2015 Topps Baseball blaster

Sport:  Baseball
Product:  2014 Topps Baseball blaster
Break Date:  February 8, 2015
Hit Breakdown:   One Manufactured relic
Summary:  After opening a couple of jumbo packs the previous day, I was at Target and decided to open a blaster. I knew it had a manufactured relic which have decent resale value when they're hot off the press. So, I figured, why not?

As far as card design, there's nothing new to report. I said all I needed to say in my jumbo review. But, it was clear that there are a lot of inserts in retail - they come about two per pack. So, for master set builders, that means you're pulling a lot of needs per blaster. At the same time, it means you're chasing a lot of insert sets...upwards of 10, plus the parallels. It's a lot to deal with.

There wasn't much in this blaster, though.The Ring Relic was Chase Utley, a guy who's had trouble staying healthy. At the very least he nearly played a whole season last year, but he's just not the player he could have been had he not gotten bitten by the injury bug.

There was a Mike Trout insert, but outside of that, the Gold /2015 was a role player, and the Rainbow foil was mediocre as well. The rest of the inserts were by and large forgettable.

If you hit the right relic and get decent parallels, a blaster can be worth it for sure. This one, though, wasn't anything special. If it wasn't for the Trout, this would have been a total bust.

There was a little coupon book included with discounts on a bunch of Topps-related products, which I will undoubtedly lose before any of the product lines are on shelves. But, if you cash the coupons in you would probably break even on the price of the blaster (minus the buy-in on the other stuff, of course).

Grade for the product:  B+

Grade for the break:  C+

First Home Run Medallions:  Chase Utley
Gold /2015:  Brandon League
Rainbow Foil:  Cincinnati Reds
Archetypes:  Mike Trout
Free Agent 40:   Greg Maddux
Robbed in Center:   Ben Revere
Highlight of the Year:  1960 Roger Maris, 1946 Ted Williams, 1972 Nolan Ryan

First Home Run:   Joe Mauer, Buster Posey, Freddie Freeman, Victor Martinez, Javier Baez
First Pitch:  Macklemore
Baseball History:  Tom Seaver, Bill Clinton
Inspired Play:   Craig Kimbrel/John Smoltz, Cole Hamels/Steve Carlton
Jackie Robinson Story:   Two Sport (JR1), Retired Number (JR10)