SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello and welcome to Talking Cards with Grand Salami and the Juice. I and the Juice, along here with my co-host Bert. How are you doing, Bert? I'm doing good, Juice. How are you? I'm good. It is top series two release day, and we have a lot to talk about with that. Uh, we're also gonna be adding something fun to this the uh podcast that I want to talk about. But before we get into that, I always like to shout out one of our partners, card purchaser. If you don't follow him on Twitter already, follow him. He's gonna give you all that up-to-date information on all the releases, all that real-time info. But if you want it really, really quickly as it comes, all the retail buys. If you missed out on getting platinum from Target, for example, and then they had it up again today. Go on his Discord, follow his Discord, it is worth it. You'll be able to get the retail products that you want.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

A lot of these getting platinum blasters at MSRP now is an absolute steal. I was looking on DealerNet today, they're at like 50 bucks a case, 50 bucks a box for a full case. Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

They went back up on uh Target today and on the card purchasing discord. I saw that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

For 30? For 30, yep. Yeah, CP's doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Good available for like 10 minutes or something. But if you're trying to find something like that, that's the place to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So before we get into our top series two preview, we are going to start with something fun, something new that we're gonna add to our podcast. We are going to do some blind rankings. If you never heard these before, pretty much I'm gonna give a category, and then Bert is gonna have to blindly rank them one through five. I'm only gonna give him one piece of what falls under the category at a time. So to celebrate top series two, we are going to do the top tops paper products. So these are products that are just paper. It could have a chrome insert here or there. So as flagship does, yeah. But it's gonna be something that's predominantly paper. You're not gonna be hearing about tops cosmic chrome in this list. So, Bert, you can't see right now, but through the magic of video editing, I'm gonna have a one through five on here, and then I'm gonna add them in one by one as you say them. Okay, all right. So let's go. We are going to start with an easy one. Where would you rank this in your one through five tops flagship? So that encompasses series one, series two, and update out of your top five favorite tops paper.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

I don't get to know what the other four are right now. I'm just nope.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

You're gonna blindly rank it, and like let's say you do it five, then you hear something that's worse, then your rankings are gonna suffer for it. You're gonna seem like a fool.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Man, it's interesting. If you would have asked me this five years ago, I might have gone a little bit lower, but I'm actually gonna slot flagship in like the number two spot. And I think the reason why is Fanatics and Tops has really rescued this product with the number of the case hit SSPs that they've added in. The all aces and the all kings have been fantastic, huge chases, absolutely. And the real one autos, that's big, having on card like true rookie autos that are up there with like the tops chrome in terms of the echelon of any rookies, rookie autos. Um, and then now, like most lately, these 1952 variations and the 1952 autos, they've thrown in so many nice little Easter eggs in the flagship that all of a sudden I feel like at the price, it's a really good rip. I'm gonna slot them into two.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Okay. Number two for Top's flagship. Next up, we are going to go with Topp's archives.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Well, I love archives. I love archives. I love the random legends that you'll get thrown into archives. A lot of players that you don't ordinarily see in a checklist. You never know what you're gonna get when you open up a personal of archives. I also love the connection to the past. It's a little bit different than heritage. Not every card is gonna look like the same. You're gonna, there's gonna be multiple subsets within archives where you can go back and you can like there might be four or five different years that they're making an ode to. That keeps it fun and exciting as you rip through a box or as you rip through a case. But I'm gonna select that at three. I think archives in terms of resale value and just overall experience is actually a little bit lower than flagship. I might you do get two autos a box, though, right? Yeah, you do get the two autos per box. Yeah. But oftentimes, you know, the autos that you get in archives are gonna be pretty questionable.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

So next up, I have a very love it or hate it product, I feel like. Alan and Ginter.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah. I'm gonna put Ginter at four. I'm gonna give myself room on the five and the one side. This is gonna really come down to it. I'm gonna end up putting something bad in the one spot, aren't I? I don't know. Ginter is not for everybody. It's probably not for me necessarily. I think the celebrities and personalities that they throw into the checklist are are interesting for some folks. For me, they don't really do it. I think they're always like kind of like C list celebrities too. It's kind of strange some of the names that that that end up going in there. Like I'm I'll find myself breaking the product and like I don't I don't really know who this is. Ginter's fun, you know. Uh stuff like scratch and sniff and weird stuff that you see them throw in, fossils and x-rays and stuff like that. It's kind of fun, but it's not it's not necessarily for me. Four.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

All right, four. Okay. Next up. So what do we have left? One in five, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I know, I didn't leave myself much room here.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah. All right. So next up we have Stadium Club.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Is this now or is this five years ago? You know what I mean? Like that's I'm gonna have to put them in the five spot because this past year's Stadium Club release was just a bore. It was terrible. They ruined the product in many ways. We love like the roots and what makes Stadium Club Stadium Club, the photography, you know, the fact that you're not just looking for hits, but you're also looking for really cool images of base cards and the fact that the base cards actually sell pretty well sometimes, but they really kind of torpedoed Stadium Club in a lot of ways with what they did to the product. I'm gonna have to slot that in at five because Stadium Club this past year was just so bad.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I think you're gonna be very happy with how this is gonna end for your number one.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

This is gonna be hold on. There's not that many options left, are there? Black and white.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

All right, next up, black and white. Yep, that was it. So you have to rank that number one. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

I feel great about that. That's easily the number one there. Yeah. You don't find many paper products that are like black and white. You know, it's it's a lot more akin to like uh like a cosmic chrome or like a you know finest, the way finest flashbacks used to be, or the way that Ben Baller used to be in terms of the frequency, the parallels, the abbreviation of the checklist, the fact that you're probably gonna get some pretty good names in there of your parallels and autos. Black and white's awesome. Can't go wrong with black and white. And I know that's your favorite thing too, Juice. So you you'll agree.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I think that was a very solid list, a very solid first-time blind ranking.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Actually, retroactively, I don't know if I would have changed all that much.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

I would have swapped um Allen and Ginter with Stadium Club for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That might have been what I do too. Yeah. It's hard to put Stadium Club Club below Allen and Ginter, but for some people, Alan Ginter is number one, though.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

So and I can't blame them for that. But yeah, so now the big reason why most people are listening is it is series two release day. Not as exciting as series one, but still very exciting. We got some cool new stuff here. We got a lot to talk about, a lot to break down. First of all, this product, if you're listening today, June 5th, Wednesday, it comes out at 12. Hobby boxes, the pre-orders are 140. I don't know what the jumbos are going to be selling at. Uh 250.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I usually a sealed case of hobby and jumbo are very, very similar. So yeah, that would make sense at those numbers. 250 times six would be 1500. What'd you say the hobbies are?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

140. Um, I'm on the wrong thing. Hold on. All right. 127.99. 128. So actually, yeah, 250 sounds right. Um, June 10th um is when Wednesday, June 10th at 12 p.m. Eastern. I would box you're going for 128. Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That's not too bad.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Those are gonna be 20 packs per box, 12 cards per pack. You're gonna get an auto or a relic. Expect to find a relic. Jumbo is your guaranteed that auto and a relic, just like we saw with series one. Jumbos are now down from two relics to one relic, which ultimately wasn't a huge deal, I don't think. Another big difference, Hobby has one silver pack, jumbo has two.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So, juice, let me ask you this just based on like flagship that you've ripped in the past, because obviously we don't have pack odds for this release. We just have like sneak previews and we have a checklist and and things of that nature. So we we don't know, we don't have any really inkling of how things are gonna fall pack odds wise between the two configurations. But given the fact that hobby and jumbo are generally similar prices, what would you rather rip? Say a personal case of or join a pace a case break for the same price. Would you rather join hobby or jumbo?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Jumbo. Jumbo, but hobby is closing the gap because Topps is starting to do a better job with those cases and those parallels and the golden mirror, which seem to hit more in an overall case of hobby than jumbo sometimes. Until we have those pack odds, it's hard to know for sure. But the auto isn't even necessarily the chase anymore because the autos for flagship don't hold their value like they would for Chrome. But those all aces, those all kings, the HFAs, the golden mirror variations, that that's a spot where you can really start finding yourself some money. And then also we have, we'll talk about it more. We had those short-printed rookies, which if they could be found just as commonly price-wise in hobby as jumbo, then that that could really be the play.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

It's interesting. I you mentioned retail too. Like the last two releases that we've had chronologically, 2026 Bowman and then 2025 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary, the blasters have in both those sets been way better than expectations. Like I wonder if we're gonna see the same thing in 26 series two. We didn't really see it in 26 series one. I would say the retail configurations were not great. But sometimes in flagship, hangers can be bangers. So I don't know. We'll see when Slab Squatch does his does his magic. Hopefully they post the pack odds, or happily, hopefully, by the time that we've actually put this episode out, the pack odds are already up and we can kind of start to see that.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

But yeah, definitely when you're done listening, check out Slab Squatch to see if he's posted those odds because those are really gonna help you make a decision. He does really good breakdowns based off a price point as well, not just telling you what you can expect, but what you can expect as per the price. All right. Um, so what we're looking at here is a 350-based checklist with a whopping 48 different parallels, again, in line with what can be expected with what can be expected lately. Those parallels can change according to whether you're ripping hobby, retail, all the way down to hanger exclusives. What do they have? They do have jumbo exclusives as well. They there are four different one of ones that I'm seeing. You have the first card, which is the first one off the the print, the press. The first year they did that, they screwed it up. You had the foil fractors. For those that don't know, paper cards have foil fractors, chrome cards have super fractors. Pretty similar looking pattern. Printing plates, one of ones, though those could be up to four different colors, I believe. Zion, yellow, black, then the one I'm forgetting off the top of my head, and the rose gold hollow foil one of ones. So that's what we're looking at as far as our one of ones. But yeah, big checklist starts at 351, continuing from the series one checklist. And at first glance, what are you seeing here, Bert?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

At first glance on the on the base checklist, it feels like series two. You know, usually series two is gonna be anchored by a few top rookies that are getting their flagship rookie for the first time. That lines up here. As you go through your favorite team's base checklist, you're probably gonna see some names that you say, that's an interesting name to see. But hopefully, most of the guys that you haven't seen, like veteran-wise, hopefully most of the guys that you didn't see in series one, you'll see in series two. Um so usually I think the like the veteran checklist is a little bit stronger than update. But this is all gonna be about the top rookie chase, you know, the top few guys here.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

So in the base checklist, we have Murakami.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So that is the rookie chase in this, and it is first flagship rookie card. So definitely something to look out for. We have, I'm gonna butcher the name because I just realized I've never said it out loud myself before. Tatsuya amai. Um, so we have him here, and then we have four guys that are technically not on this base checklist because they are actually short printed, but that you should definitely be looking for. We have our four big rookie short prints. We're talking about Kevin McGonagall for the Tigers, JJ Weatherholt for the Cardinals, Carson Benge, Mr. Five for Five. Went five for five just a couple nights ago. That was awesome. Up for the Mets, and Justin Crawford for the Phillies. Those are gonna be very short printed. It reminds me of when they did it a few years ago with Jackson Holiday. Um before that, they did it with like Julio and Wit.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I was gonna say two Julio and Wit SPs. Yeah, those were big cards at the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I love it when they do this. Yeah. And I'd expect with Jackson Holiday, it wasn't crazy short printed. I know if you did like a five or ten case break, you could expect to hit a couple. I don't know if that's gonna be the case this time around. It seems like Topps has gone in stingier and stingier with their short prints. Maybe they just because they've increased the production, they just haven't increased that short print number, but we're not gonna know till we have odds. It will be a fun chase, but but who knows um how often you can expect them.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So these cards are gonna be numbered 697 through 700. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yes, so they're technically alternates, they're variations for Brian Reynolds, Andre Pellante, Jared Young, and Freddie Freeman.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Because that's who they they are on the checklist.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

They're not gonna be Gold Mirror. No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, because the Gold Mirror has all 350 guys, yes, so they will not be Goldmir. I wonder how short print they will actually be. Hmm. I'm interested to see if anyone hits a bench. I will be a buyer. I'm very, very excited to see that card. And maybe they'll do something fun with it. Who knows? We didn't know about those Jackson Holiday, the fun face ones, until they uh came out and we started seeing them. And then everyone made a huge deal about them, and they are still really cool cards. I don't know what they would do, but they could certainly do something and have a lot of fun with it. I really like it when they try to do things like that. It really it brings a lot of eyes to the hobby, I feel like. It's it's just a good thing to see.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Absolutely. I like it. I miss my SP is the old S SP SSP model a little bit, so it's nice to see it return in in kind of a little in a little fun way here. The ultra SP. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Next up on the checklist, like we were just talking about the golden mirror variations. Uh, this is for all 350 cards in the checklist. Once again, it is seen by on the front of the card, you'll see the top logo. It'll be gold instead of silver, but it's easiest to notice on the back. You'll see that gold mirror finish on the back, and also on the front, of course, it will look like an unusual card. So those shouldn't be difficult to spot. Just check the back of all your cards to make sure is what I would recommend. But yeah, this has really become one of the fun chases of flagship, is these gold mirror variations.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, definitely. I feel like they nailed the rarity of these things. You know, I I think that if you're joining case breaks and things like that, you won't see them come out very often and with 350 names in the base checklist. Like they're pretty rare. They're pretty rare. If you hit any player, regardless of their status, stature in baseball, like it's a fun hit to have. You'll be happy with it.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And then our other variations we have vintage stock, we have clear, which is out of 10, true photo, we have team color border, holiday variations. Those are just out of value boxes, player number variations. Well, before I get into those, so the ones that I just mentioned, that's limited to just own 100 cards on the checklist. We talked about this back in series one. I like that they made this a shorter checklist because when you hit one of these, you want it to be a decent guy, and that really helps curate that for you. Player number variations, 25 cards, big Apple Foil variations, those are just in the fanatic space boxes. They're definitely cool. Uh, we talked about the short print rookies just for those. And then Golden Mirror Legend variations. This is limited to 50 cards. These are going to be stupidly rare, but a lot of cool names. Mostly Hall of Famers, some more recent guys, Miguel Cabrera. You got A-Ron, Mark Wire, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, uh, Ricky Henderson, Lou Gehrig, just to name a few. And then what's new? Actually, I believe it's new, the through the years Golden Mirror rookie cards. This is just with uh isn't this what they did with Judge? Possibly. I don't remember because they're so rare. I don't even remember seeing any. Uh, this is just five cards Jida, Roberto Clemente, Jackie Robinson, Ricky Henderson, and Mike Trout.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, that's a cool concept what they do there. And they are extremely, extremely rare. But I remember they had an Aaron Judge version of these in series one, and it was it was very sought after.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

And then the last variations we have, my my favorite of these variations, 1952 variations. They started these in series one. 20 cards. These are also extremely rare. Uh, this is just for the top rookies, and uh this is based off of the 1952 design. You've got, let's see, Murakami has one. That's a guy you're looking for. Chase Delauder up there as a good rookie, Sal Stewart, Trey Ya Savage. So just 20 cards, but yeah, you hit one of these, you should be happy.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, it's interesting. Below Murakami, it feels like there's kind of a second tier of those top rookies that have flagship rookies, but they're worth talking about, right? Like Delauder got off to that super hot start and he slowed down a little bit. He'll be a big chase. Yes, Savage obviously had the big playoff performance last year. He's been hurt and he's still finding his way back. But those are some decent names too at like the, you know, kind of like the number three, number four, number five area of the checklist as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Jack Haglione just hit his second homer since we've started this recording this episode today.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Uh speaking of good rookies.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

And I know you don't want to talk about the Yankees, but obviously Mr. Schlitler will make an appearance in the checklist in here in somewhere too, won't he?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he has an all-aces card, which we're gonna get to in just a moment. All right. So, yeah, let's next let's talk about the inserts. We're not gonna go through every insert, we're just gonna talk about the big boys. So, first pitch, this is what we've been seeing uh lately a lot. This is just six cards of some celebs. No one that really stands out to me. Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld has another one in this. Hayden Christensen. So if you're looking for that Anakin, wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

That's a surprise.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, he probably has a deal with top three Star Wars, and they're like, let's just throw you in uh series one too, make some more money off of you.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yandell. Wow, okay. And then for the rest of them, I think I'm probably showing my age.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

I don't know the rest of them. Yeah. So that's mostly why I skipped over. Uh, but the first one I do want to talk about really is heavy lumber, which I love. 25 card checklist, underrated parallel. Well, not parallel, underrated insert. I think it is a lot of fun. It's really cool. I got a trout earlier this year, and really nice names on here, too. You got Soto, you got Julio, Nick Kurtz, Gunner, Jose Ramirez, you got Jeter, Poohs, Roberto Fuente. Who's in there?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Is Willie Mays in there too?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Willie Mays is in there. Murray's in there. He might be the only rookie in there. Oh, wow. Okay. So yeah, another Murray chase. He's gonna have plenty of chase cards in this checklist for sure. Uh, you're gonna be paying a premium, so you gotta hope for that. Like you he might be the most expensive name on here.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

And then we have, which has quickly become a favorite of a lot of people, it's you can see getting more and more popular. Home field. 20 cards. And here you can find some more rookies. You got Schlittler, you got Ya Savage, you got Murakami again, and then you got your big guys as well. Soto, Ellie, Sammy Sosa, Big Dumper, Mike Trout. So yeah, home field. Just it seems like every time they release Home Field again, it just gets better and better. I don't think it's gonna be to the level that I enjoyed it out of the Tops Chrome Black release, but those were of course, of course, Chrome cards, which most people put a premium on. But still, definitely an insert to be excited about.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, I wonder if uh Tops Chrome Black adding them makes these ones a little bit less sought after. Who knows? There's there's some unique names in here though. Guys that are getting their first home field advantage, so that's good.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Absolutely. I like it when they spread the love a little bit. And then our favorite inserts, I'm speaking for the both of us on this. All aces and all kings. All aces is 10 cards, all kings is 15 cards. They don't have it listed, but I'm assuming the only parallel is the super fractor. So 25 cards total across the board for this. Uh Schlitler, like we said, is going to have an all aces card. All kings, we do have Murakami on there. So those are two of the big ones to look at. Is Otani once again? Does he have one? No, he doesn't, which I'm okay with.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

He doesn't have to be in every single insert list.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yeah. Cal Raleigh, baby. I'm gonna I'm after that. I gotta I need to have at least one of those.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Griffey and Soto in all kings. I like all aces better. I just like the sound of it better. But any most people would rather have a hit over or pitcher, so totally, yeah. I'm not gonna complain either way if I get one.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Or out of the 15 all kings are rookies, Murakami, Bisaya, Williams, and Eldritch. And then out of the all aces, one, two, three out of ten. You Savage, Peyton Tolley, and Cam Schlitler.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

It makes I think that's a good ratio to have. Yeah. Especially for flagship where you want to represent not just the rookies, but the vets across the checklist. Nothing else to really talk about. Highlight Reels has 10 cards, all solid players. Yeah, Roman Anthony here finally making an appearance.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

And the new uh our new sandpaper parallel, right? Or our new sandpaper insert.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yes. Um, let's see. Stars of LB, Titans of the Game, Swinging with the Stars, cover act, please.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Checklist on flagship, man. Like the inserts just go down so far. It's like you think you're at the bottom, and then all of a sudden it just keeps going.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

So we were talking about this a little before we started. Recording Diamond Dust is a new insert, just 10 cards, hobby exclusive, all fantastic names, though. Aranja, Jotani, Soto, Wit, Trout, Acunia, Griffey, Ruth, Maze, and Ted Williams. You can't complain about any of those. I don't know how rare they are. I have a feeling they are going to be very rare either. Know, probably just as rare as like the all kings and all laces or not. I don't think that they're as nice as though as those. They might grow on us. I'll try to get a picture here up on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube. Uh, but pretty much it's a top-down view of the batter in the batter's box with like the uh batter's box lines there, and it's supposed to have like a gritty field, like infield dirt. So you'll definitely feel it if you hit one.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

That's I I feel like you gotta see it in hand first. I I'm I'm reserving judgment until I see those in hand and kind of feel and feel them too. Because they're saying it actually has the texture of the infield dirt. That's interesting, but they also will probably grade like threat. So like dirt, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

And then this is listed under inserts, but I don't really consider an insert. The iconic tops buyback cards. You probably remember these from series one. Uh the big one being they were all redemptions, the big redemption being the 52 Mickey Mantle, which I don't know if the auction ended on Fanatics yet, but yep, that is up for that is up for auction, not on fanatics, on golden. And tops was nice enough to actually reveal the grade of it, even though it's just a redemption. I think it they said it was a 5.5 or something.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

That's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah, so some cool ones you have here. You have some classic cards. You have the Acunya Batdown, Kershaw rookie, bro. I I'm pretty sure a bunch of these are rookies. Jeter Harper, Griffey rookie, and then all the way down to a couple of 52 cards, uh, Eddie Matthews, Jackie Robinson for 53, Roberto Clemente from 55, 56 mantle, and these are probably just one of each, I'm assuming. So these are even harder to hit than a one of one uh from the base checklist. It's 350 to 20. So it's over 10 times harder to hit one of these.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, none of these really stand out. None of these are a 52 mantle, that's for sure. But I don't know. I think my favorite uh out of all these would probably be the 56 mantle. I mean I grade with the bat down acunia.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I know those were rare, but I'm sure there's enough for top where they could have just done like a decent amount of those redemptions in here so that you know kind of spread the love and make it something that a few more people could hit. Same with like Griffey, like you're gonna get a bunch of those. But yeah, definitely a fun, fun addition, but nothing you should really be looking or hoping for. You know, don't buy an Acunia spot hoping to hit that. Not even like a hundred or a thousand case break. Right. All right, and lastly, let's get into the autographs. Uh, first pitch autograph, again, just the six cards of people we talked about before. It'd be really fun to hit if you're a fan of those guys. The Seinfeld will sell for stupid money, of course. Probably more than Larry David, I'd assume, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, I would think so. Larry David, though, I don't know. Maybe it's pretty, I bet it's pretty similar between those two. Larry David's got kind of a cult following.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Yeah, and he's kept himself, not that Seinfeld hasn't remained relevant, but with like Curb, even though it ended, like he's been able to stay like in the forefront.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah. I feel like he's more like there's a lot of people that are Seinfeld haters too, but Larry David, I feel like has no haters. I feel like he has a lot of haters.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Really? It's hard to say just because his uh I'd assume in real life he has a lot of haters, like outside of his fandom. Yeah. Yes. All right, but let's get into what we're really looking for. So the baseball star, stars autographs. This is 92 cards, just seven different parallels for this. And of course, these are all sticker autos, I'm assuming, like they always are. These are my least favorite auto hits they can get out of flagship. They just they just don't do it for me. They don't even feel like a true rookie auto in a lot of senses. I don't know. It really doesn't do it for me. Obviously, it has a lot of cool names on it, a lot of the rookies that you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

This by far is my biggest gripe with flagship. Get rid of the baseball stars autos. Nobody wants to see these baseball stars autos. Can you think of anybody that's like, man, I really need to get that baseball stars auto? Like, even a parallel. Like, have you ever heard of somebody chasing a baseball stars auto rainbow? No. It's terrible, dude. It's so bad. Like, you have to come up with a more unique concept. There's nothing that's like, I don't know, like, you're not keeping it in there because it has tradition and like respect and some of these other sets that you just have to keep going with because it's been going for so long. Like, yeah, maybe the baseball stars autos have been going for a while, but nobody likes them. Just do away with it. Pivot, move to something different. It's my you could do a lot better with the sticker auto, right? Don't just put it on a boring bland baseball start, whatever the design is gonna look like. You know, they all they always end up kind of looking the same, just boring, cookie cutter.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

You know what I think of? I think these just for retail only. Put these just in retail products.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yes, exactly. It looks like room and paper. But then you open up a hobby case or you open up a jumbo case, and four of your six autos are baseball stars autos, and you're like, that sucked. Yeah. I hope I at least got a nice SSP.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I see Barry Bonds listed here as uh probably the best auto that you can get outside of like uh some of the big rookies. But how do you think a Barry Bonds? Also, it's it'll be so bittersweet. It's like I got the worst Barry Bonds auto I could get, but it's still a Barry Bonds auto. I'm selling that right away.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

We talked about like the power rankings of earlier in the episode of the of the paper auto sets by tops. Like, if you were to do a power rankings of paper autos, baseball stars would probably be at the bottom for me. I wouldn't even hesitate. It would be the very last one. I can't do anything. Can you think of anything? I can't.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Not off the top of my head, no. Yeah, you do got some nice players in here. Uh just for your information of who you're looking for. You do have Murakami, you have Imai, you have uh Nolan McLean. Let's see. Do we have no Camp Schlitler? You got Chase Del Lauder, like I said, you got Barry Bonds, Jim Rice's equipment.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Like you said, you know, if you pull one of those big names at a baseball stars, you might get at least the on-card 91s. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 27:44

That's where we're up to next. 91 tops baseball autographs, 90 cards, seven different parallels, starting with blue out of 150, all the way down to the platinum. And yes, this is what you're looking for, you know, outside of the crazy autos.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Realistic.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Realistically, this is what you're hoping for when you open a Gembo. So here you do have Cam Flittler, uh, you got Bubba Chandler, let's see, Murakami, you got McClean again, Roman Anthony. And they kind of they have 91B on the checklist and 91A, so it's throwing me off a little bit. Um, you got JJ Weatherholt, you got Skeens.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Okay, so they did the, it is like the 2022 model, because remember J-Rod had the, I guess what was it back then? What year was it that J-Rod had this rookie auto? It was the same set.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Come on, that's my fan.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

First rookie auto, along with the SP. Exactly. Are they are the other guys in there too, the other three? McGonagall? Is he in there? No? Kevin McGonagall's in there? McGonagall's in there, so Justin Crawford in there too.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I don't see Carson Bench though. No bench. They're just making me wait. You know, when when I hit his all kings, I'll forgive him.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Okay, so those will be those will be rather big chases, actually, I think. McGonagall and JJ, especially. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I hit a blue jack kegs out of that. That from Series 1. That was the first one.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

That was one of the better pulls from Series One, just as a breaker, it was like a green Keggs, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

I think you pulled that in like the first box or something.

unknown 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

All right. Next up, we have the 91 tops baseball all-stars autographs, 71 cards in this checklist. Uh, same parallels. So, of course, you're really not gonna find rookies here. Um, you will find Mizerowski, though, because of that controversial all-star game appearance last year.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

But yeah, you got some really cool names here. Sandy Kopaks, Randy Johnson, yeah, Vladdy Guerrero Sr., Johnny Bench, Ichiro, Kelly, you got David Wright, Derek Jeter, Dale Murphy, not Daniel Murphy, Albert Pujols.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah, some solid legends in here.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, absolutely. Then we have the world champion autographs. This is just 14 cards and all Dodgers because you guessed it, they are the world champions. They won the World Series. If you didn't know that, you're a little late. Um, but you do have botani autographs here. So that's the big one to know. You got Kershaw, Freddie Freeman, Roki, Yamamoto. Yeah, those are the ones that you want to see, and those are the ones that you're seeing. Again, those are gonna be extremely rare, I assume. I don't see any parallels listed. I wouldn't be surprised if there are parallels though.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Postseason performance autographs. This is 33 cards. You got Ben Rice, which is really nice. I did not mean to make that rhyme. Uh, I will make the next one rhyme, though. Cam Schlitler. You have Ellie Del Cruz, you got Mizarowski, pretty much anyone who dominated or just played the cards.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Are they gonna be commemorating big moments in the playoffs from last year? That's what it looks like it probably is, right? If I pull the George Springer, I might just have to retire from opening cards. I might have a heart attack on air and just melt to the floor.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

I'll I'll definitely I'll definitely make a little like combo video for you of that if that happens. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

And then that moment of using the city.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Next up we have signature tunes dual autographs. It says Aurographs on the uh Beckett website, but I'm assuming that's a typo. I I don't know who these first two guys are. Like I said, should I scheme, scheme, and CJ Abrams, Yandell, and Fernando Tatish Jr. Is that like when they did um cover athlete autographs? This is good idea, bad execution for me. I'm not a big fan of these cards, even though they're all really solid players. So these are the inserts where the player was the cover athlete for that box or that set. So the autos is just nine cards. Well, nine players. You got Judge, Harper, Posey, Kershaw, Otani. Trout's on here twice, which isn't surprising since he's been on so many different flagship boxes. But I'm not a big fan of these cards. Obviously, if I hit one, these are all excellent players. I'm gonna be jumping up and down.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

But yeah, just the card itself. I'm searching eBay for the people that have been illegally ripping before release day and posting hits on eBay. And I see one of them, it's Mike Trout. It's on card, so that that's a thumbs up for me. These remind me a little bit of like the My First Bowman Auto cards. You remember those ones?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Those were sticker, which sucked, but I don't mind the concept. I don't mind the concept. I kind of like it. I think it's cool. I think the players probably enjoy it when they sign when they sign the cards, you know? Yeah. That's a big part of it, especially if it's hard signed, makes a huge difference for a card like this. Because like you gotta imagine that Trout actually held the card, looked at it, and was like, oh, that's cool. I was on the cover of 2020 Top Series 2 sign. So much different than slapping a sticker on there.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I had something. I totally lost my train of things.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

No, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, I don't know. All right, next up, the flagship real one autographs, and these are always fantastic. 66 cards, seven different parallels, and this is where you can find your foil fractor autos. So those could be pretty big for sure. You have a lot of great names, a lot of not so great names, but mostly very solid names. Kershaw, Gunnar Henderson, Yamamoto, you got Bobby Witt Jr., you got McLean for your rookie. Um, you got you got Murakami, let's see, Jackson Churio. A lot of really solid names. You got Soto, but more not great names than great names, but these these can be some some really nice looking cards here.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Let's play our favorite game, Juice.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Name the one a lot of names, not like the other. All right.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

One that name the one player that shouldn't be on this checklist. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

No, because there's so many. All right. I I I got one that that I really feel like it's a very recent thing, and that's why I'm calling him out because he he has pretty much removed himself from being able to be on this checklist of players.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

All right, here we go. Three, two, one, Jose Cornel.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Rafael Devers.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Wow. Hate for big sticks.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

I had the name, and then I was like looking. I'm like, is there anyone else that I really want to say? And then when you said one, I was like, wait, who was it that I was gonna say? That that's what the pause was.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yeah, Jose Corniel, though. Man, there's some guys that made the 52, like Jose Cornel's also in the 52 rookie variation autographs. Can you imagine sweating that like in a break? Like, oh my god, we have a 52 rookie variation auto. It's Jose Corniel.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

And then and then the next box, you say, okay, we can make up for it. We have one of these real one autos coming up, and then it's just him again.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Yeah, what? Like, dude, the the 19 names in the I know we're we're about to get there, but maybe I can segue us and talk about the 52 rookie variation autographs.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Like, before you do, there's some. I had I had a I had a card sweat just before I uh had Mets and a case of platinum anniversary, uh-huh, and they're sweating the card, and you could see like the uh the team emblem very clearly.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

And and it's a black. And I'm like, oh, it's a Met. This is awesome. Starling Marte. And then the very next box, it's a red, it's a Met Starling Marte. So an out of 10 out of five. That is not the rainbow starter set that I wanted. In one case? In one case. This is in like the first three boxes, too.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

I'm like, I got a lot of break left, and then you start necklace and you hit a black and a red.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah. So if anyone's looking for that rainbow, I can get you started.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Might be a cheap rainbow. Sorry, juice.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

It's okay. It's okay. Uh so let's do that segue that that you tried into the 52 rookie variation autos. 19 cards. And yeah, so this is just rookies, and I believe they said with series one that players are only only that players will only ever get just one of these.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

So that's why we're not seeing any repeats, even though maybe we'd like some.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Uh, we have tr Trey Ya Savage, uh, Bryce Eldridge, Nolan McLean made it this time. And yeah, out of the uh 19 names, those are the ones that stand out to me.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

I'm assuming Bryce Eldridge, DeLauder, Savage, McLean, like those are there's like five or six good ones out of 19, I feel like. I'll throw in Cole Young. We like Cole Young in Seattle, but yeah, I mean, Jose Corniel, Andrew, Granillo, Rafael Flores, George Valera, Roldy Munoz, Justin Dean. Like, there's some there's some misses here for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Next we have the 91 Topps Chrome baseball chrome autographs. That's 44 cards, and the baseball chrome also autographs is 43 cards. I'm lumping these together because these are just from the silver packs. So these are hobby and jumbo only. You will not find these in retail. These are sticker autos, but these are some of my favorite sticker autos that are out there. For some reason, the stickers just really blend in well on these.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

And you always have the baseball stars auto. You know, you're opening this box, and you're if you hit an auto out of a silver pack, it's just so much better than a baseball stars auto. Not to go the baseball stars auto hate, but I hate them. You're right though. I do like the silver pack autos. They're all right. They're all right.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

We got a lot of really great names on here, as usual. Uh you got Camp Schlittler, you got Delauder, Jackson Churio, Murray Kami's here. You got Jack Keggs, Nolan McLean, Chase Burns, and I.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

And it's your one chance in flagship to hit a super fracture.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Roman Anthony, yep. Nolan Ryan, Nick Kurtz. And for the all-star, then we're gonna double dip on a Nolan Ryan. We got Mike Trout, Sandy Kovacs, Chipper Jones, Wansa. Oh, these are all fantastic. Ichiro, Poohs, Ellie, Witt, and let's see. And then you have the flagship collection, Chrome Autographs. I'm assuming those are gonna be in the silver packs also.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah, is that new?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, I don't remember these before. 63 cards, but they're numbered weird. Numbered from two to 90 with numbers skipped. Um, but you got Ellie, Delauder, Pete Alonzo, James Wood, Lindor, Bryce Matthews, Jonathan, uh, Nick Hurts, Cal Rayleigh. These just got McLean.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

These must be new. I don't remember these at all.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

No. Skeens, Tatis, Jack Heggs, Julio. Interested to see these. You have those uh 75 years of tops die cut coming back, 11 cards. Posey, Maurer, Soto, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Kulfax, 75 years of tops baseball autographs, just four cards. These are people that are not baseball players, well, at least not professionally. Yeah, Tony Hawk. This is a big one there. DJ Khalid. Another one. The flagship auto patches. I'm never a big fan of patches in in flagship. Uh 51 cards. We're seeing four different parallels: bronze, black, red, and platinum. These will be tough to hit, but you do have some nice players here. You got Judge, Lindor, Chrysell, Jack Caggs, Jose Ramirez, Tatis Jr., Joe Maurer, Mike Trout, and heavy lumber autos. Thing about heavy lumber autos, the auto always looks like garbage because they're signing on that wood relic. So I like the head, I'd almost rather have a base heavy lumber than an auto. I won't, I'm saying almost, but it just doesn't look that great. Uh for the money, I'd rather have a heavy lumber base than an auto. Um, I'd probably rather pay for something else over one of these autos. But 43 cards. Let's see, we got a lot of vets and legends here too. Don Manley, Dallas Strawberry, Pooh's, Mike Piazza, Nick Hurts. You got a couple of A-rods. You have them for Rangers and Mariners. You got Ellie, but yeah, no big rookies here that I'm seeing. Major League Materials, 65 cards from orange to platinum, just four parallels. Uh Major League Materials duels, you have four cards. City Connect swatch autos, those are pretty cool. 56 cards, uh, just five parallels on those.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Right in the bases. Yeah, I like those ones, and they actually come out somewhat often, those city connect swatches. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah, those are those are different. So those I'm more okay with. Running the bases autos, another insert auto. So that that about uh I I was gonna say round it out right after I said rounding the bases, it's saying it's a little too on the nose, but I'll stick with it. Nice. That that about rounds it out for that. Um, but let's get into our final thoughts because we are going into a very long episode here. So final thoughts. Are you gonna rip it, break it, flip it, or skip it? Yep, I threw that in there.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Wow, you're giving me a skip it option now.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

I realize that kind of goes with the theme, and sometimes it is worthy of that. I don't think this is, but that's for you to decide because you're on it first.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I will say this looking at dealer uh dealer net right now, the secondary price on this stuff is gonna be rather high. I'd skip it at that price. However, if you got it at pre-order or if you got it in MSRP, I think it's a rip it. It's definitely we talked about this in series one too. Flagship is a personal product. You know, you're looking for Easter eggs, you're hoping to get lucky, you're putting together, even if you don't get lucky, you could start to put together a base set and that'll be a lot of fun. You might hit some fun insert inserts or parallels, but you want to, I don't know, I feel like so much more than being a break product, it's a personal product at the price point. It's affordable and it's a classic.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

So yeah, I feel like you always have to get in on top's flagship in some way, because like you said, it is a classic. I am definitely not on the flip it side. I am on the rip it or the break it side. And for PC all the way, you you're not really gonna come out ahead of this. You're not really gonna make money. There are some fun chases here, but the best ones are extremely rare, extremely tough to find. So I would only break it for PC cards. I would not be breaking this for Murray Family unless he is in your PC. He does have a lot of cards across a checklist, so that that could be helpful. But yeah, I I'm just going full PC on this. Anything that I get, I'm not gonna worry about how much I'm making off of it. I'm gonna worry about, hey, how does this fit into my collection?

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yeah, definitely. I I think you're right on the definitely not a flip it product, especially now that Murakami's on the IL, you know, on release day. That's not ideal for this product. I don't I don't think that it's gonna have a whole lot of momentum coming out of release day. I think it'll have his moment like everything does on release day and maybe the day after, but I think the market will cool rather fast on this product. Uh that being said, I don't know, we'll see what happens with some of these Weatherhole and McGonagall and Benge. I don't want to mix Justin Crawford's kind of a tear down, I think, but those SSPs and and the 91 autos could be could keep the product afloat a little bit more than if they wouldn't have them. I think that's a big ad. Like I think Topps kind of had to do that. It was smart.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Okay, so let's get to our final thoughts on our different grades. So we will start with visual. I am going to go, I believe I gave this a seven out of 10 for series one. I will continue with that. It's a solid design overall. I think it's grown on me even more since uh we've seen it just because it's it's just what I'm used to now. It's not doing anything revolutionary, but it's not something that I hate. I'd be happy to have any of these cards in my collection, with the exception of the stars of LLB autos, which we talked about. But the inserts, they continue to do a good job. Again, nothing revolutionary, but I'm just gonna stick with the seven out of ten because it's pretty much visually the same exact product that we saw in series one.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah, same, same. I'm right there in the same camp. Uh design has also grown on me too. I'd say the one part that I'm reserving judgment on is the addition of at least what appears to be an addition of these chrome autos, these chrome insert autos. Very curious to see what those look like. The only other new addition compared to series one is gonna be the uh what are they calling them? The dust, the diamond dust.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

I don't really love them, uh, but maybe in hand they're cool. But the couple that have popped up on eBay, I don't think it seems like a pretty bland design to me.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Value is up next. I'm gonna go four out of ten. I'm going a little less than what series one was. The hype for these rookies have died a lot, you know, with the exception of Murakami, but even he is hurt now. So that definitely hurts. And yeah, just I'm just gonna stick to my guns about what I said with the rip it, flip it. It just it's four PC. You're you're not looking for any crazy high value here. Value, I'm just giving this a four out of ten. The value is not the reason why you're getting into this product.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Series two is so tough based on like the time of year that it comes out and the fact that yes, it's Murakami's flagship rookie, but he's already had a licensed rookie that is kind of on a similar echelon in Bowman, right? And I think you saw with that first Murakami rookie card, you saw some crazy sales on base Murakami out of Bowman, but we've Because you've already had that, I just wonder if I I just don't think it has the same allure. When you go back to Series One, it's Roman Anthony's first rookie card. It's Zach Kegg's first rookie card, but this is not Murakami's. It is his first flagship tops rookie card, but it's not his first licensed rookie card.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

And Bowman has uh Bowman's Chrome. Bowman has his no. No, Bowman's his but it has his uh red chrome rookie, which sells for a premium.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

He's got the red rookie, yeah.

unknown 44:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Uh but yeah, I don't know. I I think that hurts series two, just in general, the fact that it comes after Bowman flagship. There's more, like when we talk about value, there's more, there's more of a hype play on like ripping or joining breaks on release day of series one because you get that real premium. In series two, I don't think you get that much of a premium because it's not as many of these guys' first rookie cards. But that's what makes the McGonagall and the Weatherhole and the Benge so interesting, Crawford, because it is theirs.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

All right, next up, let's talk about breaking. I'm gonna go with uh I'm gonna call it a a six out of ten. This is definitely lower than my top series one. The print runs generally a lot less on series two than series one, I believe. So maybe we could find the short prints come out a little more frequently um and the parallels, but I don't know. We're gonna we're still gonna have to wait for the odds on this.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

But it could definitely be a fun break getting into multi-case breaks, but it's a pretty boring break. I know I I say that I I like to be able to savor these rips and these breaks over a long period of time by having a lot of packs and stuff to watch, but this is a lot of paper and you have to go through all the paper. It's not like Bowman where you can pretty much get the paper and just get to the chrome and get to the good stuff. Yeah. With this, the hits could be anywhere. So it's a bit of a boring break. I I'd only do it if you can get in pretty close to release before those secondary prices start to go up.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, it's not my favorite product to break. It's not my favorite product to join breaks of. I think if I were to have like a chase that I felt really strongly about in this product, which I don't necessarily for this release as a Mariners fan, but I think I would be going at like larger multi-case PYT formats and not so much the PYP, because PYP, even if you're ripping five, ten cases, you might not even end up walking away with the parallel of any particular player that's on the base checklist outside of, you know, the rainbow foils or the sand glitters. But I think like because of the nature of the product and the fact that there are so many fun little Easter eggs and that most teams do have fun Easter egg chases. Like, if I was to want to jump into some multi-case breaks of this, I would probably go PYT and give myself at least a chance at getting like a really cool Ken Griffey Jr. each row Cal Raleigh card, you know, for a Meritor spot and not just limit myself to picking one of those players or, you know, a rookie.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

And last thing we got here is checklists. With series one, I believe I had an eight out of 10. I'm going down to six out of ten on this. We already touched on a few of the reasons. The rookie checklist just isn't as impressive. I do really like the short printed rookies that they added to it, but it's just pretty much I just see this as the next step to get me to Tops Chrome. That's pretty much where I'm at. Get me to Tops Chrome already. I'm ready for it. That that's where I'd rather put my money at this point. But yeah, I just this rookie class, the hype has really died down quite a bit for it. And I think that's hurting it. Yeah, so I'm just at six out of ten. So that's where I think I've been on most of these numbers. That's where I am overall in this part.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

I say that, and it gets me thinking about Tops Chrome and Logo Fractor and Sapphire and all the good things that are to come. And like, what are they gonna do with some of these with the the four SP guys for Tops Chrome? They could they could go any kind of ways. It's a little it's gonna be really interesting to see. But no, I'm I'm I'm with you there. I'll stick with you at four. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

All right. Well, that about does it for our Tops Series 2 preview and breakdown. This is the Talking Cards podcast with Grand Salami and the juice. And yeah, that's all we got for you today. Thank you so much, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Thanks everybody for listening. Catch you on the next one.