But Of Course!

I had missed this at first but Topps has announced a SECOND NPB set to be released next month and, of course, it's a Topps Chrome set!  It looks similar to their previously announced NPB set in that the base set will have around 240 cards (based on their statement that there will be "about 20 players of each team") and there will be serially numbered parallel cards, insert cards and serially numbered parallel insert cards.  Boxes of the Topps Chrome set will contain 24 packs and each pack will contain 14 cards, same as the non-Chrome set.  The Chrome boxes will be a little more expensive, of course, as they are priced at 15,840 yen (~$140), about 2640 yen or $23 more than the boxes of the non-Chrome cards.  What I don't know yet is if the checklist for both sets will be the same or if there will be different photos used for some or all of the cards in the set.

A couple other items about the Topps NPB sets:

- Topps' Japan site will not ship internationally but I've heard suggestions that boxes will be available on Amazon's Japanese site from sellers who WILL ship to the US so it may be possible to order boxes without using a third person proxy

- Both sets have appeared on Discount Niki's website which implies that Japanese card dealers will be able to sell the boxes which should increase their availability.

- Each card in the non-Chrome set will have seven different parallels - "Gold Rainbox Foil", "Rainbow Foil" (#'d to 150), "Vintage Stock" (#'d to 99), "Blue Foil" (#'d to 50), "Orange Foil" (#'d to 25), "Red Foil" (#'d to 5) and "RayFoil" (1 of 1).

- The non-Chrome set has two insert sets - "1986 Topps Baseball" and "2021 NPB Team Programs".  I don't know how big either set is although I assume the "Team Programs" one is 12 cards.  I'm intrigued by the idea of Topps doing NPB cards in old Topps MLB designs.  Each insert card has four possible parallels - "Gold Foil" (#'to 50), "Red Foil" (#'d to 5) and "RayFoil" (1 of 1).

- I have no idea yet if the Chrome set will have the same parallels and inserts as the non-Chrome set.

Both sets are scheduled to be out in early December.