Stacks of Wax 2! Part 4.1! 2015 Topps Jumbo box break! The base!

Today, the base portion of the set. Tomorrow - inserts, parallels, and their ilk.

I will start with the bad news. That way I have something to look forward to when I get to the good news.

And the bad news is the only complaint about this box. Collation. Collation was ghastly. With a 500 card base set, I figured to get about 400 base cards with inserts, since Topps collation seems to be pretty good lately.

I barely broke 300, and ended up with about 85 dupes. That hurt. But, maybe I'll grab some retail and try to remedy that.

And now, on to the good portion of the base. Namely, the photo choices.

Here are some of the vertical base cards:

Great celebration shots. Great tackling shots. Great catches. But that Jamaal Charles, with him bursting through the curtain of rain is perfect.

But the horizontal ones aren't bad either:

The catch! A desperate attempt to stop Carlos Hyde, but the framing means my favourite in this bunch is the Keenan Allen.

We get some throwback uniforms.

And, probably my favourite of the choices, the use of draft day photos! It is nice to have some rookie cards that aren't from training camp, the Combine or The Rookie Premiere. It reminds me of some of the junk wax cards from Pro Set or Score. I've got one more of these, but that will have to be shown off tomorrow.

Looking deeper into the checklist, even kickers get some base cards.

Even a punter found his way in! Since I only have about 60 percent of the base set, there might even be more hiding in there!

Here's the backs of the cards. I'd like full stats, but what can you do? This from one of the many dupes, and it is the most recent card in my 2/14 collection. Sorry to 2015-16 MVP entry Marian Gaborik.

So, what card should I use to wrap this up? Although with Panini getting an exclusive, it might be a lot of people's final Topps base cards, I'm going to highlight someone for whom this truly is their final one.

Tomorrow: Inserts, Parallels, and Hits!