2014 Topps High Tek Box Break

I'm mostly an Allen & Ginter collector and rarely will I open other wax (especially on a whim), but I decided to break a box of the new 2014 Topps High Tek last week.  Part of the reason was that my LCS happened to have only one box of it left and it was on sale for $60 which seemed significantly lower than any other place I saw.  I also watched someone break this box the other day and it looked interesting enough for me to try it myself.

When you open the box, you get one foil covered pack of 8 cards.  The pack is extremely heavy for so few cards not because the cards are any thicker than normal (though they may be very slightly), but because the cards are made of a heavy duty plastic/acetate type material.  It allowed Topps to make these cards transparent which yields (in my opinion) a pretty cool design.

My first four base cards featured a mix of old-timers and current players featuring different backgrounds.  At first I thought these backgrounds were based off that fact (old vs. new players) which I wouldn't have minded in the least until I saw the next two cards:

The Marcus Stroman I knew was some sort of pipes parallel from watching someone open a similar parallel earlier.  However, it wasn't numbered or anything (not something I usually appreciate).  When I saw the Fred McGriff I was confused.  Even looking at the odds on the back of the box yielded no answers as to what type of parallel this might be.  I later found this article.  I was less than happy.  So this Marcus Stroman is in fact a "circuit board" parallel (which is the 4th rarest American League parallel).  Gosh... Topps, you spoil me...

Not a huge fan of countless parallels like this.  Similar to how I hate A&G back minis, I like having a "base" set, maybe one non-serial number set, and you can go for it on the serial number ones (I really don't care how many you make... looking at you Bowman).  As long as they're serial numbered I'm happy.

On with the box.

This was probably my favorite card in the box.  Yet another parallel... gold waves... or something like that.  Anyways, it serial numbered! YAY! 16/99.  Nothing super great, but hey, HOF pitcher.  Not going to complain.  Only complaint is the countless number of times this guy beat up on my Bravos back in my youngster years.

The final card from the box is the one hit promised on card autograph of Jose Canseco.  This one is numbered 5/25 and probably got some parallel name associated with it... rainbow bubbles... swirly gumdrops... who knows, not going to look it up for you.  All I care for is those four little gold numbers on the back.  

This guy should be in the HOF by almost all standards except for his name (and all the lovelies associated with it), but while its certainly not a bad card, I was certainly not excited as I opened it.  

Even with all the complaints I had (we won't talk about how these cards are labeled with letters instead of numbers), I still very much like this modern design (its why I opened the box in the first place).  I'm definitely keeping the Pedro and Hammerin' Hank, but the rest are up for grabs if people want them.