2013 Topps Series One - The Inserts

I have finished sorting the cards from my 3 jumbo boxes of 2013 Topps Series One.  I was able to make 2 sets and have enough leftovers from the third partial set to put some stacks together for some of my regular trade partners.  Today, however, I wanted to go through the insert cards and show what all I got from those.  You won't see the green parallels on this post, I want to do those separately because I think I have an idea for them (more on that later).

Chasing History: Not a bad insert set.  I think the cards look really nice and as you can see, they cover a wide range of subjects, such as the above Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth.  I pulled 30 of them, of course since they are one per pack.  Here are the numbers that I pulled.  All are up for trade except for card 39 - Jim Thome:  3, 5, 11, 15 (x2), 16, 17 (x2), 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32 (x2), 34, 36, 37 (x3), 39, 40 (x2), 41, 48, 49, 50.

As you can see, I got two Black Parallels.  Andre Ethier 26/62 and Angel Pagan 20/26.

I thought the die cut 'Cut to the Chase' cards looked real sharp.  The below Ken Griffey, Jr. is a really nice card.

I have Josh Hamilton (x2), Jeter, Griffey, Brett Lawrie, Yu Darvish, Carlos Gonzalez and Lance Berkman.

Imagine my disappointment when I pulled only one Desert Camo parallel and it was of Luke Hochevar.  Uggh.  I would have fallen out if it was Dylan Bundy or Manny Machado.  I'm watching a Chris Davis on Ebay right now.  I might pop on it, but the price is a little high.  We'll see.  I love the parallel set though.  It's different and it is a slight nod to our uniformed personnel, which is always good to do.

Out of my 3 boxes, I got only one of the 'Out of Bounds' short prints.  Not a bad card, it being of Matt Kemp.  I could probably get a good haul in a trade for it.  Maybe.  I can hope at least.

I really like these 'The Greats' inserts.  They look like something out of Tier One or something like that.  This is a nice subset for folks who can afford Topps Flagship, but maybe not the higher end stuff.  Of these, I pulled 5: Banks, Nolan Ryan, Musial, Seaver and Jeter.  I will likely keep the Musial for my Musial PC, but the others are up for trade.

The Chasing the Dream inserts are ok.  I think the design is the 2013 version of 1990 Topps.  Go ahead, look up 1990 Topps and see.  I'll wait.  See!  They resemble them at least, haha.  Oh well.  Here are the ones I have, in case there's a trade on the horizon: 1, 2 (x2), 5, 6 (x2), 7 (x2), 8 (x2), 9, 12 (x2), 13 (x3), 14, 16 (x2), 17 (x3), 18, 19, 20 (x2), 21 (x2), 24, 25.

I like the design of the Calling Card insert set.  They have little stories about some rituals that players have, which I think is pretty cool.  I ended up with 16 of these: Stargell (x3), Teixeira (x3), Ortiz, Dickey (x3), Prince Fielder, Lincecum (x2), Sandoval and Sabathia (x2).

A staple for any Topps set of recent memory, Gold parallels are back.  I pulled the above Manny Machado out of my first pack of 2013, so you know I was happy.  I got 12 of them: Machado, Rasmus, Samardzija, Kershaw, Santana, McCann, Andruw Jones, AL Wins Leaders, Raburn, Giants WS Champs, Fielder and A-Roid.

Finally, here are the latest minis, using the 1972 design.  I got Adam Jones, so I'm happy to add that to my Jones PC.  Otherwise, I'm kind of mehhh on these.  Here's what else I got, 30 of them: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 40 (x2), 42, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50.

Overall, I enjoyed this year's inserts.  I really love the green/emerald parallels.  I also like the other color parallels such as the pink and desert camo.  I want to make a couple rainbows of some Orioles, such as Chris Davis, etc, so we'll see how that goes.