Topps Hit My Rickey Henderson Sweet Spot

A few days back I shared my 5X7 Giants team set that featured 9 current Giants and Willie McCovey in a 1952 design.  During that same time ordering, I decided to pick up the set of Rickey Henderson cards that (supposedly) reprinted each of his base Topps cards in 5X7 format with black borders serial numbered to 199 sets.  I mention supposedly as Rickey's last card from 2003 Topps was not included.  As I pulled out my Rickey binders, I decided to scan that card and the Traded cards throughout Rickey's career that were purposely not included in the set.  I will lead with those cards:

It shouldn't be a surprise with all the different teams he was on that Rickey has so many Traded cards.  The 1985 design appears twice as Topps has some reprints in the 2001 set.  I realized as I was pulling cards that I am missing the base card from 2002 Topps Traded so I showed the gold parallel.  The Red Sox card in the bottom left is the card that Topps missed and the Dodgers traded card is sadly the last Topps card of Rickey's playing career.

The set came with this cover card:

I guess the cover does clearly state the set stops at 2002, I just don't understand why.  I sent off an email to Topps asking why last night when I was scanning but I am fairly certain I will never hear back from them as I pretty much never do.

I am going to go ahead and show all the other cards without commentary, until the end where I will show the back of the 2002 card as it is the closest to having all his career stats.

Some observations: Most of Rickey's cards show action photos, with a player that was as action packed as Rickey, that makes a lot of sense.   Topps seemed to use the original cards and just blow them up without any enhancements, his early cards look quite pixelated.  Not sure if I like this or am bothered by this.  Many of the cards look pretty good bordered in black.  Rickey wore 6 different numbers in his career (14, 22, 24, 25, 35, and 39) but none of them match the #30 that my set is serial numbered to. 

Here is the back of the 2002 card, gotta love all the league leaders in red!

Overall I am pretty happy to have this as part of my Rickey collection.  I noticed a Willie Mays set was recently produced but so far I have stayed away from.   If a Willie McCovey set is produced I will not demonstrate the same restraint.