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 is one scheduled release - 2024 Topps Luminaries.

This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.

2024 Topps Luminaries

The high-end product from Topps, 2024 Topps Luminaries is scheduled to release on Friday, January 3rd.

There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one autographed card, typically an encased auto or auto relic. Booklets can also be pulled but those won’t be encased. Topps ran pre-orders at the beginning of December. Hobby boxes were $359.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (6 boxes per case) were $2,159.99. In 2023, Topps sold Hobby boxes for $349.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $4,099.99.

The design has continued to get more and more colorful over the last few years, and this year Topps has really embraced that. Gone are the classic, basic white with gold highlights. I somewhat miss that, but I also enjoy the change. Relics are game-used from all that I’ve ever seen, and I expect that to continue. Autos are on card with the only exception typically being multi-player booklet cards which have been stickers in the past.

The checklist is full of ex-MLB players, current vets, and a sprinkling of rookies, including the chase rookies like Paul Skenes, the Jackson 3, Junior Caminero, Elly De La Cruz, Jasson, Wyatt Langford, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The primary player missing is Shota Imanaga.

This is a product where only big money will typically play when it comes to personal box rips or case breaks. Cheap breaks are possible with super long odds when breakers will sell random checklist spots, which I’ve seen done on occasion. Ultimately, unless your regularly spending big money on the hobby, this is at best an aftermarket singles product. For me, I’d simply rather spend my money elsewhere as I’m not really into the artificially high value simply because a single card when pulled from a box starts at $350 plus. If I was a high-roller, I can see the single card, high risk high reward attraction, so if that’s you, then this is a product to have fun with.