Helping to keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time in the Baseball Card Hobby for the current week. Check out our Discord for more discussion on this and any other hobby chatter - Prospects Live Discord.
This week there are two scheduled releases - 2023 Topps Gilded Collection and 2023 Topps Pro Debut.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for 2023 Finest Flashbacks going live on the Topps website, 2023 Topps Allen & Ginter X, and the 2023 Topps Chrome Update pre-sale.
2023 Topps Pro Debut
The minor league prospect focused product is scheduled to release on Wednesday, October 18th. For all the details, see the original post on the product from This Week in Baseball Cards when it was previously scheduled to release at the end of August. I will update this section with any new info as it becomes available.
***Update - Topps is selling Hobby boxes for $64.99 with a customer limit of 4 boxes and Cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $754.99 with a customer limit of 1
2023 Topps Gilded Collection
One of the biggest new product successes of 2022, 2023 Topps Gilded Collection is back for its second iteration and is scheduled for release on Wednesday, October 18th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. The format from last year is carrying over to this year - two packs with a total of five cards with a total of two autos. One pack is the gold framed autograph and the other pack is three base cards (or parallels) and the regular auto. Cut signatures are also a possibility here. Last year Topps sold boxes for $319.99 with a customer limit of 4. At the moment (10/16), Blowout is selling boxes for $649.95! I expect Topps to raise the prices on these boxes, likely into the $400 range, but we shall see if I am completely underestimating this. ***Update - Topps is selling boxes for $499.99 with a customer limit of 2 and it sold out almost instantly.
The design is essentially taking the same approach as it did the year previous. Using the base Flagship design and giving it, as Topps says, “a luxurious, gold-laden design” using the chrome card stock for everything but the gold framed auto. All autos are on card, which they should be when it comes to a mid to high-end product like this.
The checklist is yet to be released, but we should have all the rookie chases in it since those were primarily in Series 1/Series 2/Chrome, unlike last year where Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt Jr. were extended or short printed until we got to Update. Those two were included in an extended short print set in 2022 Topps Gilded, but it will be interesting to see if Topps decided that they need to do the same thing again this year. The only other item worth mentioning is that in 2022, only Hall of Famers were part of the Gold Framed Auto checklist. This year, Topps has added a second Gold Framed Auto checklist called “Gilded in Gold” and have teased Albert Pujols as part of that checklist. That would lead you to believe that this portion of the checklist is likely ex-MLB players that aren’t in the Hall of Fame, at least not yet in Pujols case. It makes sense since the Hall of Fame signers list would get pretty repetitive year after year if they restricted the gold framed autos to only be Hall of Famers. ***Update - the Gilded in Gold checklist included a mixture of current AND ex-players, with some of those ex-player being Hall of Famers as well. As to the rest of the checklist, no real surprises. All of the rookie chases are there with Corbin Carroll, Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Anthony Volpe, Jordan Walker, and more.
I wasn’t totally bought into Gilded Collection last year before it came out as two autos for over $300 is a tough ask to make your money back (if that’s your goal). You can get the Hall of Fame autographs of the lesser signers like Harold Baines and Jim Rice for under $50, and there’s plenty of others in a similar scenario. And then the regular, non-framed autos have a high likelihood of swings and misses as well - I got a PC card of a Brandon Crawford auto in the after market from 2022 Gilded for well under $50. On the other hand, I think the chrome cards here look really nice, and hopefully the chrome dimpling that I saw last year has been worked out. There is a heavy element of price and checklist that will still drive the context on this, but for the short term, I expect this to be a very popular product again.
2023 Topps Finest Flashbacks
On Monday, October 16th Topps sent out emails to 2023 Topps 582 Montgomery Club members that 2023 Topps Finest Flashbacks pre-orders would be going live on Tuesday, October 17th. This is one of the six products that were promised to the 2023 Monty Club members as part of the exclusive pre-order products. This product went live on Tuesday at 12 PM EST at a price of $224.99 with a customer limit of 1. Last year Topps sold these boxes for $199.99. As usual, autos are not guaranteed and this year odds imply that they will come one in every five boxes. It is unknown if/when this product will be released to the general public. ***Update - Topps dropped this for the general public on Wednesday, October 18th. The price jumps up to $239.99 with a customer limit of 4 boxes. They are also selling Cases of Hobby boxes (6 boxes per case) for $1382.34 (strange number you decided on there Topps) with a customer limit of 1.
Checklist, design, and odds were all released today. Parallels jumped up significantly to support what is surely an increased print run. The auto checklist is very strong, likely indicating this will be a very popular product to rip, resell, and break.
2023 Topps Allen & Ginter X
The online-only, black themed version of Allen & Ginter, 2023 Topps Allen & Ginter X went live on the Topps website on Friday, October 20th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one auto guaranteed and Topps is selling boxes for $69.99 with a customer limit of 4 boxes. Last year Topps sold them for the same price but limited the purchase to 3 per customer.
The design is exactly the same as the full release but instead of the off-white background you get a black background. Autographs typically are silver ink.
The checklist is pretty much the same as the full release - I haven’t done a line for line analysis, but it looks relatively the same at first glance.
Given the price point and the guaranteed auto (something you don’t get in the full release), this is a relatively good deal. Outside of black border condition concerns on paper stock, I’d recommend getting this over getting the full release.
2023 Topps Chrome Update
Teased on Thursday, October 19th, Topps went live with the 2023 Topps Chrome Update pre-sale on Friday, October 20th. It’s scheduled to go live on November 15th.
Topps is pre-selling three hobby formats - a regular Hobby box, a Jumbo Hobby box, and a Breaker’s Delight Hobby box. Regular Hobby boxes guarantee 1 auto per box and are being pre-sold for $129.99 with a customer limit of 4. Jumbo Hobby boxes guarantee 3 autos per box and are being sold for $349.99 with a customer limit of 4. Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes guarantee 2 autos per box and are being sold for $249.99 with a customer limit of 4. This is only the second time we’ve seen Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes - the first instance was with the 2023 Topps Chrome release earlier in the year. Also, this configuration is much more in line with Topps Chrome. Last year seemed like a transition year as they were moving towards a more Chrome-like configuration, but this year it’s fully aligned.
Checklist mimics a lot of 2023 Topps Update Series. More in depth evaluation of the checklist, design, and anything else will occur when the go live happens.