 Topps Holiday Mega Boxes or 2016 Topps Archives Baseball 65th Anniversary Edition [about $25 for a box featuring a pack of cards with an autograph] in stock - unfortunately the Walmart closest to me on the way home has never had a card section and it's been the case for the past 10 years when I've gone there to look for cards.

I was hoping to find a card section near the counters but literally the only thing I found was a 2016 Topps factory set [about $60] - with a commemorative Mike Trout stamp relic card.

The retail factory sets piqued my interest at Target when I saw one of the Ichiro bonus cards featured a yen relic - I was tried to read up on the different factory sets and found out there were these Trout stamp cards.

I guess I wanted at least one of Trout stamp relic even though they just seem gimmicky - the common, unnumbered versions currently go for about $10-$15 each on eBay.

I thought about it for a moment and decided I might as well grab this set - the stamp relic card in this box was actually the Gold version serial #’d 38 of 50 and while it’s all silly to me, according to the Beckett story about all these Topps factory sets, the Gold versions are found in every 21 sets.

The last time I bought a Topps factory set was December of 2006 - when the bonus cards featured a Mickey Mantle ‘worn’ relic of some sort [not even related to him playing baseball].

That 2006 set is collecting dust on one and I never did bother to break that one open - I’m not likely to break this 2016 set open either, just keep it intact and hope the box / contents survive for quite a while.