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 and one retail product that has started to show up for pre-order purposes. We have 2024 Topps Update Series as the new scheduled releases and 2024 Topps Holiday that has started to show up for pre-orders.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for 2024 Topps Chrome Update Pre-Orders
2024 Topps Update Series
The third and final installment of the Topps Flagship products, 2024 Topps Update Series is scheduled to release on Wednesday, October 16th.
There are two hobby formats - a regular Hobby box and a Jumbo Hobby box (Topps is referring to it as an HTA Jumbo box but I refuse to do so). The regular Hobby box will come with either one relic OR auto card, plus one silver pack. The Jumbo Hobby box will come with one auto and two relics along with two silver packs. There are all the various retail formats including Blaster/Value boxes. Back on September 17th, Topps did a pre-order with the following configurations: Regular Hobby boxes were $87.99 with cases for $1,055.99; Jumbo Hobby boxes were $194.99 with cases for $1,169.90; a blaster/value box + Hobby box bundle was priced at $109.99. ***Update - as expected, Topps starting selling this on their website on Wednesday, October 16th. Regular Hobby boxes are $89.99, Jumbo Hobby boxes are $199.99, and Blaster/Value boxes are $24.99.
The design is what we’ve seen from Flagship all year long, so need to dive much into that. A couple of things specific to Update Series with the base set is that you will get Rookie Debut cards (which are less valuable than the standard rookie cards), season highlight cards, and multi-player combo cards. Insert sets include the popular Black Gold throwback, All Star relics and autos, and a Let Him Cook insert that should be fun.
The checklist is comprised of rookies and veterans, although you will see ex-MLB players scattered throughout various inserts and autos. You can check out the 2024 Topps Update Preview article when it goes live to get a deep dive on all the player with True Rookie Cards in the product. The main chase in this regard is Paul Skenes, with the four rookies that had short print rookie cards in 2024 Topps Series 2 also likely to be secondary draws - Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio, Jackson Holliday, and Wyatt Langford.
Update Series is usually a hit or miss product depending on the checklist. With Skenes being the headliner, it’s going to be a very hot product and worth picking up a piece of one way or another - retail, Hobby, breaks, singles, etc. I’ll definitely be grabbing some retail whenever I run across it.
2024 Topps Holiday
The winter/Christmas holiday themed product started to pop-up for pre-order on Sunday, October 13th. The first place we’ve seen this is Dick’s Sporting Goods. According to their website, it is scheduled to go live on December 10th. The Mega Box format looks unchanged, with one relic or auto on average per box, with the odds likely HEAVILY weighted towards the relic. According to the website description, it should also come with five glitter parallels, three image variations per box, and an ornament card. Dick’s is selling these for 29.99 on pre-order. There is also a new format called a Mega Tin. It does not guarantee any hits, but it should come with one image variation, one blue metallic holiday tree parallel, and three holiday tree border parallels. Dick’s is selling this for $17.99.
2024 Topps Chrome Update
Announced on Monday, October 14th, Topps will be running pre-orders for 2024 Topps Chrome Update on Thursday, October 17th. Topps has only mentioned Hobby boxes as part of the pre-order in their social media feeds to this point. Hobby boxes come with one auto per box and will be available for $149.99. Last year these were available for $129.99 on pre-order and $139.99 on go live. No mention yet if Jumbo Hobby boxes, Breaker’s Delight boxes, or Blaster/Value boxes will be available for pre-order. The scheduled go live date is November 14th. The return of Rookie Debut patches is about all that Topps has teased so far, and it will include patches for Jackson Holliday, Paul Skenes, Elly De La Cruz, Jackson Chourio, Jackson Merrill, Shota Imanaga, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Wyatt Langford, Colton Cowser, Jordan Lawlar, Evan Carter, and Pete Crow-Armstrong. More info to come once the pre-order goes live. ***Update - Topps has posted additional info as of Tuesday - in addition to Hobby boxes at the price above, cases of Hobby boxes (6 per case) will be available for $899.99, Jumbo Hobby boxes (3 autos per box) will be available for $379.99, and cases of Jumbo Hobby boxes (8 per case) will be available for $3,039.99. The very first chrome version of the Home Field Advantage insert will also be part of this product as an interesting twist.