— #SWCC Star Wars Authentics (@Topps) April 11, 2019
It was this cryptic tweet which sent a certain sector of the online card collecting community into an absolute tizzy Thursday night. The implication that the cult-favorite Topps Total product would be returning to store shelves sometime this year is enough to make many a low budget collector dance for joy. I, for one, was tempted to run down my street while joyfully announcing the news to my confused neighbors.
The basis of the original Total brand was to provide a broader look into the playing rosters for baseball, basketball, football, and - briefly - hockey teams in any given year. When it comes to baseball, that meant an incredibly large, one-shot checklist of over 900 glorious cards, which featured the likes of backup catchers, utility infielders, middle relievers and Quad-A in-betweeners who are all-too-often ignored by Topps' Flagship and other numerous products. This all-encompassing set featured a few inserts and parallels; but, all in all, the focus was certainly on properly documenting each team's active playing roster as best as possible. Running from 2002 through 2005, Topps Total may very well have been my favorite Topps product of all-time.
Why is that you might ask? Well, if you've ever read Wrigley Roster Jenga, you know that my baseball card collection revolves around the Cubs' all-time roster. My Cubs' All-Time Roster Collection, in which I attempt to obtain one card of every man to ever suit up in Cubbie Blue, has been my main focus for more than a decade, was what inspired me to start this blog in the first place (to document my progress), and is the most treasured binder on my shelf. Therefore, with that collecting goal in mind, it shouldn't come as a surprise that such a product would be so important to me and my niche compilation of cardboard.
Total's original run produced rare Cubs cards (sometimes the only known examples) of several cameo Cubbies in my collection, including, but not limited to:
Alan Benes (2002-03)...
...Chad Fox (2005, 2008-09)...
...and guys who I have yet to track down in the wild, like Kent Mercker (2004) and Pat Mahomes (2002) - the journeyman pitcher, not his star quarterbacking son. Thanks to the Trading Card Database for the illustrative scans - if you have spares of these particular cards lying around, I'd love to talk trade.
In fact, in one case, Topps Total is responsible for the only known Big League cards WHATSOEVER of a 14-year MLB veteran. Believe it or not, it's the god's honest truth.
Ron Mahay, who was born and raised almost next-door to me in Crestwood, IL, appeared in Major League games from 1997 through 2010, and yet he never appeared on a single non-Total pasteboard. The 2004 piece and it's compatriot from 2005 are Ron's only Major League documentation to come in a traditional format (though there are some oddballs floating around). Strange, right?
The reason for this slight is really quite simple, Ron Mahay was a scab - he served as a replacement player during the player's strike of 1994-95 and crossed the picket line to attend spring camp with the Red Sox. As a result, Mahay was banned from the MLB Players' Union and thus kept out of all events and products associated with their licensing. Of course this never changed for Mahay (or any of his fellow picket-crossers), so I don't know why the shun was lifted for two years of Total and only Total; however, I sure am glad that Topps gave a little bit. After all, though it may be a Rangers card, with such an odd circumstance, I'm lucky to have any card of the 2001 Cubs reliever for my CATRC, let alone a Cubs one.
As you can see, Total may have only been around for a scant four years, but it has continued to be an invaluable resource for my most hallowed collection. Needless to say, I was absolutely pumped up to see that the product was making a grand return.
Well... I was, anyway. Then, Topps released the details...
2019 Topps Total Baseball details, checklist and team set lists (for #1-100 of 900): https://t.co/2XBma312x5 pic.twitter.com/suhSl7uIwL— Ryan Cracknell (@tradercracks) April 12, 2019
I'll let Ryan Cracknell handle the overview - feel free to pause here and read his article about the "Total package." If you don't want to take the time, I'll distill it down to the nitty gritty - they've turned Total into some quasi-high end BS.
The concept is still the same - a 900 card checklist which shines the spotlight on each team's roster, from top to bottom. However, this is where the path begin to diverge from the source material. This time around, it's only going to be baseball because, you know, license exclusivity. The set has been broken down into waves (nine in all) of 100 cards each and will only be available for a set amount of time. You know what that means: you won't be finding these cards on the shelves of your LCS or the aisle-ways of Target and Walmart. Total will only be available online. In my eyes, this is a bit of a downer, but not a total deal-breaker. I'd much rather be able to swing by a shop and pick up a few packs of my primo product; but, this is the 21st century and all. Online shopping my preferred avenue, though it is not the main problem in this situation.
Here's the thing, the OG Total was a low-end, set-builder focused product with packs of ten cards selling for about $1.50, as I recall. The revived version will also feature packs of ten cards - through the Topps website, of course - with a price tag of... wait for it.... $10.
That's right, ten bucks for just ten cards... a dollar per card. That's insane!
While the price falls in line with most of Topps' other "on-line only" products like Now and the Living Set, in those cases, the buyer knows exactly what they are getting when that box shows up on their doorstep. For Total, we have to slap down an Alexander Hamilton for a ten-card, lottery scratch off in the hopes that we end up with the cards that we desire. If I not lucky enough to pull my Daniel Descalso (the only person making their Cubs debut, according to the 2019 Total Wave One Checklist), in the first overpriced pack, it could cost me upwards of $20 just to snag this base card? No thank you.
Now if there were a way to purchase team sets or do some sort of subscription service for this bastardized version of Total, I might still consider partaking. That said, ten dollars for a pack is a price point that is simply ludicrous. Hopefully the singles show up for cheap on the secondary market, as investors and breakers are the only people ready to jump at that rate.
I guess I'll just have to make my own....
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter, what are yours? I invite you to share how you feel about these developments in the comment section below. Do you think that Topps is gauging collectors with this pricing? Does the online exclusivity bother you more than it does I? Do you find this all to be perfectly reasonable? Do you even share the same warm-fuzzies about Total that I do? I implore you to weigh-in on the matter on this post as I am quite curious how my fellow collectors feel about all of this.
In my humble opinion, this turned out to be a Total letdown.
Leave it to Topps to mess up something this easy. I was in the same boat as you--excited and then disappointed. But not surprised in the end, I guess, since Topps doesn't care about regular collectors, just the case-breakers.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am definitely willing to buy from the same company/website that was involved in a significant data hack a few months ago.
ReplyDeleteAdd me to the very disappointed list.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the price point, had it been released to stores, I may have actually been interested in collecting a baseball set.
Here's my two cents. I seem to be in the minority but I'm in on this set. Loved the originals in hindsight because I wasn't an active collector during that run. While the per card average is higher than other retail based offerings, this is significantly lower than their other on demand products.
ReplyDeleteThe secondary market should be fine with this set. You'll have guys like Bryant & Rizzo & Baez that may end up being more than the average buck-a-card but I'm sure guys like Rosario and Descalso will be in bargain bins like most other high end product base cards.
But you probably know, if not, full disclosure, I'm pretty much in the bag for most of the on demand stuff. I'm not a high end collector, I can bargain hunt with the best of them, but a buck a card just doesn't sound outrageous to me these days. Maybe because I have been paying $5-7 for their other offerings. Or because with bubble mailer shipping these days, I end up paying $4-5 shipped for a card I want/need from the retail sets anyway.
I get the disappointment, I do. But not every set is for every collector. I'm not into Panini w/o logos, even though admittedly I've seen nice looking cards. I don't get the appeal of all the non-baseball stuff in A&G. Not my thing, so I don't buy it.
Great post,I always try and keep the Orioles 40 man roster in cards during the season. Topps Total would really help out and I wouldn't have to go with so many Minor league /Bowman cards.
ReplyDeleteI am both heartbroken and not really that surprised at the same time. Topps has a tendency to screw up stuff like this.
ReplyDeleteTotal had a cult-like following because it was a 900 card set, which included lesser known guys, AND the low price point. I was all in on the Total train when I first heard about the 2019 release, but now that I know the details there is no way in my right mind I could try to build this set. From packs, with perfect collation it would cost $900, and that's assuming not one parallel would be pulled. I don't spend that much on cards in a normal calendar year. If I tried on the secondary market I could probably build two-thirds of the set from dime boxes, but the rest would break the bank. I'm really happy it's back, but I so badly wanted to build this set. What a bummer.
ReplyDeleteWow. Talk about a roller coaster of emotions. Started off pumped. Walking away annoyed.
ReplyDeleteI got an e-mail from Topps teasing the return of Total. I was excited. I didn't see the details until today, and I'm disappointed like most of the responses. Dropping a buck or two for a pack of backups and middle relievers would be fine, spending 10 wouldn't be.
ReplyDelete