2010 Topps Heritage Baseball Variations and Short Prints

Fade Temmuz 29, 2022

Yeah, I know I'm a little behind. You've likely already heard, but to keep up with consistency's sake of running short print and variation info (I find I need it five years later quite often), here's the lowdown for 2010 Topps Heritage Baseball.

Short Prints:
Cards 426 - 500 are all short printed. They're inserted 1:3 packs.

Variations:

Dice Game
Based on a rare test issue from 1961 that added an interactive game element, the Dice Game variations in 2010 Topps Heritage are 1:72 packs. The checklist consists of 18 cards.

Image courtesy of Fielder's Choice

Joe Mauer
Victor Martinez
Albert Pujols
Mark Teixeira
Grady Sizemore
Justin Upton
Adam Jones
Vladimir Guerrero
Matt Kemp
Ichiro
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Tim Lincecum
Chase Utley
Ian Kinsler
Derek Jeter
Hanley Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Chipper Jones

Color Variations
These appear to represent the "cute gimmick cards" of the series. Topps didn't say how rare the color variations are other than they're "extremely short printed."

Albert Pujols - Black-Black
Joe Mauer - Black-Black
CC Sabathia - Green-Yellow
Derek Jeter - Red-Yellow
Grady Sizemore - Green-Red
J.A. Happ - Orange-Blue
Zack Greinke - Yellow-Blue
Ryan Braun - Blue-Orange
David Wright - Green-Yellow
Pablo Sandoval - Yellow-Green

If there's going to be extreme short prints, this I don't mind so much. They don't scream as being a publicity stunt (Rudy G raising his fist to the heavens in a Red Sox celebratory scrum), nor do they insult the intelligence and allegiances of baseball fans ("Thom" Glavine, slapping rival logos on superstars). These are subtle variations that don't wreck havoc on a set.

Exclusives
Topps honors the 1961 home run chase by producing three 15-card subsets of exclusives that come together to make one 45-card insert set. Each will have a different player in the set:

Babe Ruth (hobby packs)
Roger Maris (Wal-mart exclusive)
Mickey Mantle (Target exclusive)

Among these are three short prints: Ruth (#60), Maris (#61) and Mantle (#56). Each will also have a relic parallel serial numbered to the player's jersey number (Ruth /3, Maris /9 and Mantle /7).

Autograph Note
Finally, Topps also announced that all of Juan Marichal's Real One Autographs were signed in red. None are sequentially numbered like the rest of the red ink variations in the set.