The Price Of New Topps Cards Continue To Rise

One of the main concerns we had over Fanatics and Topps becoming a monopoly in all the prominent sports was that they would raise prices. That is one of the first things that happens when a big company starts to dominate a market entirely.

But it turns out that this was quite an optimistic assessment. The price increases have already been significant and begun, and they are pretty dramatic. Meanwhile, the increases have been matched with problematic decreases in the odds, especially for retail and the number of autos to be found.

We found the price of the new unlicenced 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball product, which releases on August 28th particularly concerning. Let’s have a look at the higher prices of Topps Cards.

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The higher price of 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball

Though Fanatics does not yet own the rights to the NBA, it has (as expected) revived Yore’s Topps Chrome Basketball franchise for the 2023-24 season. This is over, but when has that stopped a card company from issuing products?

The release is non-licensed because Panini had the contract for that season and will retain it next season.

READ: Topps Chrome 2024 Rookies Guide

Unlicensed products typically sell for much lower prices than their fully licensed equivalents. For example, a 2024 Panini Donruss Baseball hobby box sells for $179.95, while a 2023-24 Panini Donruss Basketball sells for the far less friendly price of $259.99.

Therefore, you could be forgiven for thinking that a 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball hobby box would sell relatively cheaply. However, you would be sorely mistaken. The boxes are currently pre-selling for $439.99. They originally sold for $270 on the Topps website.

However, it is currently out of stock, forcing you to spend much elsewhere.

A lower number of autographs

The fact that we have a product for last season without logos selling for this amount of money suggests that the prices will be even higher when the cards are new and licensed.

These boxes indeed have two autographs, which is quite good in the current climate. However, as we know, product autographs tend to decrease over the years while prices stay up. So, it is pretty realistic to expect that boxes of Chrome will go down to one guaranteed auto (if that) a few years from now when Fanatics is more entrenched as a monopoly.

We have already seen Topps do precisely that in their most popular Topps Chrome release (as of now), Topps Chrome Baseball. If you bought a hobby box of this product in 2020, you were guaranteed three autos per box.

Meanwhile, if you bought a hobby box of 2024 Topps Chrome Baseball, you were guaranteed one. That is a decrease of 66%. And the price has only gone up over the years.

Is it just Topps Chrome Baseball that has the problem? Not even close. If you look at that other favorite, Bowman Chrome Baseball, there is a similar trend. If you bought a hobby box in 2020, it had two guaranteed autos. Now, there is just one. Meanwhile, the prices have exploded.

With that in mind, do you think Topps Chrome Basketball will keep having two autographs in the future? My guess is that we will be looking at one, or maybe one of those “autograph OR relic card” situations.

Check prices on 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball on eBay

General price increase from Fanatics

The outrageous prices for the new cards have not occurred in a vacuum. There has been a dramatic increase in prices on their licensed releases as well, leading to a lot of frustration among collectors.

Two months ago, one collector posted on Reddit, “Topps Chrome value boxes have appeared on fanatics, coming in at $39.99. What happened to the days of $25/$30? Last year, $35 was a stretch, and it just doesn’t stop. Unless these are loaded, they probably aren’t worth it. $1.43 a card without tax…unrealistic, in my opinion.”

But, of course, many of these boxes are not loaded. Indeed, we have seen that retail products, in particular, are increasingly light on big hits. We covered that problem here when I analyzed the 2024 Topps Chrome Baseball issues.

As I wrote, “You will have difficulty landing any parallels or autos in blasters or monster boxes. The rates are abysmal and far worse than we are used to. When you consider that, along with the much higher prices, the reduction in value is considerable. Fanatics appear to be making their basters intentionally weaker than in previous years. We have to wonder why.”

A smaller number of cards

While the overall prices of boxes are shooting up, in many cases, the number of cards you receive from the products is going down.

For example, one Reddit user noticed, “I just received my 2024 Topps Series 1 hobby boxes, and was disappointed to see they not only reduced the # of packs from 24 to 20 and cut the number of cards in each pack from 14 to 12. The net result is 28% fewer cards for an increasingly higher price. So tired of being scalped.
#SomeCompaniesJustDontGetIt.”

The combination of the higher prices for retail products, the lower odds for them, and fewer cards has significantly lowered the desirability of blasters and other formats. You no longer go into Walmart and Target and see people fighting over retail.

Instead, the boxes are often just sitting there waiting for someone to buy them. We also see that products have been available on Topps and Panini’s websites for far longer than in the past.

Suppose you go into a retail store now and look for cards; it’s pretty easy to see why so many of these products are just sitting on the shelves. Watch this video for example.

Check prices on 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball on eBay

It starts with a visit to Walmart, where the only new product available is 2024 Topps Chrome blasters, selling for an incredible $44.97. That is well over double what it was two or three years ago. As we have discussed, the odds of getting a hit have PLUMMETED over that time. You are paying more than twice as much for a worse box.

The problem with the rise in card prices

We all see a lot of anecdotal evidence that, to be fair, Fanatics and Panini’s higher prices are pricing collectors out of the hobby. You can go on any sports card messenger board and see people saying they no longer buy new stuff.

I can honestly say that I have not purchased any new wax over the last year, even though I often feel the urge. That is because the prices are ridiculously high and seem to worsen every time I check.

Check prices on 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball on eBay

But there is also evidence that this hurts the hobby more than the occasional disgruntled collector (or writer for Cardlines). A month ago, the CFCoolectibles folks said they could not run a significant break involving 25 cases.

This big outfit had been able to run many breaks of this magnitude before. But the incredible amount of money they need to bring in for a break to make it profitable completely changed the equation for them.

They Tweeted, “We won’t be able to run the 25 caser after all. I’m very sorry about that. We set a $70k minimum, and we are at just $46k. Unfortunately, we can still run Topps Chrome breaks on release morning, but not this one. Sorry to waste everyone’s time.”

One account presciently replied, “Send this to Topps and fanatics. I think it’s the most indicative sign that the product’s pricing no longer aligns with what the collector wants or values. You’ve been running these forever, but now you can’t fill 25 cases because of the price. Crazy.”

That would imply that the profit margins that breakers are experiencing are more fragile than they used to be. We also know that local card stores have trouble with their profit margins.

Many complain that Topps is selling to them at close to retail prices and keeping their allocations down. We would not be surprised to see many lower-end local card stores and breakers go out of business due to these policies.

A final word on the higher price of Topps Cards

The overall trend for Fanatics cards is clear and disturbing. They have not yet cemented their monopoly over the hobby. Yet, our worst fears of what happens when a monopoly consolidates are becoming apparent. The prices of all of their products appear to be rising, even for unlicensed products.

Meanwhile, the licensed stuff is being watered down constantly. In some cases, the number of cards is going down. In other cases, the number of autographs plummets, most notably in Topps Chrome Baseball hobby boxes.

Meanwhile, the odds for retail products are getting increasingly worse, and many blasters are now selling for 10-20$ more than they did a couple of years ago.

This is traditionally what happens when there is no alternative in the market. Collectors have nowhere else to go, and Fanatics feels (correctly) that it can raise prices AND decrease the quality without losing sales.

However, this cannot go on forever. Fanatics is a business (and a particularly cutthroat one at that), and its mission is to make money. Therefore, we can expect it to continue raising prices until demand lessens.

And it will. The quality of the contents cannot continue to plummet while prices continue to rise without losing people. So, when you see an outrageously priced product, please don’t buy it. The hobby will thank you. So will your bank account balance and your significant other.  

Check prices on 2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball on eBay