What A Lousy Tribute

Webster says that a tribute is "something that you say, give, or do to show respect or affection for someone."

Topps has not read Webster.

Topps pays "tribute" to Billy Williams in 2014 Tribute...

...by using last year's card...

...over again.

Here's a better look side by side.

How nuts is that??

I get that the design of Tribute doesn't change much from year to year.  But to use the exact same picture two years in a row??   That's not showing my favorite Cub much respect or affection.

It's like the 1960s all over again.

Topps Tribute is a high end product.  A hobby box at Blowout Cards of Tribute is going for $235 and that gets you a total of 18 cards.  I only cherry-pick singles for this set and pay a fraction of what the original purchaser paid.  I would never big bucks for a huge gamble that will be lost.

But if I did pay that kind of cash, I'd be kinda ticked to see the same picture used two years in a row.  Why does Topps do such a ridiculous thing?  When Topps repeated pictures in 1968 and 1969, you were paying a penny a card.  The Tribute cards are going for a whole lot more than a penny a piece.

The sad part is that this is Billy's first card for 2014.  He was shut out of Series One of the flagship.  So even though its 2013 all over again, I went ahead and picked up a couple other parallel....

 

...the Blue /99 and the Green / 50.

And here is my crazy 2013 and 2014 rainbow.

Nice Tribute, Topps.