SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome to Talking Cards with Grant Salami and the Duke. I am the Duke, along here with my co-host Grant Salami. Bird. How's it going, Bert?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah, it's doing good.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's uh Heritage Eve. Yes it is. And by the time we look into it to us, this will be Heritage Day. And it's a good day. It's not the best day, but I can't complain about a new product rules. I will complain a little bit, but you'll you'll hear that in our thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

We don't have pack odds yet, so I can complain about that.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah, for sure. And I have other things about Heritage to complain about, but at the end of the day, you know what you're getting. Nothing has really changed too much. So I can't complain too much because it's nothing unexpected. There are some things that that I do and don't like about this product for sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah, oh yeah. It's a it's a niche product, isn't it? It always is. And there's some very dedicated set collectors out there that just worship heritage and that's all they collect. And that's not your when you look at like the ultra modern, the fanatics effect and everything that we're doing around breaking uh heritage isn't the first product that comes up.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, to go from Bowman's best to heritage. They are two pretty much opposite sides of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, well said. It's very true.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

There will be three SKUs for Bowman Heritage. We will have Hobby, of course, and for retail, we will have Mega and Blasters. We will focus as always on the hobby aspect of it. It's going to be$119.99 for a hobby box. There will be 12 boxes per case for those of you getting into breaks. It is something that you definitely want to know. And the release date is today, as of the time that you're here in this episode, March 18th. How are we feeling about the price?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Feeling pretty good about$120. If you can get it at that price, I think these boxes will be safely above that for a while. I think right now on secondary, they're about$150 the day before release. And uh a lot of people looking to buy it on DealerNet and things like that too. So folks are folks are willing to pay$150 a box plus, at least for release day.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah.$120 is not a bad price for a hobby box of anything right now. Even though there's not a guaranteed auto, you have the typical that you see in Top Series One and Heritage and Flagship. You are guaranteed a relic or an auto. And the way that I view relics in this product and most products like this for hobby is pretty much you pull a relic in it and it's like a sorry mist.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Maybe in the collection relics too, yeah. I don't know. The design this year is it they're always kind of bland, aren't they? Those clubhouse collection relics.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, they're really nothing special. You're really not going to find the most amazing relics in there. There's also just not enough room. It's not a jumbo relic, it's just a small little thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

It's it's like the meaningful material in flagship, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Even if you get Otani or a rookie relic, you know, it's Yeah. That's about it. All right, so what you will expect in a hobby box is as we just said, one auto or memory card, three inserts, eight base short prints, eight dark gray bordered base parallels, chrome variations, SP or numbered parallels, eight total, and chrome, chrome light blue sparkle parallels eight. That's what you can expect out of a hobby box.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Do you like those light blue sparkles?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

I don't mind them.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, they when did they first come out? Was it 2023 they first came out? I want to say. And they've been kind of a staple since. But they they actually do pretty well, I think, for how common they are. They're not very rare, but I think like if you get a gr a graded version of a top rookie, like those actually tend to sell decently for heritage.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And when they use the term SP and base SP, that's used very loosely. Like I said, there's gonna be eight per box. So it's not really short printed as I would define it, but for heritage, it's just obviously less common than a common, but nothing crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

High number SPs.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah. Yeah, those are uh those are set collectors cards. Get up on eBay, have the set collectors buy them or buy them early.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

If you look at the checklist though, I don't even think they are usually they do like one through 400 and then 400 through 408 or 401 through 480 is the SPs, but the SPs are just randomly distributed throughout the numbering. So it's gonna be hard to figure out which was an SP. Usually you can say, oh, okay, any number over 400 is short printed, but not this time around.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, I haven't I haven't seen any images of the backs of the cards yet, but sometimes they make it harder to see what's a variation than other times. It just depends on the release and which ones they decide to mark and where they decide to mark it. Usually it's around the card number on the back.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

I was able to see one of the backs of the card, and yeah, it's it is there, not for the numbered as in just where it's a different number variation SP, but like the cartoon variations and stuff like that, you'll still see like image or it'll say something. It's still not very easy to see, but it is there. All right, so visually, this year they are going with the 1977 tops design, vintage, throwback, pretty standard, not bad, not great. When when I think of heritage and what I want to see visually, the only thing that I can see and look at and say, wow, that is a sick card, is when you get into the red ink autos. That is when I could say, okay, I would rather have this auto over an auto from most other products. That's the only thing that strikes me visually when we when it comes to heritage. This is a this is very much a personal thing, as in you can have a completely different opinion on it and it's totally, totally valid. But for me, it just doesn't do it for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, I think for me the refractors always really pop in heritage. I think back to a card that I owned on multiple occasions and I sold on multiple occasions that I should have just held, but like a Shohei Otani Hotbox Purple Refractor out of uh 2018 is rookie year. That card, those cards just pop. And I think one of the reasons why they pop so much is because the the regular Heritage base card is so bland on the paper at finish, and it's not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

But then it doesn't feel like heritage to me anymore at that point. Like I get it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Especially the light blue sparkles and stuff like that. Like, that's pretty bright and colorful and too much for me. It's not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

So the base checklist is 400 players, huge checklists. That is normal for this product. There are five different base paper parallels, and then when you get to chrome, there are 12 different chrome parallels. So, of course, huge checklists. You're gonna have all the major rookies that we we are going to have all the major rookies that we've seen in series one. Just quickly rifling a few off Jack Keggs, Roman Anthony, Nolan McLean, Cam Schlittler, Savage, Bryce Eldridge. I put him there twice for some reason. So I probably was missing someone. Uh, Mizrowski, Visayo, Chase Burns, Bubba Chandler, anyone that you wanted to throw out there? This was just my glance at it and the names that I saw.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

No, but you know what I'm thinking about, Juice, is do you think Topps sent the WBC or or USA baseball like some grease payments to get Roman on the roster? Because what a great situation for Topps to be in. Imagine, you know, these Roman is so hyped right now. And I think for good reason he's an amazing player, but the WBC has helped him quite a bit too.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I think, you know, it's always a lot of these products are gonna revolve around the number one rookie chase. Roman very clearly is the number one rookie chase, and him performing like this in the WBC, Topps has got to be sitting back and saying, this is great. Like he he's gonna be able to carry our 26 products. Very similar, actually, to James Wood last year, who came out the gates really hot in April and May. Topps was fortuitous to have that happen. It doesn't always happen that way. Look at 2021.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

You know what they could have really liked if um Italy made the championship and you had Jack Keggs, Roman Anthony, and then they were both just going off.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Ball too, kegs, both in spring training and the WBC. Um, it's a it's a really nice rookie class, I think. You know, the pitching depth is fantastic. You have uh a number of guys that could be aces, and then Roman and Jack at the top for hitters is solid. I think we're the 26th rookie class, and we'll talk about this for a lot of product releases where it lacks is I think hitting depth. But yeah, it seems like they put everybody in heritage that they should have. No surprises.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Three of those names that I said, I believe. I think the pitchers outnumbered the hitters, which is very rare to see for the chases for rookies. The variations. So we were talking about this before, they're usually found by an indicator on the back saying which one it can be very hard to spot. They are definitely there, not for every variation necessarily. So when you get this product, go through all your cards with a fine tooth comb and check the back. It's usually on the same line that the number is inside the baseball, usually somewhere along that line. I believe that's what I saw in the image that I saw today. Um, it'll say like image or cartoon or logo or or something, but don't just do this for cards that you rip yourself, do it for breaks because breakers can just as easily miss this. Some of them won't go through and look for it. Yeah. And if even if they do, if they're if it's a full case, that's a lot of cards to be able to. It's it's forgivable. This is forgivable as long as it's all base ship, which for this product you have to do.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

100%. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Don't no matter how reputable your breaker is, you know, it's very tough to sort out some of those variations. I wouldn't trust anybody with that.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

So the variations that we have are the all-star logo variations, the image variations, alternate banner variations, throwback jersey variation, and the black and white image variation. That one you can probably spot. If not, you gotta have your eyes checked. But yeah, that one you should be good with.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

The nickname variations for me are always the most fun. And I'm very happy to see Cal Raleigh in the subset, Big Dumper. Like that'll be his first time having a big dumper card, I think.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, this is this, the variations, definitely one of the highlights of this product, actually. I know he mentioned the red ink as the only thing I like, but I was exaggerating a little bit. The variations can be very fun. I have a Juan Soto childish Bambino. That's one of my favorite cards. That's a PC card forever. And yeah, so these variations can be a lot of fun. Some of them, though, uh it's just I'd rather just get them to a set collector and resell them at the back. Because I don't I don't care about the cartoon on the back being different.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I know, yeah. Those ones don't do it for me.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Last year they had the upside down bat variations, and again, not something that I don't care about something being different on the back, really.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

No, me neither. Yeah. Um, some of these nicknames are actually pretty good, but like but Bobby Baseball, that's a good one. I love seeing that. I've never heard Jonathan referred to as the Canadian canon.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

But you have that. There's another Canada guy in here who gets a Canada reference. That's Josh Naylor. His says just matter?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

It says the Mississauga Masher. Okay. Which as a Mariners fan, I nobody calls him that. We call him the big grumper. That would have been even better because he's always got that serious look on his face, and he's pleasantly plump, just like Cal is. Anyways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, these are definitely fun. They are hard to hit though. Uh, you you don't see a ton of these.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

And the list of guys for the nickname variation, there's only 10 cards.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, they're gonna be very rare. Although there's quite a few on eBay already, and it's just the day before release, but I know a lot of people got their pre-orders early.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah. Next up, we have the relic cards, and again, I don't want to spend too much time on these because you don't want to spend too much time on it. You don't want to really see it. It's a disappointment to hit one. It's a sorry missed.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

There the total checklist is 98 guys from the clubhouse collection relics. Real one relics is 50 cards. Yeah, flashback relics, which is what they sound like. It's for guys from the past. Clubhouse collection dual player relics, 15 cards, and uh five cards for the what is it, triple or quad?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, you know, this is one of those things where it's like, even if you get like the coolest thing that you could get here is like a hand numbered one. Like out of 77, hand numbered. But even at that, like they're just not they're just not the coolest cards, are they?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

What I'm really hoping on, I know we don't have the odds yet, but do you remember Heritage High Number this past year? How the autographs, how much they came out along with the red ink. I'm really hoping that our odds keep us in that direction. I don't think it will be for this. I think it will be more for high heritage again, heritage high number. Yeah, but I can hope.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

It was 24 heritage high number where they made that shift to start inserting more autographs in, and a lot of it had to do with some of the changes that they made in the way that they built out the product and the checklist. But that did carry over in a 25 heritage high number. And I think um, I hope they I hope they continue to make the autos a little bit more prevalent than they did in years past. Like I think four or five autos a case, a 12 box case is a good is a good amount. You know, traditionally in the past heritage might have only been like three. I was gonna say like six autos in a case, but I've I've seen a lot of openings already where people have opened six boxes and not hit one auto.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah. Yeah, seal cases is the way to go on this, I think. But four four autos per case is is the number that you want to be seeing. If it starts to be less than that, it's gonna be really tough on brakes. It already is tough enough. But if you see less than four autos a case, just typically, yeah, I'm staying even further away from this than I'm gonna talk about later. But as far as where we're at for the autos, it is 114 car checklists. These are the real one autos. This is the chase of the product, this is what you want to see, this is why you're buying these hobby boxes for the best chance to hit these. They have such a clean look, they are super sought after, you know, not like their typical like flagship rookies, but a lot of people, this is really their niche of what they go after. So you can certainly get a premium for it. And remember, this is also only the second 2026 release of the year. You have opening day right around the corner. So, yeah, you can really flip this around pretty quickly, but they are hard to hit. It's a 114-card checklist. So it is a deep checklist where you don't have a ton of guys that you are going to love. You do have Judge and Otani autos on the checklist. You have a lot of old school guys. The Ken Griffey Senior trap is back. A lot of notable vets and retired guys, uh Trout, Skeens, Nick Kurtz, Yamamoto, Vladdy Jr., Tatish Jr., your rookies, you have Jack Keggs, Roman Anthony, McLean, Bisayo, Mizarowski. And just to go back to that Judge and Otani point, because I think we point this out like every week that we talk about Judge and Otani having autos in it, they don't each have a one in 114 chance of their auto coming out. All things are not created equal. I created a PSA and I posted it to all of our socials, letting everyone know to not expect that this is another case of that. We could be pleasantly surprised, but we won't be.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

You hope that like those big names, though, you know, Judge and Judge and Otani at least sign their 77 red inks.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

And I think that's usually the case. Now, whether or not Topps puts all of those red ink autos into packs is also another question. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me, right, if Otani has fewer blue ink autos than he has red ink autos. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Or if he doesn't have how do you feel about this auto checklist? What do you think about these autos in this?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

I think it's okay. I'm a bit disappointed with the legend autos, honestly, just looking through it. Like a guy that you oftentimes see in the real one autographs checklist is Nolan Ryan. No Nolan Ryan this year. That's a bit of a disappointment. No Ken Griffey Jr., no Barry, no Barry Bonds. Yeah, so the legends to me are a little bit disappointing. I think it's good that they put Judge and Otani in there, like you said. And it also seems like they they hit on all the top rookies, too.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

It's very easy if anyone wants to see what legends are on there. It's very easy to look at the checklist because all the legends are 77 RO and then Dash. So they're right at the top of the checklist, at least when you look at Beckett. Yeah, you got Reggie Jackson, George Brett, Andre Dawson, Mike Schmidt. So, you know, those guys where they are legends, but their autos, money-wise, if that's what you're looking at and that's how you determine the value of a card, nothing special.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

The insert autos, though, are pretty cool. And we got the duel and the quad. You know, these are, of course, we're gonna assume pretty rare. You do have Nolan Ryan on a duel. Yeah, that that would be an awesome hit. It seems like they're tying one old school guy with one new guy, Roman Anthony and Fred Lynn from the Red Sox, Jack Keggs and George Brett, which is seems to be a pretty common dual auto that they really like to do. But how many legends does Casey have? And then you have the quad autos. There's just three cards here for the Royals, the Red Sox, and the Brewers. What is cool this year? I don't know if you saw this, they have the expansion autographs. Were you able to check that out?

SPEAKER_01 17:07

The expansion autographs. The uh Blue Jays and the Mariners for 77.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah. And they do have red ink. Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

No players that I know.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of, even as a big time Mariners fan, I do not recognize any of those names, those three names. Glenn Abbott, Gary Wheelock, Steve Braun.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

There are gonna be some old school collectors, though, that are gonna be drooling over these cards, though. I bet there are gonna be a bunch of people though, when they hit these, they're gonna say, Who the hell is this guy? They're not even gonna know what they hit. And then they're gonna look online and be like, oh, actually, it goes for for a decent amount. Yeah. Because I don't recognize these names. Who knows if they ever really sign cards? I'm sure there's a reason for it. There's not really demand, but yeah. Next up, we have the Turn Back the Clock autos. This checklist is excellent. It's just seven cards. Cat.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

There's Barry.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

There's Barry. There's Hotani. Honestly, even as a Mets fan, I gotta say the worst auto on this checklist has to be Mike Piazza. I think I think our two uh hometown guys are the worst autos on the checklist.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Felix and Piazza.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Mm-hmm. Yeah. King Felix and Mike Piazza are the two worst, but honestly, you can do a lot worse than that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

What's those would be extremely rare?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah. Next up, we have the chrome autographs. This is 13 cards, very solid guys. You have four different parallels. You have gold border, orange border, red border, and superfractor. And I'm just assuming these are going to look gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

I've been, I was just scrolling through eBay. Because my first question when I look at this is are there base versions, right? Of course, you get the golds out of 50, orange out of 25, red out of five, superfractor one of one, but are there base versions? And it appears that there are. I've seen a Bubba Chandler and a Colson Montgomery Refractor Auto. They're unnumbered. That's going to be one where probably some of these guys signed a lot more than some of these other guys. But that checklist is awesome. Very similar to Stadium Club, right? Stadium Club, this past rendition, introduced Refractor on card autos for the first time. Heritage, it was, I think, last year that they introduced the Chrome and Refractor autos for the first time on card. Immediately, these become one of the biggest chase cards, I think, for any particular rookie. I'm looking at the Roman Anthony Gold Auto. It's up on eBay for 6,000. What an unbelievable looking card. Just awesome. Huge fan of these. I think because there are so few of them and they don't make too many parallels of them, they're even more valuable. But the big question is, how often are they going to be inserted in packs? I think they're going to be really hard hits. We don't have we don't have pack odds or anything like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if you only find a Chrome auto or any of the parallels like one in five to ten cases.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, I I agree for sure. Yeah, they are going to be super tough to hit. And they print a ton of this stuff. Because remember, you also had the retail of the mega boxes and the blasters, which is great, because I I think that is, I think this is a good product for retail. But these are going to be in retail somewhat. So it's also going to dilute this a little bit as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

That's what I honestly. When I when I go to open up the two cases of Heritage Tomorrow in our PYT that we're running, I'm just hoping that we pull a nice chrome auto. I'm not really expecting to in two cases, but if we do, I'm going to be very happy.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Maybe a red ink. A red ink in two cases isn't crazy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah, yeah. One or the other, I think I'd be happy with. I'd be I'd be ecstatic with the Chrome auto though.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

With the Chrome, you know that it's gonna, it's gonna be something nice.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

So yeah, that there won't be any disappointment with any of these names that you hit. Like there are definitely some that are better than the others, but yeah, it's it's a very solid checklist. I I'm glad that when they do something that's this rare like that, I really like it when they don't include like a throwaway name to just puff up the checklist a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Next we have Clubhouse Collection Autograph Relics. This is 23 cards. These are the patches along with the auto. Solid checklist, again, just I'd honestly I'd rather have just a real one auto over this. I I just feel like it makes the car too busy on a product like this. But with these names, I can't complain about pretty much any of these autos that I get. How do you feel about this?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

This might be one of those cards too that depending on which player, they're probably gonna be hand numbered to different numbers too. So a lot of it will depend on the rarity.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, you got uh Paul Skeens, Lottie Jr., you got some, you got Mike Trout, no Otani on this. Yeah, you got some you definitely got some nice names. You got some legends, you got Johnny Bench, Steve Carlton, some rookies, you have Jack Keggs. Yeah, it's a solid checklist, but yeah. Dual autograph relics. There's only two different cards Judge and Reggie Jackson, Jackson Jurio, and Robin Yao. Again, you can't complain if you hit one, but those are gonna be stupidly rare. Like, why even have it on the checklist when you're just gonna have two cards?

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Yeah, I don't know. It feels like if you're only gonna have two, like it feels a little underwhelming that those are the two that. Put in. Judge and Reggie is cool. Churio and Youth leaves a little bit to be desired.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah, for sure. Flashback auto relics. These are just old school guys. Uh, auto relics. You got just six names. Yes Shremsky, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, Robin Yaount, Steve Carlton. And really not worth spending much more time on that. There was Once a Man Autograph Relics. This is six cards. It does have, yeah, these are relics. Again, pretty similar checklists. Carlton Fist, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, Robin Yount, Steve Carlton. These seem like they could be pretty cool. I think this is the first year they're doing them, so I'm just interested to see what they look like. But the checklist isn't anything crazy. And lastly, we have the topp's original buybacks autographs. And we do have odds. One out of 5,091 packs.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

So the weird packs included.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yeah, I don't understand it, but yeah, those are always cool to hit. Yeah. So we don't know who we're gonna get. You don't know who they included, but they're always so neat to see pop out. Yeah. Any other thoughts on the autos or the auto relics here?

SPEAKER_01 23:05

No, you know, I uh it's like I don't plan they're so rare to hit that it doesn't even like factor into the value equation to me for for heritage, especially because they're not like massive chases. You know what I mean? Like, yes, you hit a hand numbered Cherio Robin Youth dual auto. Okay, it's super rare, but it's not gonna be worth all that much. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

All right, so let's get into our final review of it. Rip it, flip it, or break it. And I will start with this. And I will give my unbiased opinion because I hate to trash on a break, since especially since we're doing uh since you are a breaker, but I know you understand. I am not a fan of brakes of this product. The brakes for this can be so brutally slow. For me, it's just it can be so boring to watch, and there's just not that many hits. The hits are so tough, and the checklist is so big that even if you finally see that auto after watching three boxes of just base and a couple of chrome and nothing really colored, you're probably not hitting anything worthwhile. It's just few and far between. There are some real nice hits though, like don't get me wrong. Like I said, there are a lot of things that there are a few things that I really like to be had in this. But then also some breakers, which is the right thing to do, they'll go back through and just try to quickly see if there's any variations. It's just so slow for me. And if you are someone though that's looking to do a cheap break just for something to do that's gonna take up some time, sometimes you're like, all right, I have an afternoon, nothing going on. Maybe there's a cheap break to just have on and just see what's going on. This could be a really good product for that to just chill and watch. Yeah, so not break. I don't think it has great flip potential. Like Bert said, it's going for like$150 um secondary right now. So it's really not worth it to try to just make a$30 flip after fees and everything. That price can go up. So if I had to do one of the three, if I was getting this product, it would be a rip. Ripping cards and a slow rip like this isn't as bad if I'm ripping it myself. It's a cheap entry point to be able to rip. It's a lot of packs to go through. I don't like having to go through on my own, finding those variations because I don't trust myself in my eyes. But the variation hunt can be fun if you do find something. So those are my thoughts. Bert, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, I feel like we might we might need a fourth option for this one, you know. Pass. But I but I think that this segment is more so like if you're going to purchase a box of the product, do you want to break it? Do you want to rip it as a personal or do you want to flip it? And between those three, like if you really want to get a box of heritage, I think, I think you rip it. Um and you just hope that you run into something really cool and rare in, you know, a one or two box. And then if you don't, then you're not down too much money. You know, it's a pretty cheap rip. If you're gonna break it, I would say what I've what I've noticed is that a lot of the big rookie teams are overpriced in heritage. I think it's really hard to hit with the length of the auto checklist and how hard it is to hit chrome and refractors. It's hard to hit anything for one of these top rookies that's going to get you any anywhere close to the entry price for a PYP for somebody like Roman Anthony. However, I do think demand for this product's breaks is a little bit lower in the aggregate, and you're gonna have a lot of people out there trying to break it too. So if you're looking at eBay auctions on PYPs, multi-case stuff, you might be able to, if you're looking in the bargain bin, you might be able to find some somewhat decent deals on players, especially if you keep it to just a pick your player break and you keep your price down. Like the risk isn't very high, and you could probably end up if you if you put in the legwork, you could end up selling off some of the stacks of base that you're gonna inevitably put together if you're joining multi-casers, even if you don't hit Yeah, that's kind of where my head's at. It is a I hear you, man. As a breaker, it's it's it's a tough product to open and to keep it entertaining. Like I find myself, I find myself feeling that when I'm opening heritage. And I I like the structure of heritage. I like seeing the variations and I like having to think really hard as you open it up. But there are times where you open up five, six, seven packs and there's no hits, no variations, no nothing. And it's kind of just like it is it's a slow, slow burn and it's a thinking man's break.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

One of the hardest parts about opening heritage is it actually opening, physically opening heritage. Is that one of those tough packs?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, they they tend to be sometimes. It just depends on the release. But yeah, I've I've I've definitely thought of some heritage packs in the past that are that are quite hard to open.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, that that can get to you, I'm sure, uh as a breaker going like especially if you're doing multiple cases or something.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

But I had one of my coolest ever pulls actually when I got back into the hobby. This was peak COVID, man. This was peak COVID. Uh, it was very rare at this time to find anything on retail shelves. If you went into a Target, everything was going to be cleared out by flippers who were looking to profit off of just buying those sealed boxes. I found one hanger box of Topps 2021 Topps Heritage, and I pulled a red ink Dylan Carlson auto, who at the time was one of the top rookie auto chases. And uh that was one of my, honestly, one of my favorite ever personal pulls. It's a little, you know,$15 hanger box or whatever it was to pull a card like that was pretty special given the rarity.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, no, that's definitely a fun, yeah. Seeing that red ink, especially for D6.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Now I ended up trading it to my dear friend G2, who was a Carlson collector, a big Cardinals fan, and he's got it in his PC forever, even though Dylan Carlson has uh since parted ways with St. Louis and kind of not quite lived up to his potential.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

So let's give our final thoughts here. Visual, we will start with that. I'm gonna give it a five out of ten, which is meh to me, you know. It doesn't differentiate itself too much from heritage. It's exactly what you were expecting. The relics are nothing special. Yeah, you they're really not gonna reinvent the wheel because, well, they're looking back at the wheel and seeing how the wheel was done before. Uh but the thing that really stops this from being like a three or a four is just those ready photos and the potential for those chrome. That really just elevates it and makes it just average to me.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, I like the 77 tops design probably better than I like 76, but I like 75 more. I think it's kind of middle a middling 70s tops look. But like I said, some of these, like the Roman Anthony card for me, really pops. If you end up finding Chrome or a Refractor Auto or Roman Anthony, that's gonna be a pretty sick card.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Short-term value, I'm giving this a four out of 10. I don't see much potential for a quick flip here. You can really get your value from set collectors if you're the first to market with some of this stuff and people are looking to build that set. You can really be able to flip a lot of that base quickly, which cannot be said for every product. So that can really help you out. I would also try some bundles. I'm not giving this below a four, also, because I don't think that it has negative potential, especially we'll see how the rest of tonight goes, and you will know by the time I listen to it. But like you said, Roman Anthony can really carry this product in the short term. So yeah, I'm at four out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, I think four is pretty pretty good rating. You know, I'm kind of right in there. I think I may go a little bit higher just because it is so cheap. If you are ripping on release day or before release day and you put in the legwork to list in bulk and you know, which most people don't. Most people just let the card sit in a box and gather dust for the next couple of years. But if you're actually working to take pictures and get them listed on eBay right away, I think you end up clawing back, you know, most of your entry cost. But it requires a lot of work. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Long-term value, I don't see this holding up well. Three out of ten. It's not worth stashing for a potential return in the future. Yeah, I just I just don't see it with heritage. Like people that were building their sets, those have been built at that point in the future. If you're looking to hit those guys, it takes so many boxes. Even if there is like a big rookie in the future, it's gonna take so many boxes to be able to see anything where you might be able to hit it. It's just not the product I would choose if I'm looking into the past to see, hey, where can I hit this big rookie auto? I'm not thinking, oh, heritage is a good product to make it find that. So three out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

No, it's a really good point. You know, you you always like to go back to 2018. Like if your guy, if your rookie ends up being one of the best of all time, like it was in 2018 with Shelly Otani, look at the prices of Heritage. It's one of the most affordable 2018 boxes you can find. Like the rate that Heritage has gone up compared to other products that came out in 2018 is is quite low. You also look at 24 high number, like anything with the Skeens rookie in that 24 tops class, especially towards the end of the year when he actually started signing and having base rookies in the product, all that stuff is through the roof. 24 Heritage High Number, even with the amount of color and the autos that you could find in that heritage checklist, has still not gone up all that much. So I don't know. I just don't think that, like you said, it's not one that's gonna ever really move the needle, even if a guy ends up being one of the top chases.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Breaking is up next. I pretty much gave my very negative thoughts on breaking list already. I will give it a three out of 10. Just a boring break to me. Not a ton of excitement going on. I definitely would not recommend a player break for this, because they are it's just so hard to hit on an individual basis, unless you're like a 50 case. Those are out there. If you're doing a 50 case and go for it. Um, but if I were to grab a team, I would really try to grab someone with multiple players. I would try to go for one of those mid-tier teams, probably.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

I'm not if you're doing a 50 case or you got you gotta send your breaker a tip, man, because that or better yet, to like to the sorting team, because that's just that's a grong.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

So yeah, I would I'm not looking at Roman Anthony or Jack Haggs as a chase in this product. I am looking to see because there's still gonna be breakers have to price it with demand at the end of the day. I think that that's correct what you say, right, Bert, at the end of the day, mostly you gotta go with demand, like what it's so I think those teams are gonna be overpriced just based on people are what they're willing to pay. And I think that will help out the mid-teams a little bit. And if you can find a team with multiple hits and multiple chases, that's really the route I would go if you were to be breaking this, because you really gotta, you really gotta try to get ahead of the odds on this one because they are very much against you.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting here thinking, I always think about like what constitutes a good case. Like I'm gonna open up a couple cases tomorrow. Like, and I always like to give my opinion on whether or not it was an average case, a better than average case, an excellent case, or on the other side of the spectrum. I don't know. I just think that there's it's so tough to have an excellent case of heritage. I think now that they've added their refractor autos, a lot of it comes down to whether or not you pull one of those or a red ink auto. If you don't pull one of those, it's very hard for me to imagine many situations where you have a good case.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

And lastly, the checklist, four out of ten, very long base checklist of at 400. It's normal for this product. You it's not like they increased it or anything like that. So it is what is expected. So it's really great for set collectors that really want to chase those guys, but for everyone else, not so great. It does hit all the big players and the rookies and the big rookies, and it is one of the first two products where you're going to see for the 2026 year. So this is the first time that a lot of those rookies are getting on a 2026 checklist. But yeah, just four out of 10, just slightly, slightly below average.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, I'm with you there. I think that's that's a good evaluation. You know, I think that they the 26 rookie class I do like, but 400 names is too too long for any checklist, no matter how many cards come out, especially given that the base cards aren't worth very much at all. So I give it a four as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Talking Cars with Grand Slami and the Juice. And yeah, that that is all that we have for you today. We will be back. We are going to be talking about a product that we are very excited to see that we got a lot of info recently on Bowman basketball. All right, any final parting words, Bert, before we go?

SPEAKER_01 35:04

No, good luck, everybody on your heritage rips. And uh looking forward to talking about Bowman basketball. Yeah, big, big shake up there.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yes, good luck today, everyone. Have a good night. Or you're probably listening during the day, have a good day.