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 Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated with the information about the 2023 Bowman Chrome Pre-Sale.
2023 Topps Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition
The ex-MLB player only product is scheduled to release on Wednesday, August 16th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each box comes with one encased, autographed card. Blowout is currently selling boxes for $74.95 a box. Last year Topps sold these boxes for $79.99, a big jump from $49.99 in 2021. Given Blowout’s prices, I expect we’ll see Topps likely at the Blowout price of $75, maybe even $70, or possibly mirroring last year’s price of $79.99. ***Update - Topps is selling boxes on their website for $69.99 with a customer limit of 4 boxes.
The design is completely based off of the old cards Topps uses for each player. Any Topps or Bowman baseball products throughout history are in the cards for being included. All autographs are on card, and as mentioned, in a topps sticker sealed magnetic one touch case. This year they are introducing a “Hall of Fame” addition to the foil branding/certification stamp that they put on their Signature Series cards. For example, the Mike Piazza card that is in the Sell Sheet has the text “Hall of Fame” at the very top of the stamp, while the Mark McGwire stamp does not.
The checklist has not yet been released, but, as mentioned off the top, the checklist is restricted exclusively to ex-MLB players. Missing any other info, the most interesting thing at the moment is the third card on the sell sheet - a 1/1 dual auto of Willie Mays and Stan Musial from 1963 Topps Baseball. Musial passed away in 2013 and Mays hasn’t signed anything for Topps (or really any card manufacturer) since 2014 to my knowledge. Mays did start signing for Panini this year, but nothing with Topps yet and that would likely be something they would announce. So, how did this happen and how is Topps comfortable stamping this as a “Certified Autograph” as they do with all of the Archive Signature Series cards? A bit of sleuthing and I found this card purchased off of eBay in June of 2022 in a PSA slab as authentic autographs, which likely gives Topps the comfort of certifying the autographs. An interesting scenario to say the least.
I love this product, and when it was a $40 - $50 product, it was a no-brainer for me. I love getting on card autographs of ex-MLB players, even if they are not elite. The older cards, the player stories, and the on card autos are all pluses in my book. As the price point climbed higher, the value proposition gets turned upside down, and makes it much harder to swallow buying single boxes. Regardless, this is still one of my favorite products every year.
2023 Bowman Chrome Pre-Sale
Topps announced on Monday that 2023 Bowman Chrome pre-sale will be happening on Tuesday, August 15th. They mentioned the traditional formats of a regular Hobby box (2 autos per box) and the HTA Hobby box (3 autos per box - no cards beyond the autos). The main buzz was that, as discussed at the Topps Industry Conference back in February, players prior to prospect cards existing would be getting 1st Bowman cards. In the 2023 Bowman Chrome marketing material, they are showing off a Robert Clemente gold refractor base card with a 1st Bowman logo. If these are short printed, they will likely have at least some initial demand.
***Update - Topps is selling regular Hobby boxes for $269.99 with a customer limit of 2 and HTA Hobby boxes for $329.99 with a customer limit of 2.