Topps Hobby Shop Promotion

Most of you have opened some 2011 Topps Series 2 by now, and seen that there are special anniversary cards floating around. If you haven't taken a minute to click over to eBay and see how many places are just trying to cash in on the HTA Diamond Anniversary cards rather than give them to kids, allow me to show you what they look like.

They are numbered HTA-# and there are 25 cards total in a set.

(Note: I have two
Jeter cards, one for myself and one for Sooz.)

Unlike many hobby shops and or dealers, my local card shop actually hands them out to kids and customers who have the cards and they are FREE. This seems to be an issue with these give away cards each year, where dealers decide to sell them rather than give them away. Even when I worked in a sports memorabilia store, anything that came from Topps to give away, or box toppers all had to be sent back to corporate to be opened and priced to sell. Pretty lame.

The other big issue with the redemption cards like the Prime 9 seen in the 2011 Topps Series 2 packs promotion is that there are hardly any HTA hobby shops left to buy cards from and even if you find one, they might not "have" them a.k.a. they are on eBay. There is one card shop within 30 minutes of my house, everything else has closed over the years. My "local" card shop is a 30 minute ride from my house.

I did notice that on the back of the cards when you redeem the card you can enter a contest to win a trip to the World Series. Pretty awesome.

I think these kinds of promotions where you can get a harder to find/rare card of a player you collect are great for the hobby and great to draw people back to the shops where you pulled the redemption. I just wish there were more hobby shops for people to go to because the people that are stuck with retail only can't exactly walk into a Target and try and get the card of the week.

Maybe next year the back of the card can also be used both for a contest entry and to get your card mailed back to you if you don't live near an HTA shop.

Anyone get to redeem their card yet or were told that the shop doesn't have any left? Also, if you are wondering where to find a designated HTA shop you can go directly to Topps website to obtain a list of stores.

NOTE: This blog was edited after Stale Gum informed me that I had incorrect information on the post. The actual cards from the hobby shop are from something different that I am awaiting the correct information on. My apologies everyone.