Topps T206- Retail vs Blaster Grudgmatch!

Last night I made a trip to Target. I wanted to get my hands on a few packs of Topps T206 and see if I could score myself a few new minis for the collection. I was also curious to see if Topps was loading up retail packs with unique cards like Ginter was this year.

When I got to Target I was presented with two options. T206 retail at $2.99 a pack, or a Blaster at $19.99. Firstly, I think that $2.99 is crazy-steep for a retail pack, but since these were all nicely organized and don't look like they had been ruffled through by pack searchers, I decided the right course of action here was to grab a Blaster and five packs of retail. Mathematically I guess I could have grabbed one more retail, but my grubby little paws only snagged five. Either way I thought it would be cool to compare the two products and see if either has the advantage over the other.

Today, lets take a look at the offering from the five retail packs


Pack #1



Bryan Anderson
Jacoby Ellsbury*NNO back
Brian Roberts Piedmont Mini
Cristian Guzman Bronze
Glen Perkins
Victor Martinez


Pack #2



Kick Strass!

Ben Zobrist

Gil Meche

Stephen Strasburg Mini Caramel

James Shields

Koji Uehara Bronze

Daniel McCutchen

Pack#3

Carlos Ruiz

BJ Upton
First pro (minor league) game played under lights mini

Ricky Nolasco Bronze

Miguel Montero

Tom Seaver

Pack#4

Johnny Bench

Worlds first female cop mini

Jackie Robinson Bronze

Travis Snider

Chad Billingsley

Hideki Matsui

Pack #5

Ryan Zimmerman

Ryan Howard

Ryan Dempster

Jon Danks Polar Bear mini

Todd Helton Bronze

Edinson Volquez

And here are the new minis for my collection.

So that was the retail break. I now understand people's comments on the "hat's off" cards. It is literally ALL the cards. Whether this is accurately representative of the 1910 counterpart I do not know, maybe I should jump in my son's matchbox DeLorean time machine and find out. When you look at the cards as a whole, it kind of reminds you of a bad high school yearbook.

I do like the looks of a few star players cards and a few of the legends cards, but overall nothing really jumps out at me about this set. It was cool to pull a SP Ellsbury out of the first pack and although the Strasberg hype has died down, I am happy to add his RC mini to the collection.

No hits out of the retail...not a huge surprise but I am sure they are out there to be had. White frames though?

Next post I will give the results of the Topps T206 BLASTER. Does it hold enough punch to challenge the retail Stras/Ellsbury pulls?

Also, I plan on only keeping the minis and the Ellsbury from this break, so feel free to stake claim on anything else you may like.