It has become a tradition to get that final baseball set of the season for Topps’ signature product. After working on Series 1 and 2, it’s time to tackle the Updates & Highlights set.

Topps kept to the same design that made Series 1 and 2 so successful, and added to the inserts like Ring of Honor, Turkey Red inserts and Legends of the Game. It’s hypnotizing to a set collector like me, who automatically thinks: “must … complete … set and inserts.”

Back to the present. A U&H hobby box contains 36 packs, with 10 cards to a pack. That is definitely good news for the set collector, and here is some more: while you won’t finish off the base set of 330 cards with one box, you shouldn’t get any duplicate cards, either. The box I sampled had 279 of the 330 cards, plus a variation card of Rogers Hornsby (card No. 71), that replaces the Chase Utley in the regular set.

Each pack also contains a Ticket to Toppstown card that is geared toward younger collectors. The set of 25 is easily completed in a hobby box, plus there should be five or six gold parallel versions too (the box I saw had five of them).
In addition to the base cards, there were 13 gold parallel cards (all numbered to 2009) and one darker-colored parallel (I have seen it referred to as black, but it looks like charcoal to me) numbered to 58. That number is significant because it matches the years Topps has put out a baseball card product.

The Legends of the Game inserts continue to baffle me in several instances, only because the cards showcase legends at the end of their careers.

For example, Juan Marichal is shown in a Red Sox uniform, but the high-kicking right-hander will always be a San Francisco Giant in my mind. Same deal with the Ty Cobb card, which shows the Georgia Peach in a Philadelphia Athletics uniform (he ended his career with the A’s after two decades with the Detroit Tigers).

The other inserts are generously sprinkled throughout the box. The hobby box I saw had five of the 25 Ring of Honor cards and 10 of the 50 Turkey Red inserts.

A new insert set, called Propaganda Posters, shows modern players depicted in World War II-like, “We can do it” victory posters.

The one relic from the box I saw was a nice one — an All-Star Stitches event-worn card featuring Rays outfielder Carl Crawford. The swatch came from a workout jersey Crawford used during the All-Star weekend.

Hobby boxes also contain a specially wrapped pack containing a rookie chrome refractor, in this case Jhoulys Chacin.
Nicely wrapped up and tied up in a bow — that’s how this product makes a baseball card collector feel.

Now we can look forward to Series 1 in 2010.