I'll be fine

With the bombshell news that Fanatics has swooped in and grabbed Topps' exclusive license with MLB, as well as the MLBPA (and some other stuff, nba, probably nfl, blah, blah), collectors' thoughts have naturally turned to what will happen to cards and card brands in the future.

We have almost nothing to go on except some dates. The Players Association deal with Topps ends when 2023 ends, with the MLB agreement lasting a couple years longer. I don't want to speculate on what cards might look like during that interim period between expiring deals. Like I said, that's quite a bit into the future and ... oh yeah, lawsuits.

 

But there is one thing I do know about that time period:

Topps Heritage, featuring the spectacular 1975 Topps design, was expected to drop Marchish of 2024.

You might know how much I love the '75 design.

 

 

I have completed both the 1975 Topps set and the parallel mini set. I'm attempting to accumulate as many buybacks of the set that I can. I devoted an entire card-by-card blog to the set 10 years ago. I've written a magazine article about the mini set, and I accumulated a 200-card insert set dedicated to '75 a decade ago.

It's the first set I ever purchased, pack-by-pack, at drug stores in my neighborhood and across New York's Southern Tier. It means the world to me and it is the only set, 46 years later, that can give me that special thrill that one feels when they are a kid, just by seeing the cards in person.

 

I've had 2024 circled on my calendar for years as Heritage has appeared like clockwork every year since 2001, tracking each previous Topps flagship set from 1952 forward. I waited through a whole bunch of set designs I didn't care about -- most of the ones from the '60s -- for Topps to finally get to my childhood.

We were getting closer with 1971 and 1972, sets that I saw at some point as a kid, collected by older kids.

 

I've mentioned a few times, only half-jokingly, in anticipation of Heritage's 2024 release of the '75 set, that it would be the first time I ever bought a case. And, I had actually thought about budgeting in a case buy when the time came.

 

Now this.

 

When the Fanatics news hit and the dates were announced, people started checking in to see how I was. "I feel sorry for night owl," they said, mentioning 2024 Heritage. "I hope for your sake that 2024 Heritage is still going to happen." a couple folks told me.

 

Hey, don't feel sorry for me. I'll be fine.

 

In the last year or so, I've thought, "do I really want to do this?" The '75 design is the '75 design but the players aren't the ones I collected as a kid. The game isn't the same, I'm sure there would be something not quite right about the Topps tribute. And, oh, there would be all of those mini parallels. And, yup, Topps would probably do something like this.

 

Yeah, I'll be fine.

 

I'm going to save a ton of money.

 

I started getting apprehensive because I just wasn't feeling like I was several years ago. And I think I know why, beyond the disconnect between the players from the '70s and the players today.

 

 

 This is my 2011 Topps Lineage binder of the 1975 mini insert set.

 

The full 200-card set is in here. It was the first (and only) time I completed an insert set that size. It took me a couple of years, but it was a lot of fun. Heck, Lineage, the precursor to the current Archives brand, was a lot of fun. That was the set I was collecting 10 years ago this summer. That was a great summer.

 

Got a few relics from it, too.

Enthusiasm was high for a '75 mini tribute. It was the first of its kind. I was in love.

Other '75 tributes followed afterward, mostly scattered, with a couple cards here and a few there.

They were all exciting at the time, don't get me wrong, but each of them whittled away a tiny bit of my enthusiasm for '75 design tributes.

2019 arrived and so did another '75 tribute, from Lineage's descendant, Archives.

 

This is my 2019 Topps Archives binder of the 1975-design portion of the set, which was 100 cards.

 

I completed this one, too. Had to. It was half the size of the Lineage set, and these weren't insert pulls either, just regular base cards. I appreciated genuine '75-style backs, too.

But if you look closely, you can tell the enthusiasm isn't as high.

There was a mini insert set with this, too. I didn't bother looking for those cards. I have two of them. Yeah, they're not easy to find, but you can bet that if this was 2010, I'd be tracking those babies down.

But this time I didn't care.

This is what Topps has done with all of its design repetition through Archives and Heritage and, especially, its inserts. I love seeing new players on old design. Or, I should say, I loved it until Topps put them into an endless rotation whose total of rehashed tributes could rival the number of times every DJ in the world has played "Hotel California".

It's just not special anymore.

And I'm done spending money on cards that aren't that special to me, that don't give me that thrill, that I purchase only because they're "new." I like "new" sometimes, but what's new here? The design isn't, the set isn't, and you'll see all those players in multiple other sets ... well, actually who knows? Topps won't have a Players Association license by then.

Heritage 2024 still could exist. Fanatics could buy Topps. Topps could sign players to individual deals on the scale that it did back 50 years ago.

But even if it shows up three years from now just the same as always, I won't be buying a case. I probably won't try to complete the set, all those short-prints, remember?

Maybe collectors will send me cards from the set because they know I like '75 so much. I'm happy they're thinking of me. I'm happy they thought of me when they heard the Fanatics news.

 

Sure, if 2024 Heritage doesn't come to pass, my buybacks mission will take a big hit. I had expected an infusion of new buybacks on the market in conjunction with the '24 Heritage release.

But, really, I'll be fine.

There are plenty of other fish in the sea.

 

I've found some new loves. Some of them are even from the '70s.

I'm head over heels.