2019 Topps Archives Topps Magazine inserts

As far as I know 2019 Topps Archives might as well not exist, but these inserts were too sweet not to pick up, especially being familiar with Topps Magazines of my youth - with loud and bright colors, the design of these cards are throwbacks to the early 1990s.

I almost wish there was such a Topps branded trading card magazine today - though maybe the magazine was printed when baseball cards still had mainstream appeal among youth vs. devolving into a niche hobby over the past 30 years.

A look back - Topps Magazine

I was digging around my LCS and found some old Topps Magazines - I was tempted to pick at least a couple up since I remember picking up the first issue as a kid and liked the idea of an all-color magazine devoted to sports cards; there was a period of time where the only places I really got my collecting magazines was through supermarkets and I had to go into an actual card shop for a Beckett Baseball Card Montly magazine.

As a beginning collector with relatively little to spend, it was intimidating making my way inside a card shop every month a new Beckett would pop up, so the only magazine I was reading on a regular basis was Baseball Cards Magazine - I suppose Topps Magazine provided another alternative, which probably made spending time browsing the magazine rack at the supermarket that much easier while tagging along on shopping trips.

Like Baseball Cards Magazine, there were cards inserted into the magazine though I probably thought the cards were not 'real' because the card stock was a little different, even from the Baseball Card Magazine inserts - and it was impossible to remove the cards from the magazine [without the cards looking like garbage].

The cards in the Topps magazine were perforated, but the best I could do was try and tear the panels apart like they were monkey bread - the cards always were torn up.

This article in the particular magazine pictured was written by a then 15-year old named Tyler Kepner [who is a New York Times sportswriter now] - it's all the myriad of ways to go about finding ways to collect common cards that have the same theme, known to me as 'collecting topics cards' or better known to card bloggers as 'mini-collections.'

It was fun scanning through the story and realize this was probably something I read at some point - to serve as inspiration to collect in unique, if unconventional ways.