Collect call: Topps Ticket to Stardom Baseball

Posted Oct 4, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Oct 4, 2009 at 09:33 PM

With Ticket to Stardom, Topps has put together a baseball card set that should appeal to set collectors. To buy a hobby box of this product generally means you can assemble more than 95 percent of the 200-card base set.

There are 20 packs to a hobby box and 12 cards to a pack. In addition to the base set, there are an additional 25 rookies, which are naturally tough to get. The hobby box I sampled produced just one rookie, but 196 of the 200 base set. One of those cards was damaged, though, which was unfortunate. Nothing worse than opening a new pack of cards and seeing a new card with a spider web crease on it.

. There are also parallel cards (I have seen them referred to as die-cut cards) that are corrugated at the top and bottom, like a ticket might be. At first, I thought they were misprints, the distinction was so subtle. There were 17 in the base set and three rookies.

The design for the base set is fairly simple: a white border, with a UPC-like code at the top. The bottom has a silver foil bar between the team name and the player’s name.

There is a parallel set, and the only difference is that the silver foil is blue.

As you might expect, the game-used and autograph cards, along with the inserts, have a ticket theme to them. One set of inserts is called Ticket to Stardom and the hobby box I saw produced five of them, including David Price of the Rays.

There are two levels of Authentic Ticket Stub game-used cards. The Ticket Stub Plus card was a single-swatch card numbered to 10 of Albert Pujols. The Ticket Stub Plus 2 card was a dual-swatch card of Josh Hamilton.

The autograph card in the hobby box I saw was a combination swatch-autograph of Joba Chamberlain, numbered to 469. The swatch had a nice stripe down the right side; the autograph was on a sticker.

The final sizzle card was a Brandon Webb Authentic Ticket Stub from the opening day of the 2009 season: Diamondbacks against Rockies at Chase Field.

The backs of the cards contain seven, and in some cases eight, lines of very interesting information: stats, highlights and more. And, an occasional line that will make you laugh out loud: “…his bullpen protected his hairy 1-0 lead.” That one came from Erik Bedard’s card.

Anyway, this is a set that doesn’t bowl you over with its design, but it is easy to complete and the game-used and autograph cards are cool. This set reminds me of Topps’ signature product, in the sense that it is inexpensive and easy to collect.