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 - 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Update - looks like Topps has dropped the “Anniversary” terminology from the product name and are now referring to it as “2023 Topps Chrome Platinum ‘54 Baseball”
2023 Topps Chrome Platinum ‘54 Baseball
In now what has become an annual tradition in its third year of existence, 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum ‘54 Baseball is being released well into the following year, scheduled for Wednesday, May 22nd.
There is one hobby format announced - a regular Hobby box. It comes with one guaranteed auto per box. Last year Topps sold these boxes for $99.99. Currently Blowout is selling them for $139.95. If configurations remain the same year over year, there will likely also be a Hobby Lite configuration. Ultimately this is very similar to a Mega Box as it’s not providing any guaranteed hits - just exclusive parallels. Last year Topps sold Hobby Lite boxes for $59.99. There will also likely be retail formats with Blasters/Value Boxes at the very least. Fanatics is currently selling Blaster boxes for $29.99. ***Update - Topps is selling Hobby boxes for $119.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $1,439.99. They are also selling Blaster/Value boxes for $29.99 that come with 3 exclusive prism refractors per box. Also, Hobby Lite boxes did not materialize, so it’s possible this format is unsurprisingly dead.
The design is based off of the 1954 Topps design, most well-known to contain the Hank Aaron rookie card. It’s also well known as it’s a strange three border approach with the top missing the border. It gives you the feeling that the card is wildly off-center, and at the very least, unbalanced. It’s not one of my favorite throwback designs, but it seems like Topps is taking the same approach with this product that it does with Heritage, going one year at a time forward through the historic Topps designs. Which makes sense, given that this is called Platinum Anniversary, so it is using the design from 70 years ago. I don’t know how Topps does it’s math, but somehow the first edition of the product that was released in 2022 but was a 2021 product, was supposed to be the Platinum Anniversary of the first Topps product in 1952 - so I guess you count the first product as 1 and not 0, like a typical Anniversary, so 2021 minus 1952 equals 69 (nice), but if you start at 1, it makes it the 70th year since 1952 in 2021 (I guess?). Anyways, I’m confusing myself, and I was told there would be no math, so someone smarter than me needs to help here. Cards are on chrome stock, and autos are on card, which is worth more and more these days. The final design topic worth mentioning is that Topps is adding a cool variation to the 2023 version of the product - a city variation. A four-card pack will be added to roughly one in twelve hobby boxes, or one per case, that will be the variation - very similar to what Topps started doing with Bowman Pearl packs, although a lot easier to hit odds. There will also be refractor versions of these variation packs that are supposed to fall one in ten cases.
Willie Mays San Francisco City Variation
The checklist is not yet out as of writing. However, even though we are in the calendar year of 2024, this is a 2023 product - so we should expect to see the majority of the 2023 rookies. Corbin Carroll, Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe, Michael Harris II, and plenty of others will drive the product chases. As is the case in years past, I expect a fair amount of ex-MLB players sprinkled throughout with the rookies and current MLB players. It is a 500 card set, and it is a throwback product, so Topps usually gives us at least one if not more per team of their more well-known former players.
I’m not usually a big fan of this product as the timing always feels like whiplash. The hobby in general, as well as myself, has shifted its focus to the 2024 rookie and prospect classes. It’s tough to get overly excited and go hunting for cards of players that no longer have the hype train in full effect outside of buying for PC purposes. In addition, I doubt many people will be overly excited to pull a Shohei Ohtani Angels card. The price point (at least in the past), isn’t terrible for a chrome on card auto, but the auto list for last year’s product was quite lengthy and full of players that would lead to sad collectors. Outside of the city variations, I doubt there will be a ton of interest for me. The hobby may get hyped for a week or two on the product as there isn’t much in the baseball card pipeline to get excited about beyond Series 2 in mid-June, but long term the value and interest is likely not there. If you do want in, I think you can easily wait for the hype to die down and then easily pick up what you want in the singles market.