Yearly Factory Inspection

While I certainly pay some attention to every new release, the drop date for Topps' factory team sets is circled, in red ink, on my calendar each and every year.  Marketed towards casual collectors and kids, these pre-assembled sets offer a healthy sampling of both the new edition of Flagship and the roster of your favorite team.  While some may see them as a lazy rehash of the already circulating Series One and redundant bloat in an already engorged hobby, there is still plenty for me to like about these blister packs.  Thus, I have grabbed one off of the rack at my local card shop or big box store  since 2014, when I discovered what set them apart from their twin brethren.

So, why not just collate a team set of Series One and be done?  First of all, in order to draw extra intrigue and motivation to purchase, these factory team sets usually include one of two of the featured team's big off-season signings or trade acquisitions that came in too late to be included in the S1 checklist:

In any other normal off-season, Yu Darvish would have likely been making his Cubs uniform debut in this product.  However, with the sluggish pace of transactions during the 2017/18 winter, the ink on the ace's contract dried well after the deadline for both S1 AND the factory sets.  Thankfully, Brandon Morrow signed back in November and the new Chicago closer debuts in Cubbie Blue in Yu's stead (Photoshopped though it may be).

This maiden Morrow now Cubgrade the late-inning arm's representation in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection binder.  This may make some collector's skin crawl, but I have no apprehension in breaking this team set up in order to meet my individual needs and goals.

Moving on, it's not just entirely new players to the organization who pop their heads into these blisters; additionally, there's yet more uniformed personnel who don't yet appear in the 2018 Flagship roster:

  

 

  

These cards serve as previews for who may be included in the forthcoming Series Two and Update sets later this summer and fall.  Or, heck, they may not show up in anything else whatsoever - I guess we won't truly know for certain until this October.  Either way, these factory sets offer a greater glimpse into the roster construction of your favorite club.

Also, can we all just agree that, no matter how you feel about this waterslide design, that Zobrist card is a piece of art?  A leaping grab on a beautiful summer day, set against the lush, green ivy of Wrigley Field.  Paging Once a Cub - this horizontal hero would make a wonderful addition to your Ivy Frankenset!

One further characteristic that distinguishes the factory team sets from the rest of Flagship are the usual photo variations.  Every year, there's a few cards which feature different pictures than their standard counterparts:

Although, at least for the Cubs, this year's plastic pack only contains one photographic switcheroo, courtesy of Willson Contreras.

The factory team set version is on the left, while the the Series One take is set to the right... personally, I think that this change is a serious downgrade...  I'll take a jubilant athlete over a generic batting snapshot any day of the week.

Lastly, the rest of the team is, in fact, filled out with cards that are basically duplicates of their Flagship equals.  Some may feature slight variations in cropping or positioning; but, for all intents and purposes, they are merely copies of the originals.  Although, as illustrated in the WillCo side-by-side above, the factory team set cards lack the foil found on the Topps logo in the upper left corner.

 

 

Like I said, there's not much here that distinguishes these cards from their pack-pulled brothers, other than the lack of foil.  However, the ability to instantly acquire a team-set of my favorite team (plus the benefits included above) heavily outweighs this slight let-down.

One further difference is found on the back side of each card.  As you can see, in the upper right corner, these factory set singles have their own numbering system, which technically makes them entirely different cards, even if they convincingly ape Flagship.  So, dedicated team and player collectors can count of these blister packs for yet another variation.  On the plus side, the fact that Topps included a specific "team set" notation under the numbering, removing any question about one is holding in their hand, is a nice plus.

Also, since including social media handles on the rear of their cards now seems to be a set thing for Topps, they went ahead and included Twitter and Instagram @'s on the back of the FTS, as well.  Last year, while the account info found it's way onto Flagship, the factories featured a generic hashtag promoting Topps' own social media instead.  In 2018, they appear to be fully committed.

All in all, the new players and the further fleshing out of the team roster make these blister packs a worthy purchase, at least in my opinion.  The prices on these puppies can range anywhere from five to eight bucks, at least from what I've seen (I've found that big boxers usually charge a tick less than your local card shop).  Thus, I can certainly see where other collectors would see these as a simple redundancy and a waste of cardboard, time, and money.

What's your opinion on Topps' factory team sets?  Please feel free to share these thoughts in the comment section below!