Shiny Set Completion - Topps 70th Patch Set

 

It's been a few months since I started pursuing the 2021 Topps 70th Patch insert set.  I've been enamored with this set when I first saw it.  Must have been that bright silver 70th patch or maybe its just the fancy design of it all.  Whatever it is, I'm glad to finally be able to call this chase done!

As I stated in my resolutions post, I wanted to complete a shiny set this year and this was one of the sets I specified.  My chase started with a single card landed in the Update series (Kirby Puckett), then I gradually started seeing more of these getting posted on auction sites.  Amazingly, it was somewhat difficult to find them at cards shows and shops, and when I did find them most were priced much too high.  I have been tracking my costs while obtaining this set, and the average price per card was about $2.50, which included tax and shipping.

This Puckett was the only card pulled from a blaster.  My brother and I had been out shopping over the winter when he was able to find a rare blaster.  Puckett is one of the two Twins to be represented in the set (the other is Rod Carew and sadly Topps did not include Killebrew).

Joe Morgan was the second card to be obtained for this set and cost me $2 with free shipping.  

Fernando Tatis Jr is one of only 2 Padres in the set and you can pretty much guess who the other is.

Ichiro was a frustrating acquisition.  Sellers seem to value him more so than others and despite the tilted patch, this one pushed my cost up.  I may try to replace it with a more squared patch if I can find one priced right.

Mike Trout is another card that pushed my average cost up.  Very difficult to find under $4 but I lucked out and found a lot of 3 cards with this, a Jackie Robinson and a blue parallel Bob Gibson for $10 (free shipping).  Take that you ebay sellers!

Set exhaustion was wearing on me and I basically threw my principles away while obtaining this card.  This Yaz and along with its blue parallel set me back $12.  Yes that's $6 a card!  Ugh!  It is the single biggest expense in this set for me and was the last card needed to complete the set.

Just to give you an idea of the back side of the card.  Nothing special here.  Apparently Topps didn't want their creative staff to get too creative with the back side.  

The whole set resting nicely in the box.  I can take these out and play with them whenever the mood hits me.

In case anyone is wondering, there are only 70 cards in this set (representing 70 years of Topps), comprising of 25 cards from series 1, 25 from series 2 and 20 from the update series.

Topps also made parallels of each.  From what I can find, the blue parallels are from blasters sold at W-Mart and are unnumbered.  Many sellers price these the same as the regular issued cards. If you're into rainbow sets, there are numbered parallels (such as the black Yogi above) with different colored backgrounds such as red, platinum, gold and black.  Autographed cards can be found as well, but are very spendy from what I've seen.

Amazingly, Topps did not represent all teams in this set.  In fact there are 5 modern teams not represented (Marlins, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays and Rays).  The Expos made the list with Vladimir Guerrero, and the Braves have bragging rights with the most players (7) in the set.  The Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox all have 6 players in the set. 

So there it is, a full complete set. Despite the trials and tribulations of online buying (cards lost or damaged in the mail, sellers backing out of an auction or claiming they "can't find it"), a lot of patience was expended trying to complete this and stay on budget.  Now I have the satisfaction of completing this chase and starting a new one.