2009 Topps Series 1 Hobby Box

I decided over the weekend that I'd put together a set of Topps this summer.

I did really like the style of the Upper Deck cards, both the First Edition and the Series 1 cards, but in the end, the lack of stats and information on the back of the cards steered me away from those sets.

If anyone needs/wants the cards I got in those two Upper Deck packs I'd gladly give those away to a good home.

Sunday afternoon I started my quest to find a hobby shop that sells cards. This was surprisingly harder than I imagined. I called approximately 4 stores, all of which were out of business. I finally located a shop by the name of Three Star Sports Cards over in Roseville. I swooped in right around closing time, 4PM, on Sunday and grabbed a hobby box of Series 1 Topps.

My goal is to collect the entire set from this one box, and utilize trades with the online community to get the remaining cards I need.

I'll post some pictures later on today, but I went through 12 of the 36 packs last night. The highlights were a Brian McCann Career Best relic card (part of his bat), a few gold parallels (Cole Hamels WS MVP, Brandon Inge, and other other that's escaping me thus far), one black parallel of a Mets pitcher I'm unfamiliar with and cannot recall his name, as well as a few Turkey Red cards, a Pee Wee Reese Legends of the Game, and a WBC redemption card.

I immediately went out to the Topps redemption site, and was informed I'll be getting my WBC card sometime in the next 30 weeks. Unfortunately, they don't tell you which card you've "won". I guess I'll let everyone know in November.

In those 12 packs I've only unearthed three Brewers: Alcides Escobar (dinged corner and all), Angel Salome, and Dave Bush. I'm looking forward to more Brewery goodness tonight.

I've found a couple misprints thus far as well, but I'm sure they are uncorrected errors. The first one I noticed is on the back of Dave Roberts card, it says he lead MLB in stolen bases from 02-07 with 266. However, he hasn't even posted 266 steals in his career yet, and the card should have read 226.

The second misprint I found was on the back of the Phillies/Dodgers divisional series card depicting Fat Stairs. It shows the pitchers as Garza (1-0) and Lester (0-1) - clearly from the ALCS.