2019 Topps Update Series

A couple of days ago, I went to a sports card shop. The shop owner is a great guy and I always enjoy chatting with him. In the meantime, there were several people in the store. Well, I never saw them before.

 

After they left, the owner and I were chatting about some changes in sports cards and some friends we met in the shop. Well, some friends haven’t come for a while. I haven’t seen them for a while. And the owner mentioned those changes.

 

After chatting with the owner, I thought about some cards I bought in the store and the changes in the sports card industry.

 

Back in 2018 and 2019, I frequently went to that sports card shop. I bought so many hobby packs of Topps baseball cards. Of course, jumbo packs as well. I pulled some hits there, for example, some relic cards and some autograph cards. It was so fun to rip some packs in the shop.

 

Nonetheless, in 2020, things began to change. There was covid-19 pandemic. After the outbreak, I couldn’t go to that store very often. And the sports card industry gradually changed. Firstly, some delays began. Some series don’t arrive as expected. Sometimes, you don’t know whether the series is still available.

 

In addition, a key change is the price. It’s getting more and more expensive to buy baseball cards. For example, under the same budget, I couldn’t buy as many hobby packs or jumbo packs of baseball cards for the same series. In particular, it’s quite clear that the price of a jumbo pack of the 2019 Update Series was significantly lower than a jumbo pack of the 2024 Update Series.

 

Well, I mentioned the 2019 Topps Update Series for some reasons. Firstly, I did get some hits from this series. For me, it was one of the great series with some cool hits and cool rookie cards in the set. Additionally, it was released before the covid-19 was getting well-known. Thirdly, I remember that it was the year that I went to that sports card shop several times in a month. Every time I went to that shop, I could see some friends there. We did some trash talks and shared some fun stories about baseball cards.

Nonetheless, things won’t go back. It’s been so many years since the 2019 Topps Update Series was released. It’s been quite a while since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. The world has been quite different. The sports card industry has been different. Moreover, the people in the card shop have been different. I might not see the same friends in that sports card shop. Will I meet new friends in that card shop? Well, I don’t know. But for me, I will still go to that sports card shop if I have time. It’s fun to chat with the shop owner. It’s fun to buy some packs of baseball cards. Nevertheless, while seeing some cards that I pulled from the 2019 Topps Update Series, I know that something has been updated and something won’t stay the same.