Pack Break - 2012 Topps Sticker Collection (and the album too!)

With Opening Day in Major League Baseball just a over a week away Topps has unleashed yet another product to get us pumped about the season.  STICKERS!!  I was so excited about last year's effort, but once I got the album some of that excitement went away thanks to the page layout.  I don't know about you, but I had a hard time lining up the stickers.  I'm anal when it comes to stuff like this (just ask my wife how I obsessed over my 2 year old's Hello Kitty sticker album!).  This year however I love the design for each team's page.  It's much cleaner and easier to see the sticker boundaries.  Even though I'm still working on filling up last year's album I ready to dive in head first.
 

  

I've got one question for you Topps.  Why isn't there a Brave represented on the front?  Surely Kimbrel should have at least been on there.  Granderson?  What did he do last year?  Oh well...  309 stickers to chase and they give you a head start with 6 free stickers in each album.  Like last year the stickers are the same in every album.  The freebies include:  Ryan Zimmerman, David Freese (no squirrel here!), Brett Lawrie RC, Mike Napoli, Chase Utley and Brian Wilson.  Again, my Braves are shut out! 

The Braves are represented on their page by Craig Kimbrel, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones, Jason Heyward, Dan Uggla, Freddie Freeman, Brian McCann, Tommy Hanson and a mascot.

Each $.99 pack gets you 8 cards.  309 cards total so it'll take you 38.625 packs (minus dupes...which you will get plenty of) to complete the set.  Here is the result of my first pack.  The Johnny Bench was surprising...then I remembered they did players from the past last year on foil stickers.  The design is nice.  I actually prefer it over the base set's design.  I like too that the stickers aren't flimsy like Panini's.  They feel like trading cards and I'm sure that the player or team collector will appreciate this.  All in all it's a great looking design all around and most important - affordable!