2013 Snorting Bull Awards: Best Base Set

2013 Topps Heritage Set

2013 Topps Heritage Bryce Harper

Picking this set as the best base set of 2013 was kind of a no-brainer for me.  I am not super huge into vintage cards, but one of my greatest areas of success with older cards is the 1964 Topps set, which the 2013 Topps Heritage set used as it's design model.  I do not remember why I started in on collecting cards from the 1964 Topps set, but two of the earliest vintage cards I added to my collection were the 1964 Curt Flood and Ken Boyer cards.  At some point I added a Bob Gibson and the ball just kept rolling.  There are more positives to the base set of Topps Heritage then just warm fuzzy feelings from the past.

First, this is one of the most well thought out sets that Topps puts out every year.  It's hard to believe that the Heritage brand has now been around for more than a decade, but it comes out every spring like clockwork.  While I can be critical of some of the product Topps releases, I probably do not do a good enough job underscoring the fact that they get plenty of things right.  Heritage is always a great product which is well designed and not haphazardly photoshopped together and thrown in packs at the last minute.  It's a clean, well-organized, well-thought out product.  

Second, for a set chaser this is a really fun set to assemble year in and year out.  This year since I am reorganizing my collection I went light on the wax which meant I assembled the majority of my sets this years through trading and buying lots of cards, then filling in the holes in between the lots by purchasing and trading for singles.  The short prints in sets such as Heritage made that challenge even more daunting this year.  

2013 Topps Heritage Hanley Ramirez SP

Every collector has to be up for a good challenge though at some point and I certainly enjoy the challenge of running down lots of Heritage short prints.  It's almost become a rite of spring in my little cavern of cards on the second floor of my house.  Anyway, I am more than happy to have another year's worth of Heritage cards under my roof and in my collection.  It was a great looking set and clearly the best base set out on the market this year.