2017 Topps retail factory set pick-up

During a stop at Target, I was looking through the usual Topps factory sets on the shelves and got one with the 1997 Topps Derek Jeter reprint relic card with a pinstripe swatch - I bought a factory set last year at Walmart because it had a Mike Trout stamp card and now Topps got me again with this impulsive purchase.

I was hoping to find a reprint of Jeter's 1993 Topps card, but the 1997 Topps card has a nice image - though these factory set may be mass produced to a point where they aren't going to be hard to find, these could be something to put away because of the Jeter factor.

FWIW, I might have seen something on Twitter about the factory set cards being marked ‘complete set' on the backs to differentiate itself from the regular cards - if I wanted to pick up a complete factory set, I wouldn't want a completely different set over the cards I'd pull out out of packs.

I didn’t know if the marking was indeed something Topps had started doing, but after finding this thread on the Trading Card Database - I see, it’s just the 5-card rookie image variations that are designated and not the 700 cards from the base set.

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.