It’s story-time - this time I thought I'd tell the story of my first ever Hobby box and the product itself, a product whose time has sadly come to an end, with nary a peep from Topps on the why.
I grew up collecting cards in the Junk Wax Era with 1986 Topps being the beginning of the cards I can vividly remember, and 1987 Topps is the first product that I remember ripping packs. I was still opening packs and collecting cards until around 1992 or so, when I started high school and was much more interested in chasing girls than chasing cards. One thing I never did during my initial collecting journey was opening Hobby boxes. It was always packs, or friends’ parents buying cheap boxes and splitting packs up amongst the various kids. Fast forward to when I first returned to the Hobby in late 2017 and through 2018, I was all over the place with what I collected, and I wasn’t buying hobby boxes. I was spending money in small dribs and drabs, buying loose packs at local card shops, buying hangers and blasters at Target and Walmart, and taking cheap $20-$40 break spots in the first few places I stumbled across that were breaking cards.
In 2019, I had become much more confident in my collecting approach, even if that confidence was often misplaced. I resolved to begin buying Hobby boxes as part of my newfound confidence, but my budget wasn’t going to support more than a $100 spend at a single go. And spending potentially three to four times that when it came to the big boy Bowman Hobby boxes? Yeah, that wasn’t happening. So I headed to a local card shop at some point in the fall of 2019 as a still surprisingly uneducated collector, wondering how much a Hobby box of 2019 Bowman would cost because of the Giants prospects in that product, even if I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap. Well, that LCS was selling them for $400 - Vlad Jr. on the cover and Wander Franco card prices going crazy had pushed those box prices to ridiculous heights. Julio Rodriguez hype was also slowly building, but I was chasing expensive Joey Bart cards, and to a lesser degree, Marco Luciano cards. As I said, I was full of misplaced confidence. Shifting my view to a different part of the shelves containing wax, I saw Hobby boxes of 2019 Topps Heritage Minor League with a price tag of $50, perfect for my budget. I recalled getting into one break in the year previous and liking the 2018 cards. Add in that I was guaranteed one auto and one relic per box, and I was sold. My first ever purchase of a Hobby box was 2019 Topps Heritage Minor League. I can’t leave it there without providing the hits - my relic was a PC hit - a 1970 Mint Relic Base of Joey Bart numbered 55 out of 99 (double nickels for the nickel relic!) and the auto was an insert auto - a Fresh on the Scene on-card auto of Nico Hoerner numbered 36 out of 99.
I loved the throwback design, I loved the two guaranteed hits with one being an auto and it being on-card, I loved the price point. I was hooked, and the formula seemed like a winner for collectors as well as Topps. From 2019 through 2022, I bought at least one Hobby box of Topps Heritage Minor League for a personal rip. There’s no other product that I can say that about for me. And then, in 2023, paraphrasing Verbal Kint, “And like that…it’s gone.”
You may have guessed this already, but this article is a thinly veiled attempt for me to rant and rave about Topps cutting Topps Heritage Minor League in 2023. For those that aren’t familiar with the product, I realize a bit of history is needed.
Topps Heritage is its nostalgia brand that was first released in 2001 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Topps’ iconic 1952 set and used that 1952 design (think the Mickey Mantle “rookie”) with a checklist of primarily active MLB players. Every year since we’ve had a Topps Heritage product using the design from 50 years previous - so the second year iteration, 2002 Topps Heritage, used the 1953 Topps design. This year’s version, 2025 Topps Heritage, uses the 1976 Topps design.
A decade after the first edition of Topps Heritage, in 2011, the inaugural edition of Topps Heritage Minor League was released, leveraging the Topps Heritage concept for a minor league/prospect product. Just like 2011 Topps Heritage, the 2011 Topps Heritage Minor League used the 1962, wood border Topps design. There were definitely differences though - the obvious one being the checklist which only had minor league players included. Speaking of the checklist, Bryce Harper was the star and the focus, included in the sell sheets and given his own relic insert set. Other future well-known MLB players in that checklist included Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Manny Machado, Andrelton Simmons, Chris Archer, Wil Myers, Travis D’Arnaud, Kyle Gibson, Aaron Hicks, Taijuan Walker, Yasmani Grandal, Adam Easton, Wilmer Flores, Kevin Kiermaier, Billy Hamilton, Matt Harvey, Max Kepler, Jurickson Profar, Robbie Ray, and others.
These players aren’t in their major league uniforms like you would expect in the more popular Bowman prospect products - they are in their minor league uniforms, and the cards show the minor league team name and logos. And therein lies one of the main “issues” with the product, at least from a collector’s standpoint. The standard argument is that most collectors are collecting the team(s) they root for, and want the players on the cardboard to be wearing those uniforms. Even further, they don’t want any airbrushing of team logos like we see with unlicensed products, and the team name should be proudly displayed on the card. Sometimes the minor league team carries the major league team’s mascot name, so the difference isn’t so noticeable, like the Iowa Cubs or the San Jose Giants, for example.
On the other hand, seeing Elly De La Cruz in a green Daytona Tortugas uniform is a bit jarring. Not to mention that some of these minor league teams no longer exist, many from the products prior to minor league contraction post-pandemic. It can be sad or sometimes head-scratching what the team is and who they are/were affiliated with.
And that leads into the next problem with the product, which is essentially an issue for breakers. This product, along with Topps Pro Debut and unlicensed products that don’t list even the team location like Leaf typically does, is a nightmare to properly sort. In breaks, the most common scenario for assigning spots is through teams. This works well and makes sorting straightforward with licensed products that show the MLB team name/uniform/logo on the card. But when it’s a minor league team that doesn’t carry the big league team name and it’s a little-known player, it can be a huge problem to accurately sort and do it in a timely manner (time is money!). Is every breaker going to correctly assign Frederico Polanco of the Jupiter Hammerheads to the Marlins spot while sorting? Probably not.
The final problem is one for Topps, and this is me making an assumption, but one I think is a safe one. Ever since 2016, Topps Heritage Minor league autos have been on-card. This is in reference to the standard autos in the product, what Topps calls Real One Autographs in the Heritage product line. The relic autos, as is almost always the case with anything other than high-end trading card products have always been sticker autos, but that's beside the point. The main point is the majority of autographed cards in the product are on-card. Combine that with the lowest Hobby box price point that contains at least one auto, outside of the also now defunct online-exclusive Topps Archives Snapshots, and you can start to guess why this didn't make sense for Topps. That brings the conversation to the 2023 Topps Industry Conference where there were a LOT of announcements. Most pertinent to this conversation was that Topps announced to the conference-goers, but never to the general public as far as I can tell, that the following baseball card products would be cut in 2023 and for the foreseeable future. The list was Bowman Chrome X, Bowman Heritage, Bowman Transcendent, Topps Archives Snapshots, Topps Clearly Authentic, Topps Fire, Topps Gallery, Topps Gold Label, Topps Gypsy Queen, Topps Opening Day, and any 1st Edition products (both Bowman and Topps). The majority of those cuts made sense to me for one reason or another - with the exception of the retail products (Fire, Gallery, and Opening Day), these were all products that primarily had on-card autos.
I won’t give my opinion on why I think each was cut as that's an article unto itself, but having on-card autos in a product was a major negative from a production perspective. Not only are the logistics so much more difficult to get the cards printed, sent to the player, autographed and sent back, and finally packed out into the product, but this approach led to a much higher potential for redemptions (autographed cards in the checklist, but not ready for the pack-out process get a redemption that collectors can pull from packs and then send in to Topps who will send you the autographed card once Topps has it in hand). Michael Rubin, head of Fanatics, said after the acquisition of Topps that one of his goals was to find a way to eliminate redemptions. The easiest way to do that? Sticker autos. The logistics are so much easier. A player can sign a multitude of sheets of stickers in one sitting that can then be used for current and future products for months if not years on end. None of that complicated logistics needed on a product by product basis - print the auto card, grab the sticker sheet, slap the sticker on, and call it a day.
Notice how Topps Heritage Minor League, as well as Topps Stadium Club Chrome for what it’s worth, was not included in that list? It didn’t occur to me, nor many other collectors, that Topps Heritage Minor League wouldn't show up as usually scheduled in the Fall/Winter of 2023. It just…didn’t.
There’s never been an official announcement as far as I’ve seen as to why, but the challenging logistics of on-card autos combined with a traditionally low price point of $50 - $60 likely leaving little profit on the table for Topps. In a time of cutting products, Topps Heritage Minor League sadly made a lot of sense for Topps to put on the chopping block.
One final note before I wrap this up. In my previous Trading Cards and Trading Stories article, I wrote about the very first baseball dog and the cards he had. Those cards were from the Star brand of cards, and throughout the years, almost all of the baseball dog cards can be found in minor league sets made by lower end brands like Choice. The very first Topps product that had a baseball dog? That's right - Topps Heritage Minor League. Chase, the bat dog for the Trenton Thunder had cards in 2013 Topps Heritage Minor League.
So that’s the story of my first ever personal Hobby box that I opened. But it’s really more a story of one of my all-time favorite products, Topps Heritage Minor League, and its sad demise. Products come and go, and maybe this one specifically wasn’t a big deal to see leave the production calendar for most people. I’m sure plenty of breakers actually cheered for this one to be scratched off the list. For me personally, it was sad to see it gone, and the fact that we were left hanging all through 2023 waiting for it with Topps not saying a word felt like the slowest twisting of the knife possible. I'm told all good things must come to an end, but it doesn't make it any easier to see them gone.
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