Last year, Topps put a lot of eggs in the high end basket with the first edition of Dynasty baseball. It was a huge risk due to the enormous price tag on the boxes, which only contained one card. However, once people actually saw the ridiculous cards that were coming out of the product with high frequency, the cards caught a bit of hobby fire.
Here are some of the cards which made last year’s product so incredible:
2014 Topps Dynasty Yasiel Puig Jumbo Dirty Patch Auto
2014 Topps Dynasty Clayton Kershaw Jumbo Patch Auto
2014 Topps Dynasty Hank Aaron Dual Relic Auto
2014 Topps Dynasty Mike Trout Jumbo Patch Auto
2014 Topps Dynasty Mariano Rivera Jumbo Patch Auto
2014 Topps Dynasty Miguel Cabrera Jumbo Patch Auto
Topps previewed the first image from this year’s 2nd edition of the product, which looks to be formatted in a similar to what we saw last year. I would guess that the upcoming port to football may use a similar format for that release as well. 2014 Dynasty was mostly about high end autograph subjects with some pretty incredible patches, which looks to be part of the meat of this product again. We are still waiting on more of an extensive preview to see if a bit more variety is added to the set.
Dynasty was easily one of my favorite baseball sets of the year last year, despite the simplicity of the product configuration. Each card was more beautiful than the next, and the on card autos with crazy patches finally created a format that brought ultra high end into a compatible medium for baseball. It has been a long time since someone has found a way to really produce a product in this tier that has served well for a long period of time.
If Topps wants to continue the success and keep the product fresh for 2015, they will definitely need to make some changes, outside of just adding or subtracting players from the checklist. As a few of us were discussing on twitter, chase elements like knobs, barrels and logomen could inspire a lot of different people to jump on board, and adding more top tier guys could also do a lot of good. That being said, a concise checklist is still the flavor du jour with a product like this, as diluted subjects detracts from the box break.
With Kris Bryant TEARING it up in the hobby, it should come as no surprise that Topps wants to capitalize on his hotness, especially for a set like this. Hopefully other fun additions will be coming too, as other young players have also had quite the hot start to the season. I will definitely check out some singles of the guys I collect, and I cannot wait to see the rest of the preview.
UPDATE – MORE IMAGES ADDED:
