A lot of people seemed to have missed the point behind a lot of the little fun things we did, like graffitti parallels and extra gore.

We WANTED those things to be subtle. Those were intended to be like the unannounced variants in SWGF.

The idea there was to lengthen the engagement in the product. Have people finding out later that there were variants, sending them scurrying back to their stacks to look again. We even toyed with the idea of using black-light ink so that you'd have to run them under a special light to even know it was there. But that wouldn't be fair to anyone who doesn't own a blacklight

Even the SP patches and medallions were meant to make people go back and look again. Early on people didn't know how rare some of what they had was, and that was by (partially) by design.

I love ripping packs myself, but inevitably it's just 5 minutes of fun. This was a way of lengthening that a bit. I know it frustrated some people, but to me it's more fun: here you were (hopefully), days after ripping your box, you're still discovering new things.

I applaud Topps efforts in that regard, MC. It's made collecting Heritage Baseball a real challenge, and the good kind certainly. The "Weakies" color variations in Wacky Packages Old School 4 were a treat as were the photo variations from both Galactic Files sets. (I only wish there were more than three in each of those sets).

In the old days when the errors/variations weren't intentional, it could take years for them all to be discovered, and indeed, to this day, previously unknown variations are still occasionally discovered on vintage cards, and comics, as well. It returns to collectors who thought they had it all the thrill of the chase, which is good for the hobby.

There is a current thread on this board understandably lamenting that there tends to be an awful lot of buildup in the days leading up to the release of a set only to have the discussion of it afterward trail off to almost nothing immediately. I like it that Topps is trying to reverse that trend.

Please keep these surprises coming, whenever you can. There are people who will complain about anything under the sun. Some of these same jokers who don't like the variants, you can be sure, would be the first to complain were the next set to be devoid of them.

I bought 9 boxes total and had to go through them several times to see if I missed anything. It was a great idea and I had a blast trying to figure it all out. I especially liked the Pencil variants. They are truly different then any variant i've ever seen. I would love to put a set together but its just too costly. In the next set it would be great to make them more common.

Pulled a buy back card today but my heart sank when I saw the crimp marks down the left hand side of the card. I doubt Topps would have any extras of these for replacements.

Picked up a box at Collectormania at Stadium MK.

Gold parallels 35, 63
Early missions (art by Earl Norem) 2, 3, 4
Munchkin apocalypse
Anatomy 1, 2
Medallion card MM-16

Sketch - John McCrea

I picked a box of the at the Chicago Show last weekend.
Nice set...Here's how I did:

4 cards shy of a base set (had 3 duplicate base cards)
Gold Parallel - 47, 51
Early missions - 1, 5, 6
Masterpieces - 1, 3, 4, 5
Heritage - 37, 42, 46, 49, 57, 58
Posters - 1, 2, 3, 4
Anatomy - 4, 5
And the last pack contained a 4-card puzzle sketch by Chris Hamer


http://i123.photobucket.com/al...d63f_zps4322575d.jpg

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Greg Geerts:
I picked a box of the at the Chicago Show last weekend.
Nice set...Here's how I did:

4 cards shy of a base set (had 3 duplicate base cards)
Gold Parallel - 47, 51
Early missions - 1, 5, 6
Masterpieces - 1, 3, 4, 5
Heritage - 37, 42, 46, 49, 57, 58
Posters - 1, 2, 3, 4
Anatomy - 4, 5
And the last pack contained a 4-card puzzle sketch by Chris Hamer

Great pull, Greg!

WOW Completely impressed!
Congrats!

quote:

We even toyed with the idea of using black-light ink so that you'd have to run them under a special light to even know it was there. But that wouldn't be fair to anyone who doesn't own a blacklight

I own a blacklight.
And it's not a bad idea at all! UV ink is cool!