"Flagship"

I still don't understand the Topps Flagship Collection thing. So many people call, historically I think, the base set of Topps the Flagship set. So of course Topps or Fanatics now has to issue something called the Flagship Collection. Often I find it to be more attractive than the regular old Topps base set issue. The cards are on thicker, studier stock than the regular cards and appear to be some Costco (Maybe?) exclusive?

I don't know. But I do know that I recently got a couple of Andrew McCutchen cards from this set. McCutchen had two cards in the 2025 set. Why? I shouldn't ask silly questions. But he was number 41 and number 81; and I think it mostly likely that the someone creating the checklist didn't realize they'd already put him in because people have the attention span of what was I even talking about?

2025:

2026:

I really like this 2026 design. It reminds me of 1983 and a "straight" 1985 design (just imagine that diagonal team name or name plate was straight and things were switched up a bit). It's clean, it's uncluttered. And I still can't understand how or why they gave McCutchen the OF designation this year.

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