2014 Topps Archives 2 Box Break - I have been Bipped!!!

Yesterday I picked up 2 boxes of the newly released 2014 Topps Archives.  Seems lots of people are hit or miss on this product.  My personally - I really like it, that doesn't mean I don't have some ideas to improve it, but I like it.  I decided to build this base set, SPs and all, and decide on the insert sets after my breaks.  Quite a few base cards have and will be featured and I got tired of scanning so all I am going to show are my SPs, parallels, inserts and autos.

To mix things up I will start where I finished with box #2.  In box 2 I got 163/200 base cards with no duplicates.  2 of my dups go straight into my player collections (Willie McCovey and Rickey Henderson) and 3 into my Giants collection (Lincecum, Scutaro and Bumgarner).  I didn't do too well on the Giants as I ended up with 127 different dups.  If you happen to be interested in a 122 card starter set let me know!

 First up are the short prints.  In years past the SPs were typically different designs from the base set.  These 6 are all in the same design as the base set.  I was happy to get the Mays, now I just need to track one down for the Giants binder.  Topps seemed to change up the SPs as well, the last 2 years they were all fan favorites. With Kershaw and Verlander, it is obvious they changed it up. Also changed is the number.  Over the last 3 years the number of SPs has increased from 40 to 45 and now 50 - that sucks for a set collector!

 There are 2 different parallel sets of the base cards, gold and silver. The gold are numbered to 199 while the silver are /99.  I had one pack that had one of each which results in me beating the odds based on the wrapper statement.

 The most plentiful inserts were these All-Star cards featuring a combination of today's and yesterday's stars.  I remember pulling these from rack packs back in the day and am happy to see them included.

 The next most plentiful inserts are the deckle edge.  I am loving the old school photo of Cal and Jeter is always a nice pull. These are small in size that last year I believe.  Not a bad inclusion but I wish they had done something different - maybe tattoos or comics.

 This scan shares the 3 other types on inserts I pulled.  Two of the universally applauded Major League cards, a hockey-like card of Goldschmidt and a Stadium Club die cut wooden Firebrand card.  I will share my collecting goals for this set after box 1.

Now for the 2 hits:

 My first auto pull from this box was a Ron Gant card. I think Gant fits this set perfectly as a fan favorite auto.  In looking at the auto checklist I think this is a pretty solid pull.

Speaking of solid pulls, check out this Jose Canseco auto. It was my last hit pull from the 2 boxes and I really like it.  Outside of Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire and possibly Jose Abreu it could be the best auto.  I am thinking the A's would be the team to take if you were entering a group break.

Now back to box 1.  I got 164/200 base cards and fortunately when combined I pulled a full non-SP base set!  I am pretty excited about that.  Here are all the rest of the cards:

 Here are my 6 SPs including a couple of big names in Mike Trout and Jose Abreu. I am also glad the two boxes have different ones. The trend of the SPs being the same design as the base set continues.  Wonder what the rest of the SPs look like? Hopefully some day in the not too distant future I will have all of them and solve that mystery. After these breaks I have 12/50 SPs - long ways to go.

 Here are the parallels I received.  Very happy to get a Silver Giant /99.  Overall the guys I got aren't the greatest. I think I will set aside the Schmidt for someone but everything else minus the Scutaro could be had via trade.

 No dups for this insert set.  The checklist I saw shows 30 of these.  Liking the throwback design and already having 12 of the 30, this is an insert set I will go after and complete.

 I am loving this Buster Posey deckle edge and will need another for the Giants binder.  There are 40 cards in this set so I am 25% of the way there.  Pretty cool design, I dig the black and white a bit, so I think this set will also be one to go after.

The checklist I saw shows 5 Major League autos but only 4 inserts.  With these 2 different ones added to the two from the other box I believe this insert set is complete!  There are 20 different of the Hockey design and I now have 2 including one of the top gets in Abreu.  The basketball inserts from last year were too costly. I really like the design but will only go after this set if a nice reasonably priced lot drops in my lap.  There are only 10 players on the Firebrand checklist.  I did not get the most desirable players.  Again I will take the wait and see approach on whether to finish this or not.

Finally my 2 hits: 

I was pretty happy with this first auto pull.  A pretty popular player with a great signature on a really good looking card.  I am not a Yankees fan but I don't mind having this card in my collection until someone pries it away with a great offer.

 I promised you a Bipping in the title....
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How about a 1/1 Magenta Printing Plate autographed by none other than Bip himself. Pretty cool card.  I am trying to decide if I should get the Bip and Jose up on eBay to recoup some of my box cost and generate some funds to go after the SPs.

Overall I am pretty darn happy with the breaks.  I have the base set done, no SP or insert dups and some pretty darn good autographs.  Again, could they do more with the product, definitely. However I am a big fan of it in its current state.  If you have any of my needs that aren't pictured, drop me a note and let's trade.  My want list will go up with Beckett.com gets the checklist posted.