Saturday, 1 June 2013

2013 Archives Box Busting - Good Thing/Bad Thing

My LCS finally got in Archives boxes yesterday evening, and I went down right away to get my pre-ordered box. I got right to ripping, and came up with some pretty nice cards once everything was opened. It was my favourite base set from last season, mainly because I liked the idea of "If I don't like one base design, wait 50 cards and it will change".

I'll probably get more into things later today or tomorrow by showing some of my favourite pulls, base, hit or otherwise. But this morning, in return for a tasty RAM chip, I'm going to say one good thing and one bad thing about the box.

Good Thing: Collation. It couldn't have been better. 24 packs. 8 cards per. Not a single duplicate in the box. What more could one ask for?

Bad Thing: Re-used photographs. The first one the jumped out at me was the Altuve. The retro uniform card was one of my favourites of the Series 1 flagship. It had to just be a coincidence the photos looked very similar, right?

Nope. Same shot. Just cropped differently.

Since the Blue Jays game was starting late out in San Diego, I decided to look to see if any others matched up.

Well...

Here's another one from the flagship.
And from the "This is ridiculous" files, here's one that goes back a few weeks to recycle a picture from an earlier set.

When considering only cards I had, and not counting retired players or posed shots, these were the ones I came up with that appear to be recycled photos from sets within the past year.

6 Adrian Gonzalez - Flagship
22 Alex Rios - Flagship
23 Jordan Zimmermann - GQ Relics
56 Josh Reddick - Bowman
89 Barry Zito - Flagship
93 Ian Desmond - Flagship
107 Kendrys Morales - Heritage
109 Sergio Romo - Flagship
116 Billy Butler - Topps Tribute Autos
132 Bronson Arroyo - Flagship
151 Jason Motte - GQ Relics
152 Craig Kimbrel - 1972 Minis
168 Pablo Sandoval - Museum
169 Pedro Alvarez - GQ Relics
176 Jose Altuve - Flagship
189 Homer Bailey - GQ

Ugh. Not good. And that chain link fence on the back of some of the Red Sox set looked awfully familiar from last years Heritage. In fact, the Jon Lester does appear to be the same photo as well.
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8 comments:

  1. Roy-Z1 June 2013 at 07:36

    Zero inspiration in 2013 sets.

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  2. Robert1 June 2013 at 08:51

    Thanks for the heads up on the reused photos. Makes it easier for me not to buy any of this...

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  3. night owl1 June 2013 at 08:58

    I noticed this yesterday. It's not a set worth anyone's time.

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  4. Ryan H1 June 2013 at 09:40

    This is just getting ridiculous. I agree with Roy above. There is no inspiration in the 2013 sets. I'm slowly losing interest in the hobby when I see the same recycled ideas/pictures that Topps is using these days. I can probably guess 90% of what Topps' release schedule will look like over the next 7 years.

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  5. Rosenort1 June 2013 at 09:41

    You can add Yogi Berra with 2013 and 2012 Gypsy Queen.

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  6. Nick1 June 2013 at 11:50

    I noticed the Altuve repeat after I saw it on another blog yesterday, had no idea there were so many others. I might buy a few loose packs and just pluck the rest from dime boxes over the next few months.

    If Topps doesn't want to put any effort into their base sets, then I won't be buying any. It's a shame because I've always thought that Archives is a really good concept. The execution is simply lacking.

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  7. gcrl2 June 2013 at 04:16

    i saw this yesterday, too - adrian gonzalez, altuve, and rios. plus, as excited as i was to see that davey lopes is one of the sp's, topps used a photo that upper deck used back in 2004. not quite as bad as recycling from a 2013 release, but still...

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  8. P-town Tom2 June 2013 at 06:23

    With the advent of technology you'd think it would be even easier than ever before to find NEW photos than before.

    Some may say the execution is poor or that inspiration is lacking. I see it as just plain lazy.

    ReplyDelete