Time To Load Up on Snacks!

While the inevitable 'stay at home' order is what led me to this topic, it's not the reason for my title's suggestion. I am not advocating for anyone to go out and start hoarding junk food. It's been an interesting week or so to say the least. During the day on Tuesday, I had heard that a stay home order was imminent for Durham(where my office is located), so I decided to stop at a random Food Lion on the way home from work the other night. As I was rushing around the mostly empty store, I came upon an end cap and saw a few Topps branded packages of Utz chips. I did a double take and pondered what I was seeing for a moment. I didn't remember hearing anything about a follow-up to last year's set. I honestly assumed that they had found a few of these tucked away in a corner of the store room and decided to put them on the floor since customers have been grabbing everything they can to load up their pantry. I figured I might as well grab one since there may be a time in the coming weeks where I don't mind chips that have been stored away for a year. The dates on these things are just the 'best if used by' variety, right? Anyway, I got home, unpacked the car, and put away the few items I bought. Much like I did last year, I openened the outer package and rummaged through the small bags of chips trying to find the pack of cards. When I pulled it out, I was shocked!

They weren't 2019 leftovers! They even have a unique design(which I like better than flagship)! I quickly ripped open the pack and flipped through the 3 cards(plus one coupon card like last year).

I really like these!

The backs are not very unique and the name above the card number is the only indication that these are from a co-branded set. It's interesting that they didn't include the Utz logo anywhere in this year's design. I, for one, am thrilled that there is a food issue set to chase for a second consecutive year! I'm also really disappointed that it's going to be more difficult to track down due to the current and/or pending quarantine orders. After my excitement wore off, I did a quick search on Twitter to see what I could find out about this year's promo. Turns out I completely missed posts by multiple sources that have been floating around for over a week. Now this is the kind of news I would have loved to see overflowing my timeline about a week ago. Had I known there was a current year chase, I definitely would have picked up a few more snack packs. If anyone is interested, a complete checklist is up on the Beckett website. What do you think about this design? Are you excited about another oddball set? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments or over in the Twitterverse. Thanks for reading.

Food Issued Baseball Cards in 2019?

Could it be true? I love oddballs. Especially if they are food issued, baseball cards. In 2016, Topps and Walmart got my hopes up that we were about to see the re-emergence of these into the hobby when they released the Marketside pizza baseball set. Unfortunately, that set was a one-off and the only food-issue that has been released since was an MLS focused Post cereal release last year(yes I collected that). However, it looks like we will be getting another food-issued baseball set in 2019!

At the Topps Industry Conference which took place February 24-26, a set which will be released in Utz snack products was announced. I borrowed the following pic from @SportsCardNews on Twitter.

All of the details I can find so far are summarized in the slide in the picture. What do you honk about this news? Will you be trying to search these out? I know I sure will be. Thanks for reading!