Topps has had an NPB license for three years now* and has issued nine sets over that period of time. Seven of those sets have had an associated insert set featuring current NPB players on cards using an old Topps design. The 2021 NPB and NPB Chrome sets had inserts that used the 1986 design. (with identical cards between the two sets although the Chrome ones had the "chrome" finish) while the 2022 editions of those sets had inserts that used the 1958 design. The 2023 NPB set had an insert set that used a white bordered version of the 2001 design and that year's Bowman NPB set included a 1989 Bowman style insert. Unlike the previous two years, the 2023 NPB Chrome set was not simply an ugly parallel of the NPB set but completely different set using the same format (albeit with an ugly "chrome" finish). The difference carried over to the 2001-style insert set as it not only had different photos than those used in the NPB set but the borders of the cards were the original green. (And just to be complete, the two Japanese Topps offering that did not have "retro" inserts were the 2022 Bowman NPB and 2023 NPB 206 sets.)
*To be completely accurate, it's been two years and five months
I have the complete "1986" set from the 2021 set but only a handful of cards from the other sets. Well, to be accurate, I have a handful of cards from the other sets OTHER than the 2021 & 2022 Chrome sets since I didn't see any reason to pick up ugly parallels. I realized the other day that I have cards of one particular player in all of these sets. It was completely unintentional although I'm not sorry about it. To be honest, I don't know if there are any other players who have cards in all five (ok, SEVEN) sets. Anyway, here's the cards of this particular player from each set:
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| 2021 Topps NPB #86-MMU |
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| 2022 Topps NPB #58-19 |
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| 2023 Topps NPB #01-14 |
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| 2023 Bowman NPB #89B-14 |
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| 2023 Topps NPB Chrome #01-14 |
8 comments:
I want topps to do an NPB stadium club set next. You think there is any chance of that happening? I think it'd be a hit. Especially since we don't really get those kind of photos in the other companies sets.
I think that could potentially be awesome but I fear they'd do it as a "mugshot" set.
I had the opportunity to open up a box of 2022 Topps Chrome NPB and it was such a fun experience (even though I only recognized a handful of guys). I did manage to pull the gold refractor of Murakami's 1958 insert which was the hit of the box.
Nice!
I do like the above commenter's idea of a Stadium Club set for NPB. It'd be the only thing that I think would get me to fork out any money for Topps cards again (assuming they made a decent one with nice photography and something actually on the cardbacks....).
To be fair to Topps, they've done a decent job with the photos on their cards. Their player selection has been kind of questionable and their backs are jokes but the photo selection is probably better than that of either Calbee or Epoch - at least in everything other than the 206 set.
That said - I have no faith that they'd be able to pull off a good Stadium Club set.
Yes, I agree that Topps photography (at least on the 2022 set which is the only one I have) is better than Calbee, Epoch or BBM. But Stadium Club photography (at least as I remember it in the 90s, I haven't bought any of them in decades) is kind of a cut above that - full bleed action photos with a bit more imagination, interesting framing, etc. Kind of like Calbee sets from the 1970s actually.....
No, you're right. Topps brought Stadium Club back a couple years ago and from what I've seen the photography is still really good and definitely better than what anyone is doing in Japan right now.
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