Beckett Editor has a 40-Year Run of Topps Sets.
Growing up in Canada, Beckett’s Ryan Cracknell’s early days of collecting centered around hockey cards.
But as a Montreal Expos fan, Cracknell had the desire to get into baseball cards. However, Topps wasn’t readily available north of the United States border until the 1991 baseball season.
“I remember getting certain things back in the earlier ’80s—’85-’86 O-Pee-Chee hockey I definitely remember going to the store for,” Cracknell said. “We were a little slower than the United States, so a lot of the early stuff was ’89 O-Pee-Chee hockey, but baseball was huge for me. Topps was like this weird thing that we didn’t see. It felt exotic to me.”
In the early 1990s, Cracknell’s collecting habits shifted to baseball. Nearly 35 years after buying his first Topps packs, Cracknell is still hooked on the cards from Topps.
In the late 1990s, Cracknell turned his attention to building sets year after year. His goal: do a lifetime run beginning with his birth year, 1978. Cracknell’s getting close to finishing that off.
“I think I’m down to like 1983 to 2023,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say I pretty much have a 40-year run. There are a couple of sets that I’m missing. I built mine straight up from packs. A lot of it would only be the last couple of cards because living in Canada makes it challenging. We get a certain amount at Walmart and stuff, but card stores don’t carry much baseball at all. There were some years I wouldn’t even see it.”
Cracknell is proud of his 40-year run. He enjoys jumping through hoops to try and complete sets.
“What I love about collecting cards is that there’s always a challenge,” the 46-year-old said.
Favorite Cards/Sets
Being an Expos collector, one of Cracknell’s all-time favorite cards is Larry Walker’s 1995 Stadium Club. It features Walker with a goalie stick swung over his right shoulder combined with the ’95 design.
“It’s a shot where it’s looking up at him, so he looks a little bit larger than life,” said Cracknell, who resides in Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Cracknell also really enjoys the 1991 Topps Baseball Carlton Fisk, 1987 Topps Baseball Jose Canseco, and 1985 Topps Baseball Mark McGwire.
Cracknell’s Expos collection includes a full run of team sets from their expansion year in 1969 to when the franchise moved to Washington, D.C., in 2004.
A few of Cracknell’s favorite baseball sets from over the years include 1991 Topps, 1986 Topps Traded, 2024 Topps, 2015 Topps, and 1956 Topps.
“’95 Topps is my unrated pick,” Cracknell said. “The ’90s kid in me loves that design. It’s a more bold one. There was a photographer who used this perspective of looking up at the clouds over and over again, especially for the Expos. Just this cool angle; this cool photography. It just connected with that mid-’90s vibe.”
1995 Topps Baseball #22 John Wetteland (top); 1995 Topps Baseball #196 Rondell White (bottom) showing off 1995 Topps “cloud look”
Flagship Forever
Ever since cracking those first Topps packs in 1991, Cracknell has loved the Flagship product. There are several reasons why.
“Photography is definitely up there,” Cracknell said. “Traditionally, a lot of the sets just have cool photos. Availability. Early on, that was key. If I couldn’t find it, obviously, I wasn’t going to buy it. But after a couple years of it, I appreciate the tradition a lot. It’s a long-running brand.”
Now that he’s older, Cracknell enjoys the comfort and dependability throughout the Flagship name and product.
“There’s nothing in sports cards that have that continuity of Topps Baseball,” Cracknell said. “There’s something about the dependability of having something that you know is going to be there.”
