The baseball card collecting calendar has certain milestones. Many revolve around Topps Flagship design, which has an outsized influence on the hobby.
That is because the design carries across so many products: Topps Flagship Series 1, 2, and Update, plus Chrome, Sapphire, Gilded, and other sets released throughout the year.
Today, Topps announced one of those annual hobby milestones: the public release of the 2025 Topps design. But what exactly happened?
What is the 2025 Topps design? How are collectors reacting? And what other hobby milestones were teased out today? Let’s explore how the hobby reacted when the 2025 Topps design was released.
As they have for several seasons (see 2023 and 2024), Topps took to social media to tease collectors about the 2025 Topps design.
Topps also announced the release date for 2025 Topps Series 1, which will drop on Wednesday, Feb. 12. This date tends to be another hobby milestone, kicking off a new baseball and collecting season. Check back for more coverage of Topps Series 1 here on Cardlines soon.
The 2025 Topps design, which we now have several views of (at least the card front) is a departure from the 2024 Topps design, which was a departure from many recent Topps releases.
White borders return in place of 2024’s black borders. The team name appears vertically on the left-hand side of the card, along with a “pipe” design element.
The player’s name is at the bottom, as is the player’s position. Instead of a standard “P” or “1B” for a player position, there’s a baseball diamond with the player’s position marked with a colored dot.
The design has elements that remind some of prior Topps designs like 1982 and 2019 Topps.
The release of a new Topps design caused a ripple of activity across the hobby. As expected with anything design-related, opinions vary.
Some collectors love the 2025 Topps design. Some hate it. Most fall somewhere in the middle. Based on monitoring opinions across the internet, the majority opinion seems to be that the design is “fine, but uninspired.”
While the photography has received some favorable reviews and some design elements seem popular, many collectors don’t love the team and player names, which they say are hard to read.
The player position indicator is the least popular design element of the 2025 design. This is new and different, for sure, but early opinions don’t seem favorable.
Maybe that design element will grow on collectors and become a regular part of upcoming designs, or maybe they’ll become a one-and-done experiment that people will look back on for years with a shake of their heads.
The release of the 2025 Topps design is the first significant hobby milestone of 2025. The design has been greeted with a mixed bag of reactions.
What’s your thoughts on the 2024 Topps design? Love it? Hate it? Not sure? Think it’ll grow on you? Let us know at card_lines on Twitter.
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