This Week in Baseball Cards: 9/27 - 10/3

Each week over the past year our resident card expert Joe Lowry has given everyone on our Prospects Live Discord Baseball Card chat a heads up on what’s dropping in the Hobby. We’re now bringing those posts over to the main site to help keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time. This week we have three products being released, all on October 1st: 2021 Bowman Sterling, 2021 Panini Spectra, and 2021 Topps Gold Label.

2021 Bowman Sterling

2021 Bowman Sterling is a mid-tier prospect and rookie focused release that is now in year three of its return to a full independent product. There is one configuration, a hobby box, exactly the same as the last two years. It consists of 5 mini boxes which each contain 1 autographed card, so a total of 5 guaranteed autos per box. Boxes are running around $300 - $325 each currently. The design in its first year back (2019) was quite different from the design in year two (2020). The 2021 design really has no relation to the past two iterations, so if you liked either or both of those, sorry. The base cards on the sell sheet are borderless with thin-lined large rectangles in the background and atmospheric/space-like fade-ins in some of the corners. The team logos are also framed in some form of a shape - a cross and a triangle are the ones shown in the sell sheet. The Sterling Recollections set revisits past 1st Bowman cards of current MLB stars and are all serial numbered, so I am guessing they may not the most common.

The checklist is focused on Prospects and Rookies, and the prospect side is where the majority of the autos are with near 60 of the almost 80 base autos being of the prospect variety. You’ll find a fair amount of guys from 2020 Bowman Draft and some from Chrome making up the majority of the Prospect list as well as a couple from 2021 Bowman including Spencer Torkelson, Austin Martin, Blaze Jordan, Hedbert Perez, Zac Veen, Nick Yorke, and Robert Hassell III. Rookies include Alec Bohm, Joey Bart, Jazz Chisholm, Casey Mize, and Ke’Bryan Hayes. I really do not like the base design and that will likely keep me from getting much if any of this product. It’s possible I end up with some via a mixer or pick up some PC singles, but given the price point and my current opinion on the design, this product is mostly a pass for me. Especially with these not being 1st Bowman’s and while they do tend to sell OK, they just don’t compete with each of these players Flagship products (1st Bowman’s for the prospects and Series 1/2/Update/Chrome for the Rookies).

2021 Panini Spectra

2021 Panini Spectra is a new standalone product this year that used to be part of the Chronicles stable of multi-brands. It probably should be classified as a mid-tier product, but current price-points are pushing it towards a higher-end priced tier. There are two configurations of hobby boxes and no retail announced as of yet. There is regular hobby box which includes 4 autos and 4 relics on average and then a first off the line (FOTL) hobby box which has the same hit counts (4 and 4) plus exclusive wave parallels. A hobby box runs around $750 - $800 while the FOTL went to dutch auction on Panini’s website and ended at $541, which was almost at the floor I believe.

The design is classic Spectra if you are used to it from Chronicles or from its standalone releases in football and basketball. Lots of Chrome, lots of angles, swooshes, circles. Just very “graphic-y” and bold. It tends to be a polarizing design. They do have a Solar Eclipse insert on the sell sheet of Tatis that looks really nice, but is supposed to be “ultra-rare” whatever that means. One other thing to mention is that Spectra cards tend to be very thick, which is likely why you will only be getting 16 cards per box. The checklist is not yet released. You can assume all of the rookies and stars in the checklist along with some MLB legends sprinkled in. I’ve never really minded Spectra, but I also was never really that into it either when it came from my past Chronicles breaks. However, at this price point, even the dutch auction price point, it is a hard pass for me. Add in the unlicensed nature and it makes even easier to pass on it. Panini and re-sellers are really banking on the brand cachet, and to a lesser extent, the first year of it being a new product, to justify the sticker shock price point. I may grab singles at some point down the line once this product ages out, but in my opinion it’s one of the easiest products to pass on this year.

2021 Topps Gold Label

2021 Topps Gold Label is a lower tier release that features a gold framed auto in every box. It comes in just one configuration - a hobby box. You are guaranteed 1 gold framed auto in every box and then have a shot at a gold nugget relic card which I believe was a case hit or perhaps even harder to hit last year. Hobby boxes are running around $125 right now. The design is similar to years past with the action shot and staged profile photo with a lot of Gold lines and branding throughout the card. It’s never been something that I, or the hobby, have been overly into or overly critical of and I don’t expect that to change this year.

The checklist is full of the rookies and stars you would expect, including a fair amount of the Update rookies like Jarred Kelenic, Andrew Vaughn, and Jonathan India. Lots of players you wouldn’t be excited to hit, but enough guys that are either fun or will bring back at least some money that typically make the product intriguing, at least at a price point under $100 (which it is not). Given the price point, this is a product I likely won’t get any of. I don’t think I got any of it last year either outside of 1 or 2 mixer breaks. The base cards and associated parallels, outside of the week or two after release, really don’t sell that well compared to like cards in other products. And then if you hit a Jake Rogers framed auto worth perhaps $5, you end up giving it to your 6 year old daughter to play with because she likes the gold frame, like I did last year.