Early or Late Happy Holidays?

 I'd love to hear some others opine on how much the Topps Holiday set is a good/bad idea to others. I have never seen the need - just another release to try and milk more out of collectors as the set isn't really that creative/different to flagship to warrant the run. Again, just run it as a parallel to the flagship set with whatever odds you like, and done.

For what it is though, the design tweak is good for the theme - nice use of holiday colouring, can't deny that, and the snowy design on the fronts is nice too - just a whole lot of unnecessary. Not sure if I got the remnants of a set picked over a few times, but no dupes and about 35% of the set as a whole with nothing special variant or short print wise, so a slow day that way.

No Jays as they must have been plcuked out at some point along with most/all rookie cards. The back designs are consistent to flagship with the holiday colour tweak.

Most of the cards are above, but all are listed on TCDB for trade. Being the middle of March, not sure I like the reminder of more fun times like the holidays, but a reminder this was indeed!

Tekkie

 Well, had some cards from the prior year High Tek set from Topps, and here we get some from the 2019 offering which seems to be a step down.

Don't get me wrong - I am a sucker for the acetate / see through card design in general however the simplification for this product where different designs are just part of the base set, seems counter intuitive to the name of the set. Now, it may not be my thing, but if any set is going to have 20 different effects and designs, this would be where to do it, and instead it seems to have reverted from the prior offering.

Doing the different designs of the full set and running them as variations or parallels would have been the way to go - again, not my thing, but seems to be par for what this set would call for. Oh, and yes, a few dupes as shown above.

I do get a new for me Jay with Halladay, but again, the backs - understandably a bit stuck for space to add anything, do very little with what is provided and in a super tiny font. Again, not for me, but fine I guess for the overall design and flow of these cards - just not ones that will be sticking around in my collection if anyone is looking for a little start on the set though, let me know!

Heritage For Trade

 The BASEball card lot provides a couple hundred cards today from 2019 Topps Heritage. This is a set I would collect to finish if I had 75% or so - though there are a fair number of short prints in the base set.

Oops - cut off part of the left side of the cards with that scan, but the work on the design mimicking the 1970 design extremely well.

Most of the cards are from the latter part of the set, and though there are a couple short print keepers, the big plus for me is....the Jays content!

I had a copy of almost all of them, but given the lack of Jays in this lot at times, glad to have the additions.

I just count the pure base (not short printed) when looking at the percentages, just not enough of the set here to really drive forward with collecting it, but never know - if I happened across more before trading away too much, I could still work on collecting this one as I do like it overall - save for some of the cards having multiple base card variants (I mean, why do we need them?).

A Little Queen

 Another day, another dabble through a different set with cards from the BASEball lot, this time 2019 Topps Gypsy Queen.

Not many cards from the set to share - 15 of the 300 cards, but I do get a Stroman to show for it. There have been a few designs over the years that I have liked but typically they have not been my taste to enjoy. 2019 is not one I enjoy and haven't been collecting.

The lack of stats on the back can be hard to overcome, and I just don't like the front design enough.

What drives you to collect a set? As has been obvious, design is a big one for me - if I don't enjoy it enough, I won't want more than just my Jays from the set. Whether flagship or otherwise, I have to like the design. I will make exceptions if a lot of the set falls in my lap as I like the completions aspect. Do you collect a certain  set each year, even if you don't like the design? If so, which? Why?

T.O. Content

 Last three packs from the Duo Timmies set which I got back in August last year for my birthday, and all new cards still but some Leaf content finally!

I loved Tie Domi for his run in Toronto, and was excited that Max became a Leaf as well. Max is a solid addition and may not have the flair that his dad did, but I think the connection provides lots of love from the long time Toronto faithful. A great card connecting the two.

The rookie connection card inserts are pretty nice too - again, highlighting a couple great stars in a single card, and with odds of every six packs, not at a crazy insert ration so these are still manageable to actually collect and get.

Easily the better opening between the two items so far as I needed every card in every pack of the TImmies packs, so no surprise there.

Hello Nurse!

 I guess the nice part of opening three packs of the Timmies Duos set is, at three cards each, I can do all three packs in a single scan.

All new base cards, but we get a good highlight of how women's hockey is getting a bit of focus in the set. The Rivals insert in the first pack relates to goalies and their matchups in the PWHL. I like the By The Numbers inserts which highlights Sarah Nurse, but so does the one in 24 pack Captains card which is a lenticular card including Sarah there as well.

Nurse was among the players involved in really getting the PWHL up and running and played part in the Player's Association. She has been a fixture on the Canadian National Team including representing for silver in 2018 and gold in 2022 at the Winter Olympics as well as being part of the gold winning World Championships in '21, '22' and '24 as well as the silver in '23 and bronze in '19. Very nice to see her heavy representation in the set!

A Birthday Gift Opened

Finally getting around to opening the bunch of packs I got from my mom last August  for my birthday. 

Though it is probably my least favourite Tim Horton set, it is still a Timmies set and I am still going to collect it! The Duos are interesting in having the full photo, both sides, on the base cards, but the total lack of stats and write ups take too much away for me to really enjoy it. A couple packs today and a couple more days worth, let's see how this opening goes...

Pack 1:

The Family Foundation inserts fall every four packs, and whether I have a great disdain for Montreal or not, hard to argue against that being a great card! Looks really good too with the shiny.

As for the base cards - the design is too bland and the wasted space below the name bar doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Pack 2:

I don't mind the inclusion of the Canadian national team cards as it's a great way to get inclusion of some of the great female stars of the game.

As for the Family Foundations insert - not quite the star power of the first, but with me not having any cards from the set really, these are all new to me keepers.