I bought 13 packs today, to hold me over till my box arrives.

Got 86 base cards, plus 6 duplicates
13 Foil parallels
1 Dazzle Foil parallel numbered 75/75
2 Mini cards
1 Autograph Billy Mumy

This is a fun set! The base cards cover all kinds of non-sports from 1949. The foil parallels are one per pack, and the numbered parallel was in a pack with a regular one. The mini-cards are nice representations from sets that had smaller than average cards, like Freedoms War.
The Mumy auto is from his role in LOst in Space, and has a foil finish.

Pick up some of these! Very cool cards.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: H_Toser,

Wow, Billy Mumy from Lost in Space. Not a bad pull at all. But even without the inserts, this sounds like a pretty fun set. The NSU article said Len Brown (long time Topps writer of Mars Attacks fame) wrote the backs. It must have been a fun project for him to work on. Thanks for the breakdown report.

Thanks Kurt.
I'm surprised more people haven't posted anything about these yet.
I am not doing real well on packs, bought a few more from a second box, and still no more autos, but did get the buyback card, from the first Batman movie. The logo is printed in gold foil on the buybacks. Have 4 of the minis now, but only 1 test issue card.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Don Norton:
I'm surprised more people haven't posted anything about these yet. /QUOTE]

I haven't found it out there yet, I would buy some if I saw it. I asked my LHS and they were unaware of the product, which seems strange since they had been able to order plenty of Mars Attacks 1 and 2.

I didn't keep up with this release, so I don't know if the distribution or advertisement was different, but it seemed to have enough coverage.

$85 a box (or so) makes them a bit expensive for this kind of release.
I will definitely get some because of certain subjects within the larger set, plus I love card history.
I'm weighing just picking up a minimaster set and buying a couple of the autographs I'd like separately.
Not as fun as opening packs, that's for sure, but there's a lot of other stuff competing with this for my cash currently.

Other stuff, like maybe food and shelter... oh, HOW I KNOW THE FEELING.

Thanks for the breakdown. I haven't read the NSU article yet...but are the base cards reproductions of classic cards or the classic cards themselves? If not, are the chase cards the actual classic cards then?

The fronts of the base set are copies of the original cards. Text on back is new with historical notes about the set and year of production.
The buyback cards are actual old cards, with a gold logo stamp.
I beleive some of the autos are on old cards.

I received my 2 boxes today...

I got a 100 card base set from each box and these inserts:

48 rainbow foil parallels (only 4 duplicates!)
1 Diamond Sparkle parallel - card #10 Elvis Presley #28/75
1 Gloss parallel - card #11 U.S. Presidents #9/10
8 Mini cards (1 duplicate)
3 Buyback cards - Batman Movie, Superman II, Beverly Hills 90210
2 Test cards - #2 Flipper, #8 Shock Theater
6 autographs - didn't fair too well here - I got:
Taylor Mane as Sabertooth from X-Men
2 - Julia Nickson as Co from Rambo
2 - Richard Kiel as Jaws from Moonraker
Joyce DeWitt as Janet from Three's Company this one's a rainbow foil variant



All in all a pretty nice set...it's fun to see some of the cards I collected as a kid
as well as seeing some (quite a few!) for the first time.

Greg

Those SEEM like good autos to me. Jaws aka Lurch, and threes company. Not bad at tall...

They are good autos...I was just a little bummed that I pulled 2 duplicates. I'll use them to trade for others!
After thinking about it, there are only ~22 different autographs in the set and at 3 per box, duplicates are
going to happen.
Greg

I just got a box of this for Christmas (early present) and it is indeed a beautiful set.

Hits-wise, I got the same Richard Kiel Moonraker and Julia Nickson from Rambo autographs as the above break, but my third autograph was the kid from Harry and the Hendersons in the foil version. I was hoping for one of the biggies of course, but would've been happy with an Anson Williams Happy Days or Joyce DeWitt from Three's Company.

The subjects of the base cards are varied and celebrity heavy with cards featuring Elizabeth Taylor, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, James Dean, John Travolta (on the Grease and the Welcome Back, Kotter examples) to name just a few.

The foil parallel versions come one per pack and I was really happy with my 24 of those since they included Gilligan's Island, Batman Illustrated 1966, Wacky Packages, Partridge Family, Marvel Super Heroes 1976 Stickers, Happy Days, Star Wars 1977, Grease, Incredible Hulk TV show, E.T., Batman Nicholson Joker, and Robocop 2. I got most of the foils that I wanted but would've also like the ones for Charlie's Angels, The Simpsons, Mars Attacks, GPK, and perhaps a few others.

I got a Diamond Sparkle Parallel (#'d to 75) of "Get Smart", very cool since I love that show, and my one per box Buyback card was from Ghostbusters II. I have to double check, but I don't think I got any Test cards, so a bit of bad luck there.

Great set, but one box is enough of these for me, at least at this price.
Perhaps this was an expensive set to produce and Topps had no choice on the price point, but this really should've been a single autograph per box with the cost of each box around $40. It is too expensive as released at over $80 per box, even with 3 autos per.
One other quibble, but a minor one, since it likely was a cost measure, but it would've been cool if the cards that were originally stickers (GPK, Wacky, Nutty Initials, and so on) could have been actual stickers this time, too.

Thank you, Topps, for 75 years of classic cards, and this fun trip down memory lane, definitely a victory lap for arguably the greatest card company of them all.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
I have to double check, but I don't think I got any Test cards, so a bit of bad luck there.

The test cards are numbered 1-8 and the easiest way to identify them is the fact that they
have a green colored back. I missed mine the first time through the cards, too.

Greg

I did get one after all, the Crazy TV shows.
Looking at the cards, there is a mistake on the Star Wars base card. It says those original 1977 sets were 55 cards when they were actually 66 cards. Kind of surprised that got through...

Bought one box for fun. Enjoyed the set on the whole a fair amount. Sort of wish there were more cards from each set, but I understand why there weren't.

My buyback was a "Welcome Back Kotter" card. Three autos were Bill Mumy, Mark Goddard (both from Lost in Space), and a redemption for Corey Feldman's auto.

The redemption situation is the only thing that put a damper on the set for me. I have received no fewer than 10 redemptions from Topps in the last 4 -5 years. I have only received one of the cards. They say they shipped 5 others, but could not tell me what method. Never arrived. Maybe they got lost in the mail... Two others they cancelled. Two are still waiting to be fulfilled after 3 years.

Maybe I'll get the Feldman auto, maybe I won't. I just hope that if I do, it is Goonies related.

There's redemptions? Oh no. Well, according to my mail tracking, I should get my box tomorrow! We'll see what I get...

So this morning I'm sitting at the computer still drinking my morning coffee and - the mail truck stops by and I get my box from Ed. So there I was opening packs before 8 am. Here's what I got:
1 base set of 100 cards, plus 58 extras
24 Foil parallels
1 Sparkle parallel, numbered 54 of 75
4 Mini cards
1 Test Issue card
1 Buyback card - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
3 autographs
Tyler Mane
Julia Nickson
Dawn Wells

Overall, happy with my box, no duplicate autos and all ones I wanted. Now have a complete set of Mini cards and 2 full sets of base cards Have 3 test issues and 5 buyback cards, and 50 foil parallels. Overall a great set, and enjoyable reading.

Which Sparkle Parallel did you get Don? I'm looking for a #69 Star Wars.

It was the Ghostbusters one, and I also have the Outer Limits, Dewman.

I thought about picking up a second box, but I saw a seller had listed the black printing plate for the Simpsons base card. The Simpsons are one of my main collecting interests, so I was able to get that for $38 and they had some other cards cheap, so I put in for those as well and ended up with the plate, a Diamond Sparkle for ET, buyback cards for the Simpsons & Superman II, and 3 of the test issue cards for around $50 delivered. (I probably could've picked up the Joyce DeWitt auto the seller had if I didn't cheap out since it only sold for $6.50 as it was. $7 probably could've gotten it.)

I'd mainly still like the Diamond Sparkle for the Simpsons along with the other plates to go with the one I have, plus any plate or a Diamond Sparkle for the Star Wars card and the DeWitt and Anson Williams Potsie autographs, so I'll probably direct the rest of what the box would've cost me towards those things and stand pat with that. I do want to finish the Test Issues and I'm halfway there but still need Superman and Six Million Dollar Man, so those might cost a few bucks.