- Topps is back with the third edition of their NPB set. Like the previous ones, the base set for this year's version will contain 216 cards - 18 per team. Like last year's set, those 18 cards per team will include cards of the team's manager. There are three insert sets - "Topps 2001", "Player Chairman" and "Record Update". Not sure how large the insert sets are but the total number of cards for all three sets is 60 so I'd guess two of them have 24 cards and the other has 12. I'm also guessing that the "Topps 2001" cards feature current NPB players in cards using the 2001 Topps design (like the 1986 and 1958 style cards from the last two sets). There will be multiple parallel versions of the base and insert cards and apparently there will be multiple types of autograph cards available. The set will be released on May 13th. I'm cautiously optimistic that this year's set will be an improvement over the previous two for kind of a silly reason - it looks like Topps actually made an effort with their packaging. The boxes and packs for the previous two sets were very drab and utilitarian - just showing the team logos. The ones for this set look more like the BBM and Epoch ones - they show photos of one player from each team. I'm also heartened by the fact that the set will be out much earlier in the year than the previous ones - the 2021 set came out in November and the 2022 set came out in September.
- Topps Japan is issuing one more World Baseball Classic related set - an on-demand team set for Samurai Japan. Each set has 35 cards although it looks like two of them are parallels so maybe the base set is only 33 cards. The sets are on sale though May 6th and cost 7700 yen if you're in Japan. If you're in the US the set's "only" 7000 (you don't have to pay the 700 yen VAT) but shipping to the US costs 3900 yen for a total cost of 10900 yen (around $83).
- BBM released information about another of their "comprehensive" team sets - this one's for the Giants. I'm going to continue putting the details for the set in a table, even if it's a little silly when there's only one row in the table. And I'll just copy & paste what I've said about the team sets previously: Each set has a base set of 81 cards, most of which are "regular" player cards featuring the manager and the players on the 70 man roster plus a couple subsets (which may not be fully defined yet) to fill out the set. Each set also has 18 non-premium insert cards split into a variety of sets which also may not be fully defined yet. The Treasure, Esperanza and Antique inserts are all serially numbered. (If it's not obvious, the "Regular Cards", "Treasure", "Esperanza" and "Antique" columns are the total number of those type of cards in each set)
| Release Date | Team | Regular Cards | Subsets | Non-Premium Inserts | Treasure | Esperanza | Antique | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late May | Giants | 60 | Mascot/Checklist (1), Giant Potential (8), Strings Of Giants (7), Changes Of Giants (5) | Giants Pride (15), Wonderful Rookie (3) | 20 | 15 | Additional Premium Insets of Cross Foil Signing (15), Combo Cross Foil Signing (2), Triple Cross Foil Signing (1), Triplex (3), Super Metallic Giants (9) |
- Epoch has released information about their "Premier Edition" team sets for the Tigers, Lions and Hawks. The base set for the Tigers set contains 39 cards while the Lions and Hawks sets each have 36 cards. Each base set card has a holographic parallel. All three sets have the same massive amount of insert cards - "Regular Printed Signature (Silver)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Gold)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Hologram A: Silver)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Hologram A: Gold)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram A: Silver)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram A: Gold)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram B: Silver)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram B: Gold)" (9 cards), "Metal Power (Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Gold)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram A: Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram A: Gold)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram B: Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram B: Gold)" (18 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram A)" (6 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram B)" (6 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram C)" (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Gold) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Green) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Hologram) (6 cards), "Gem" (6 cards) and "Black Gem" (6 cards). There are four types of autograph cards associated with each set - "Authentic", "Rookie", "Star'" and "1 Of 1" and the Lions and Hawks sets have a fifth type - "Baseball". The Tigers set will be out on May 20th, the Lions set will be out on June 3rd and the Hawks set will be released on June 10th.
3 comments:
Like you I'll be cautiously optimistic about this year's Topps set. The packaging does look a lot better as you say, and at least this year they've chosen a more sensible time to release them. The fact that they have autographed inserts for the first time is also a plus.
If I see card backs that are 60% blank space again though I'm going to be mad :)
So the scary thing is that they had all that time last year with the cards coming out in September and they still have crappy backs. This year the cards will be out four months earlier so they'll have even less time to do the backs.
Even scarier to think that they also didn't even need to design the set (just copied the MLB one's design), all they really had to do was choose the photos and copy/paste the stats onto the back and that was about it.
I think I've devoted more time and effort into some of my medium length blog posts than Topps invested in its 2021 and 2022 NPB sets...
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