Topps Archives is a set that I usually don’t pay a lot of attention to. The formula is to pick a few of the company’s “classic” set designs and make a mishmash of cards featuring both current and retired players. Throw in a few inserts and some Fan Favorites autograph cards for folks to chase after, and Topps has an easy-to-produce filler for a slot on its summer release slate.
This year, I was even more inclined to ignore Topps Archives since one of its big “selling point” was a series of inserts commemorating Will Ferrell’s spring training publicity stunt.
But something actually made me look at the Mets cards anyway. Six of the 11 Mets players landed cards using the 1976 Topps design, and the folks at Topps actually made the effort to use photos that wouldn’t look out of place on a 1970s baseball card. Five of the six are posed spring training shots, and Matt Harvey‘s action photo is just a spring training warmup picture. David Wright and Jacob deGrom‘s cards are among my favorites of the year.
Topps made a similar effort with the four 1957 style cards — all use posed photos.
Only Tom Seaver‘s card following the 1983 design looks out of place. 
Seaver actually played for the Mets in 1983, but the photos Topps selected are from the earlier years of his career. It always bugs me when Topps makes a card for a retired player using a design from the era of that player’s career and doesn’t use a photo from the appropriate time period – don’t ask me why.
Mercifully, no Mets were short-printed. I can’t imagine anyone trying to build the full 1-330 set when there are 30 cards that are found one every three boxes, on average.
A couple of Mets appear on insert cards that I will make some effort to track down, but I don’t think I will pursue any of the Fan Favorites autographs.
Here’s the Mets checklist (not including parallels):
- 26 Curtis Granderson – New York Mets
- 42 Juan Lagares – New York Mets
- 52 Dilson Herrera – New York Mets RC
- 92 Mookie Wilson – New York Mets
- 110 Jacob deGrom – New York Mets
- 145 Daniel Murphy – New York Mets
- 151 David Wright – New York Mets
- 156 Travis d’Arnaud – New York Mets
- 176 Zack Wheeler – New York Mets
- 187 Matt Harvey – New York Mets
- 209 Tom Seaver – New York Mets
1968 Topps Game inserts
- 10 David Wright – New York Mets
1990 Topps All-Star Rookies inserts
- 90ASI-DH Dilson Herrera – New York Mets
Fan Favorites Autographs
- FFA-AL Al Leiter – New York Mets (1973)
- FFA-EA Edgardo Alfonzo – New York Mets (1980)
- FFA-JD Jacob deGrom – New York Mets (1973)
- FFA-JF John Franco – New York Mets (1989)
1990 Topps All-Star Rookies Autographs
- 90AS-DH Dilson Herrera – New York Mets
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