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 Chrome Black.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2024 Topps Chrome Black
The popular mid-tier product is getting shifted from the end of the product year calendar to the beginning of the of the product year calendar and is scheduled for release on Wednesday, April 17th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one encased auto plus a non-auto pack of two base cards and one refractor parallel. Last year Topps sold Hobby boxes for $149.99 with a customer limit of 10 boxes and Cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $1,745.88 with a customer limit of 2. Currently Blowout is selling Hobby boxes for $159.95 and Cases for $1,899.95. There are no retail formats of this product. ***Update - Topps is selling Hobby boxes for the same price as last year - $149.99, but with a lower customer limit of 4 boxes. Cases are a slight increase in price over last year, up to $1,799.99 with the same customer limit of 2.
The design starts with the black theme on chrome stock. The design had a more geometric floating hexagon theme last year while this year is more flowing strands throughout the background. Introduced last year, the rare Ivory Autographs are back, which flips the scheme from black to white - those cards looked great last year and I expect the same this year. Added this year is a non-auto insert supposedly rare insert called Depths of Darkness. A full black border with a diminishing perspective triangular tunnel in the center with the player overlaid on it all - an interesting design and I’ve seen people excited about it. The rarity with it will likely keep some short term interest in the insert relatively high, but over the long term I’m not sure it’s going to stand the test of time. All autos are on-card, although with dual autos in play, there’s always a chance that stickers show up (hopefully not).
The checklist is made up of rookies, vets, and ex-MLB players. With the calendar switch, the rookies available in the checklist is a lot less than what we’ve come to normally expect from Chrome Black - essentially the Series 1 rookies. This includes the three rookie Asian imports with Jung-Hoo Lee, Shota Imanaga, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. I believe this is the first Imanaga autograph we will see (unless there’s been a Topps Now type of auto). Other primary rookie chases will be Jordan Lawlar, Jasson Dominguez, Elly De La Cruz, Junior Caminero, and given his hot start to the season, Colton Cowser. One note is that while Ohtani is a Dodger for his non-auto cards, his only auto is part of a dual auto with Mike Trout and is assigned to the Angels (assuming Ohtani will be in his Angels gear).
I like Topps Chrome Black cards. I don’t like paying $150 for a personal box where I could end up Andre Lipcius, Jose Fermín, Zach Remillard, etc., turning my $150 into $10 (assuming no massive hit in the non-auto pack). Even getting into breaks of Chrome Black is a tough pill to swallow, with just 48 cards total to be spread around amongst the break participants. Breakers, on the other hand, love this product as it breaks fast, is easy to sort and ship, and the price point is enticing for buyers. For me personally, it’s a buy a few PC cards when I find good deals unless the product at some point miraculously drops below $100 a box.