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: 2021 Panini Chronicles Baseball, 2021 Topps Archives Baseball and 2021 Topps Triple Threads. This post will be updated if more news and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for Triple Threads delay, 2021 Chronicles prices, and Topps Flagship Japan Edition.
2021 Panini Chronicles Baseball
2021 Panini Chronicles Baseball is scheduled to release on Friday, November 5th and is a lower tier product.
There are two hobby box formats - a regular Hobby box and a First Off The Line (FOTL) Hobby box. The regular Hobby box on average comes with three autos and one relic along with six Obsidian and six cards one of the various Acetate sets. They are running around $140 - $150 right now (Updated - they are being sold direct from Panini’s website for $130). The FOTL Hobby box also averages three autos and one relic while promising that one of the autos will be from the Obsidian brand plus an exclusive Obsidian neon orange parallel. These boxes went to dutch auction last week and I believe they ended around $140. There will also be the various retail formats which are typically blasters for the most part.
The design is not something that can be contained in one paragraph, let alone one article. It is literally the kitchen sink of Panini brands, which, for the most part, don’t have their own standalone baseball product. The exception is usually that they will have a Donruss Baseball Rated Rookie subset, although this year that may be dropped in favor of having an acetate-only version. You’ll usually find twenty to thirty different brands included in the product with about 75% of them returning year over year and then the rest being new. Sometimes these brands graduate into their own standalone baseball product like Spectra and Mosaic did this year and Prizm and Select did the previous year. New for this year are Clear Vision, Clearly Donruss, Magnitude, and Overdrive.
The checklist is not out yet, but expect it to be very narrowly focused on MLB stars and rookies. While the brands will be plentiful, the variety of players will not. This can be a positive or a negative depending on your collecting approach.
One of my favorite products when I got back into collecting because it was so fun to get all the varieties of designs, but one I have tired of over the past few years. Due to its unlicensed nature and often heavy print runs, there is pretty low resale value. Due to its narrow checklist, I often don’t get my PC guys included. Due to its kitchen sink brand approach, I often only aesthetically connect with a low percentage of the cards. If I come across a blaster box, I will likely grab one, but other than that, it’s pretty much aftermarket singles for any PC guys and/or a design I want to collect.
2021 Topps Archives Baseball
2021 Topps Archives Baseball is scheduled to release on Friday, November 5th and is a low tier product focused on historical Topps designs.
There is one hobby format - a regular Hobby box. The Hobby box guarantees you two autos and they are currently running about $120. Last year Topps sold Hobby boxes online for $110 and I am guessing it will likely be the same or inline with the market at $120. You will also find this product in the various retail formats including blasters and loose packs.
The design of Archives always focuses on historical Topps designs attempting to connect with that nostalgic feel. Since Topps is celebrating its 70th anniversary, instead of the usual three historical designs, they went with a design from every decade, excluding the current one. We get 1957, 1962, 1973, 1983, 1991, 2001, and 2011. Of those designs, I like 1962 for the wood look, 1973 for the fun player silhouette icons, 1983 for the Tony Gwynn rookie card connection, 2001 for the Ichiro/Pujols rookie cards connection, and 2011 for the iconic Trout Update rookie card connection. I could do without the others, especially 1991 Topps. There are always a ton of other inserts, some good, some not so much, but I won’t dive into them here.
The checklist is not yet released, but it typically is around 300 cards of rookies, vets, and retired players. Fan Favorites autographs are an interesting subset to get to see as there will often be autographs from players and non-players that you don’t see in many or any of the other products released that year. In 2019, we got umpire autos. Last year we got a Bruce Bochy auto, which outside of Signature Series Archives Retired Players, I believe was his only auto in 2020 products, and the only time we’ve seen his autos on officially licensed products. It can be quite an eclectic set of signers.
I liked Archives in 2018 because we had the Sandlot subset featuring base cards and autos from the actors and characters from the movie of the same name. Outside of finding a subset or an auto I have to own, like Bochy last year, I tend to stay away from this product. it doesn’t resell well and it gets heavily printed. I may revisit my interest level after the checklist gets released - doubtful it changes, but I suppose it could.
2021 Topps Triple Threads
2021 Topps Triple Threads is scheduled to release on Friday, November 5th and is a mid-tier release that has a lot of fans in the hobby. ***Update - Triple Threads has been delayed until Wednesday, November 10th.
it can only be found in one format - a hobby box. The Hobby box comes with two mini boxes with a single pack in each mini box. You are guaranteed one auto and relic per pack, so a total of two autos and relics per hobby box plus ten base cards (four of which are parallels). Booklets and other rare hits may modify the number of cards/hits you end up with. You should also get a 1/1 and a triple auto/relic (or more than three players potentially) per case, but every now and then I have seen this not be the case. These boxes are running around $375 - $400 right now. Last year, Topps sold them on their website for $280 and I expect that to be at least $300 if not more this year.
The design is heavily focused on relics and cutouts to enhance those relics. Cutouts often spell out words or abbreviations that you wont regularly find anywhere else. Relics are usually colorful and often multi-colored, but occasionally, especially on the higher numbered cards, can be the dreaded white napkin. A couple of final notes to be cognizant of - relics are almost all player used rather than game used and the autos are almost all sticker autos.
The checklist is standard Triple Threads fare - rookies, current stars, and retired players. You’ll find the majority of the rookies you typically would be looking for in 2021 checklists - Alec Bohm, Alex Kirilloff, Andrew Vaughn, Jake Cronenworth, Jarred Kelenic, Jo Adell, Jonathan India, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Ryan Mountcastle, etc. You’ll also be getting some sticker autos from recently passed away retired players like Bob Gibson and Lou Brock.
Another product that I was really into when I got back into the hobby, but my interest has significantly dropped off over the past few years. The decrease in my interest is mostly around price, player used relics, and sticker autos. Some of the cutout wording they use can also be odd selections, and in rare circumstances, downright hilarious (go look up the Rhonda Rousey Triple Threads card if you haven’t seen it already). Some of these cards sell really well, especially just after release, but you’d be surprised how far a lot of them can fall once the first to market rush has died down and the product has matured. Outside of a mixer here or there, and perhaps a Giants PC card, I won’t be getting any Triple Threads in 2021.
2021 Topps Baseball Japan Edition
Announced on Tuesday, November 2nd, this is similar to what Topps did with 2020 Topps Baseball UK Edition last year.
No release date has been announced, but when it goes live, it will be sold through the Topps Japan website with an estimated price of $90 per hobby box.
The only other things of note are the japan-focused parallels (cherry blossom and jade green) as well as inserts focused on Japanese players with MLB ties and likely other MLB/Japan tie-ins.
I will cover this release in a future This Week in Baseball post during its actual release week.