2021 Topps Heritage Minor League Edition Preview
There will be something different about Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball in 2021. There will actually be a minor league season to go with it. On the day major league clubs announced where their prospects would be playing during the delayed campaign, Topps offered some preliminary info on its throwback product devoted to the guys who’ll be taking the field across the country starting this week.
2021 Topps Heritage Minor League is, of course, a sister product of the annual MLB release that celebrates the card design from 50 years earlier. Heritage MLB is among Topps’ most popular products and arrives during spring training each year. This year’s release came out in late March. 2021 Heritage Minor League won’t arrive until the season is over, with a release date of September 29.
2021 Topps Heritage Minors Configuration and Base Set
Heritage Minors will offer 18 packs per hobby box with eight cards per pack. Each box should have two autographs along with a three-card pack of 1972-style poster cards.
The base set checklist will have 220 cards including ’72-style In Action and Traded cards. The last 20 cards will be short printed, with an average of three per box.
Parallels will include:
Blue Border Parallel – #’d to 99
Green Border Parallel – #’d to 75 (new)
Black Border Parallel – #’d to 50
Gold Border Parallel – (1 Per Case)
Red Border Parallel – #’d 1-of-1
There will be image variations for some of the base cards.
Inserts
The insert cards in 2021 Heritage Minors conjure up more memories of 1972. Found in every fourth or fifth pack, the 1972 Topps Venezuelan Stamp cards will feature some of the minors’ top players in the design of the rare ’72 Topps Venezuelan stamps.
1972 Topps Pack Cover cards will draw design inspiration from the colors and look of the wax pack wrapper from that year. Those, too, will be found in every 4.5 packs.
1972 Topps Boyhood Photos of the Stars should be a fun one, with Topps securing photos of minor league legends when they were kids, just as Topps did with major leaguers in its ’72 set. They’ll be found in every six packs.
Autographs
Real One Autographs are considered the base autographs in Heritage with four different parallel possibilities including:
Blue Border Parallel – #’d to 99
Black Border Parallel – #’d to 50
Black/Blue Border Parallel – #’d to 25 NEW!
Red Border Parallel – #’d 1-of-1
Real One Dual Player Autographs will be numbered to 20 and Base Card Image Variation Autographs will be part of the checklist, too, with each of those numbered to 50.
1972 Topps Pack Cover cards will have autographed versions with each numbered to 50 unless it’s a 1/1 Red parallel.
Box Toppers
Those three-card packs of 1972-style Poster cards will be box toppers, with cards designed to mimic the original 1972 Topps Poster set.
Autographed versions will be possible, with each numbered to 25 and 1/1 FoilFractor parallels also in the mix.
About Rich Mueller
Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for more than 30 years and a collector for even longer than that, he’s usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected]
