2008 Topps Updates and Highlights Sell Sheets are Live!!!

Okay, so the guy at Fielder's Choice broke the news that 2008 Topps Stadium Club will be back. That's great news because Topps is bringing back the brand that focuses on photography, and when Stadium Club had nothing but great shots then, and I am hoping that they bring back that tradition in it's base cards as well now. You can read what he has to say here. That's great. So when is Topps going to bring back their Major League Debut set???

Back to the point. In searching for a sell sheet for the aformentioned Stadium Club, I found something more valuable to me, scans of the sell sheets for 2008 Topps Updates and Highlights!!!

Now in my first post about the U & H set, I guessed on the following within the 330 card set:

• 160 veterans
• 60 rookie card logo players
• 5 managers
• 62 all-stars
• 8 home run derby participants
• 10 combo cards
• 10 season highlights
• 15 playoff highlights

According to the sell sheet, we are looking at:

• 197 veterans (Fukudome is card #1, Johan Santana is card #330 according to the checklist)
• 45 rookie card logo players
• 10 season highlights (got this right)
• 60 all-stars (terrible idea, there were 64 guys on the rosters this year!!!)
• 8 home run derby participants (got this right)
• 10 combo cards (Classic Duos they're calling it, still got this right).

Of course, this is all subject to change, but I do think they should increase the number of cards in the All-Star subset because there were more than 60 guys who got in the game.

In the parallel cards category, there will be gold cards (numbered to 2008), there will be platinum cards (1 of 1), silk cards makes their second appearance (numbered to 50), black cards are back (numbered to 57), and printing plates (1 of 1, four colors).

The 2007 Year in Review insert set (60) concludes here. The Mickey Mantle story continues with 1957 Topps designs (10 cards), there is going to be a "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" insert cad honoring the 100th anniversary of the song. There will also be a 25 card insert set called WBC Preview, which will include 25 players who should be chosen to represent their countries in the 2009 World Baseball Classic (see, those Fukudome, Yabuta, and Ramirez cards meant something afterall). Each box is also going to include a Hobby Exclusive Sketch card. The information sheet says that each one is 1 of 1, but that would mean that only 100 boxes will be sold. Something doesn't sound right here. Rest assured that we'll also see the continuation of the Dick Perez cards (Walmart), T205 retroprint cards (Target), and Rookie Card Gold Variation cards (Kmart) inserted in blaster boxes.

To continue with the Campaign 2008 theme, we will be subjected to a 41 card insert set honoring and appropriately titled "First Couples" First Lady Cut Signatures make their debut here, the Stamp Collection returns, and what looks to be sequentially limited to 100 sets, a 2 card set called Topps 2008 Presidential Pick, presumably Barack Obama and John McCain will be in this set. This last set is going to be akin to the Home Run Derby cards as the sell sheet states that if you hold the card of the person who becomes president, you can mail it in to Topps for fun and prizes.

New and exclusive to the 2008 Topps Updates and Highlights is an insert program called Ring of Honor, featuring ten players who earned WS rings. They will all have autograph cards as well.

There is also a New York Mets Ring of Honor, featuring 10 players from the 1986 WS winning team.

Product comes out during the week of October 13, 2008. That's earlier than normal, which probably explains why there won't be any playoff highlight cards in this set.

To see the 6 page sell sheet in .pdf form, click here. If you can't see the file, here is a scan of all six pages:

Enjoy!!!

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama