oh my sweet wesley, please tell me this is here to stay

there will be plenty of time to show the fronts of some of the 2015 topps cards that i bought last night, but i was pretty amped about something i saw on the backs; amped enough to post about it first.  here's a random jesse hahn card back

do you see what i see? above the card number?

has topps finally realized that putting the set information on the back of the card is an enormous service to collectors?  this is one of the first things that i would do to improve cards - maybe right after photo selection, or even before.

i was so pleased in 2007 when upper deck started identifying their sets on card backs (here's the back of a don drysdale card from '07.

can you tell what set the card is from?  of course you can - it's from 2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts. upper deck wisely added this information to their inserts, too, which has been a huge help to me as i retroactively go back and organize cards from their last 4 years of existence in the baseball card business.

as you all know, with all of the inserts out there, let alone the number of individual sets, it's really tough to keep everything straight and organized properly. that's why i was excited about this development.  yes, topps has done it sporadically on some of their manufactured patch inserts in recent years, but i was hopeful that this was a sign of a complete labeling shift on their part.  hopeful until i looked at the backs of the 2015 topps inserts i pulled, that is.  no set information on those.  bugger.  try harder topps!