This Week in Baseball Cards - 11/29 - 12/5

Each week over the past year our resident card expert Joe Lowry has given everyone on our Prospects Live Discord Baseball Card chat a heads up on what’s dropping in the Hobby. We’re now bringing those posts over to the main site to help keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time. This week we have three products being released: 2021 Topps Brooklyn Collection, 2021 Topps Holiday and 2021 Onyx Vintage Extended Series (we think). For info on the continually delayed Vintage Extended Series, check out the previous TWiBC post on it. This post will be updated if more news and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***2021 Topps Heritage High Number and 2021 Panini Contenders Baseball are being found in retail formats, but the hobby releases are not scheduled until December 10th and December 17th respectively. I’ll drop the breakdown on those products when hobby goes live. ****Updated for the PSA acquisition of Card Ladder

2021 Topps Brooklyn Collection

2021 Topps Brooklyn Collection is a Montgomery Club exclusive (apparently not!) and is the first product to hit for the newest iteration of the 12 month membership, going on sale on Monday, November 29th. ***Update - as the product did not sell out in one day (LOL), Topps decided to make this available to the public for purchase at the same $150 price point on Tuesday, November 30th.

There is only one configuration - a “hobby” box that contains a single pack with seven cards. Of the seven cards, two are autographs, two are base card parallels, and the remaining three are standard base cards. They are being sold at $150 each with a maximum of two boxes per membership.

The design is quite something. The base design has an action photo with the logo in one corner and the player name going in one direction and position going the other in neon colors that clash terribly with the action photo. All I can see is the neon when I look at it. The autographed cards are even worse. The background is almost all geometric neon. It’s definitely a departure from last year, and one I am not a fan of.

The checklist is a 50 card base set of rookies, stars, and retired players. Rookies include Kelenic, Hayes, Vaughn, India, Jazz, Bohm, Baddoo, Carlson, Dalbec, Mountcastle, etc. Vets include Tatis, Vladdy, Ohtani, Harper, Trout, Soto, Acuna, etc. Retired players include Griffey Jr., Nolan Ryan, Ichiro, Mariano Rivera, Rickey Henderson, Cal Ripken Jr., etc. Overall, a very strong group since they kept it to just 50 players. The auto list is actually longer, with 81 players along the same lines of rookies, stars, and retired players. Only about half the guys with base cards get autos, which feels a bit strange, but ok then. This leads to the auto checklist getting a little thinner, but in general I would be happy with about 75% of the guys on the list. Doubt I would make money on all but 25% of the list though.

At the end of the day, Brooklyn Collection tends to do well in sealed format every year since it’s a members only product, but it also isn’t a flippers paradise where you 3x-4x your initial investment. I think there may be some not as interested in the product given the highlighter inspired design. You can definitely find worse deals for two licensed on card autos in a sealed product, but it also isn’t the cheapest deal with that criteria either. As I don’t have a membership, the only way I will be getting any is through breaks and/or aftermarket singles purchases. I have gotten a PC single from this product in the past. However, given the design, I doubt I will be even doing that this year.

2021 Topps Holiday

2021 Topps Holiday is a retail-only Walmart exclusive that started to show up on retail shelves at the end of last week.

There is only one format, a Mega Box, which gives you one guaranteed hit. The hit will either be a relic, auto, or autographed relic card. The odds are very high it will be a relic as autos are roughly one in every 41 boxes and auto relics are even longer odds. They should be around $20 a box if found on the shelf, but I have yet to see any myself or see anyone report an actual price point.

I am a big fan of Topps Holiday cards and that is mostly due to the festive design and awesome short prints. From the first year of the product, 2016, through 2018, the design basically stuck to the flagship design with some snowflakes thrown in partially overlaying the player photo. However, in 2019, Topps hit it out of the park by completely taking the border of the flagship design and going full holly with it. In 2020, they dialed it back some, but the also only had a border one one side of the card. 2021 flagship has full borders and my hopes were high, but as is usually the case with Topps, I should have kept my expectations low. While I like the candy cane motif they used, they went with it in the four corners only on the interior. They easily could have gone with the candy cane motif for the entire border and I would have been much happier. However, that isn’t the biggest design choice they made. They decided to go full holiday matrix on us. Instead of enhancing the holiday vibes, it distracts from them. Maybe I will feel different when I have them in hand, but every picture I have seen has been disappointing. On the other hand, I think this is the best they have done with the relic cards with the relic centered onto an image of a snowman design - essentially the mid-section of the snowman. Finally, as usual, we have three levels of short prints that are my favorite part of the product, especially when they’re big and fun. Snowmen, Santa hats, candy cane bats, presents, etc are great. Subtle ones like a Santa belt or eye black with Christmas stars are disappointing as often they can be barely seen.

The checklist is not officially released, but it looks to be 220 base card checklist pulled from all three flagship releases including trade deadline players that did not get a new uniform/card in Update Series like Kris Bryant. Ultimately, you get a shot at the majority of the rookies you would normally be hunting in all the other releases at what is usually a lower price point. Not a whole lot more interesting to discuss here though with the checklist as this product is more about the design.

This was essentially my favorite product of 2019. In 2020, I was mildly disappointed with the design, but it was understandable given the constraints of the flagship design that year. Had my hopes up with the full border flagship design in 2021 giving so many opportunities for this product, but it was not to be. I will still be buying at least some of this product if I run across it at retail locations, but I will not be buying in the secondary market or paying above retail for it.

PSA Acquires Card Ladder

PSA announced today (Thursday, December 2nd) that they have acquired the hobby card market and data tracking tool Card Ladder. Details of the deal have not been announced.

Card Ladder was started back in the summer of 2020 and their tag line is “Build a Better Collection with Better Insights”. Boasting over 18,000 cards tracked with more added every day with pricing data and population reports from 15 different sources. While they have some free functionality, the main portion of their functionality requires a membership. Access to in depth functionality runs at $15 per month which is better than their main direct competitor in the space, Sports Card Investor’s Market Mover app.

PSA (Collectors Universe) has been on an acquisition spree since they were acquired by the Nat Turner/Steve Cohen group and this is just another one added into the fold of what is likely many more to come. The most direct integration will to be helping augment their PSA Set Registry by giving those users the ability to track the value of their collections. On the other side, it should give Card Ladder a more direct link into the PSA pop reports, but this is really just an ease of technology aspect and probably lowers the cost of doing business for them.

At the end of the day, I think this makes a ton of sense for both companies. PSA adds another company with likely a profitable subscription service with the added benefit of increasing the value proposition of their Set Registry. It also doesn’t have to spend their own internal resources on building out their own market pricing tool which is a key piece of the puzzle for submissions. When you submit a card, you have to declare its value - this determines not only its insurance value in case a card is lost or damaged, but also determines the price point of the submission itself. PSA can easily reference Card Ladder data as the determining factor rather than a much narrower comparison base that they were using in the past (eBay more than likely). From the Card Ladder perspective, well, it’s the simple answer, but, they all just got paid (no details of the deal were announced, as is pretty standard in situations where companies are privately held).

Even though I think Card Ladder is lacking key functionality and utility for the every day collector, it definitely provides a good look at various macro elements to the hobby in general. And obviously, PSA saw the value in what they provide as well.