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 release - 2024 Topps 50/50: Shohei Ohtani and 2024 Bowman Chrome Mega Box. In addition, there is one pre-order scheduled - 2024 Topps Allen & Ginter.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for the 2024 Topps 206 release
2024 Topps 50/50: Shohei Ohtani
Topps announced on Sunday, September 29th that a new product will go live on Monday, September 30th commemorating the historic record of Shohei Ohtani hitting the 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season. The product is scheduled to ship on December 26th.
There are two options for purchase - a single pack of 5 cards for $25 or a full Hobby box of 10 packs for $239.99. Each Hobby box is promised to provide one parallel or short print. There are autos and relics that can be pulled, but as of writing, odds have not been released, so we don’t know how easy or hard (likely VERY HARD) it will be to pull those hits.
The design is unique to this product and features a 50/50 logo throughout. Each card in the 100 card base checklist is an image from either one of the home runs or one of the stolen bases that led to the 50/50 milestone. That’s a really nice touch and good to see that creativity from Topps. The big deal is that there will be three Dynasty branded cards in the set which are actually Dynasty Black branded, which is new to me. Each card is a 1/1, and they are auto relic cards, as is usual with Dynasty. Each relic is game used material from the game when he set the 50/50 mark. It appears that the Dynasty Black autos are on card - it’s yet to be known if the other, more standard autos will be on card or if they will be stickers. Given the shipping date being late December, I am hoping that means all on card autos and no redemptions.
I collect Ohtani cards, as hard as that has become on the wallet off and on throughout the years. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even consider purchasing this product direct from Topps at the price point and if it truly is one SP or image variation per box, and not per pack. If that is truly the case, it’s a huge gamble and basically an aftermarket singles product once, hopefully, the Ohtani market cools down in the off-season, however unlikely that may be.
2024 Bowman Chrome Mega Box
The retail format of 2024 Bowman Chrome is scheduled to release on Wednesday, October 2nd.
The box format is comprised of 5 base Bowman Chrome packs and 2 mojo packs. Each pack comes with 5 cards, so you will get a total of 10 mojo cards per box (along with the base cards from the other 5 packs). Topps did pre-orders of this product back on September 5th. Single box prices were $44.99 and case prices (20 boxes per case) were $899.99. Per Topps social media, box prices will remain at $44.99 when it goes live - we shall see if cases will be offered as well on Wednesday. ***Update - As expected, boxes went on sale on Wednesday for $44.99. In addition, cases went on sale for $899.99.
The design is what we’ve seen from Bowman, with the mojo packs getting the mojo parallel treatment. When it comes to the prospect autographs that you can hit, but are not guaranteed, the prospects will not have a 1st Bowman logo, even if 2024 Bowman Chrome is their 1st Bowman product. Topps chooses to use different photos, and essentially treat this like a different product, than the 2024 Bowman Chrome release. While prospect autos are usually on card, the image variation autos can be stickers. This year, we also will have mojo rookie autos, unlike in years past, and the teased image is also a sticker auto.
The checklist is a slimmed down version of what you have seen in 2024 Bowman Chrome. All of your Tier 1 guys are still there - Leo De Vries, Jose Perdomo, Paulino Santana, and Emil Morales. If you are chasing specific players, I’d recommend going to Topps or Beckett or your checklist website of choice to ensure the players you are hunting are in the product. For a full breakdown of the prospects with 1st Bowman cards from the full release, check out our preview of 2024 Bowman Chrome.
I’ve seen this product in the past rip farely well at a case level, but not on a single box level. As most of us, including myself, aren’t ripping at a case level, I’d rather treat this as a singles product or buying bargain break spots if you can find them.
2024 Topps Allen & Ginter
The nostalgia-based lower tier product with a ton of hobby supporters as well as haters is going on pre-order on Tuesday, October 1st. Topps is doing pre-orders of Hobby boxes for $124.99, the same price that we saw in 2023. The format appears to be the same, at least from the amount of hits per box perspective. Topps provided the first image from the product on their social media on Monday morning which was only a partial image of a Bobby Witt Jr. auto. More to come as details should be more well known on Tuesday. ***Update - pre-orders went live with Hobby boxes priced at $124.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (strangely listed as 11 boxes instead of the typical 12, but it’s likely 12 as the case price math is equivalent to the price of 12 boxes) for $1,499.99. The expected go live date is October 30th.
2024 Topps 206
On Wednesday, October 2nd, Topps announced that 2024 Topps 206 would go on sale at 12 PM EST on Thursday, October 3rd.
There will be one configuration - a four pack “Hobby” box that should come with two parallels per pack. Topps will also be selling a “carton” of four boxes, which will guarantee one autograph. Essentially your auto odds are expected to be one in four hobby boxes based on this statement about the carton. ***Update - Topps is selling single boxes for $54.99 and the 4 box “carton” for $209.99. Updating the per pack odds is that you get two parallels/inserts per pack - not two parallels per pack as originally described.
These are mini cards that are throwbacks to the tobacco cards in the early 1900’s which hold a ton of nostalgia, and have some of the most valuable baseball cards ever. Autographs, judging from the marketing material, are expected to be on card.
The checklist contains all of the rookie chases, including the late season, Update Series rookie chases, primarily Paul Skenes. Skenes is base only though - he does not have autographs in the product. Chourio, Merrill, Langford, Holliday, Yamamoto, Imanaga, Jasson, and Elly are included in one form or another as well.
Last year Topps did a Low and High Series of these boxes, and they were selling them for $54.99 per box. If you’re going to have to spend $200 - $220 to guarantee an auto in a niche product with the potential for a ton of low dollar returns on that auto checklist, it’s again going to be an easy product to avoid. Cut the price in half, and then you’re talking, but I highly doubt that is what we will see tomorrow.