What You Need To Know About Topps Silver Packs
At Cardlines, we’re committed to keeping you informed about inserts, parallels, and even rewards packs, like this Prizm White Sparkle Pack article.
Today’s latest addition in the “rewards pack” log: The Topps Silver Pack.
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What is a Topps silver pack?
Topps Silver Packs are an added incentive for collectors to encourage them to purchase sealed Topps products. They debuted as a bonus for people who bought hobby boxes of Topps Series 1, 2018 Topps Series 2, and Topps Update. If you buy a Jumbo Hobby box, you get 2 silver packs with it.
The silver packs had exclusive chromium cards that weren’t available anywhere else.
Every year, the Topps Baseball silver pack formula is slightly revisited, but there’s a bit of consistency in the delivery: they always contain 4 cards, and there are also refractors to chase in addition to the base set.
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How rare are Topps Silver Packs?
Topps Silver Packs are not nearly as rare as many of Panini’s Reward Packs like the White Sparkle packs or Select Cosmic packs. Instead of an “extra” pack for sale, it’s used more as a bonus to incentive sales. That means for every hobby box on the market, there is a silver pack to match.
Still, the Silver Packs are rare enough that the cards are more valuable than the base sets, which we’ll discuss more later in this article.
What are the different types of cards you can get in a Topps Silver pack?
The Topps Silver Packs typically function as their own standalone set of cards with rules like most other sets: they have common cards, refractors, and autograph inserts.
The “common” cards are still very sharp cards, with a chromium finish and a pattern that resembles Panini’s Mojo insert (a stair-step sort of design, see pics).
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Instead of being an additional parallel of the Topps base set, they are instead all based on an older Topps design. The 2020 Silver Pack sets were based on the 1985 Topps Design.
There are also variations of the common cards. For example, in 2020 these included:
- Blue: numbered to 150
- Green: numbered to 99
- Purple: numbered to 75
- Gold: numbered to 50
- Orange: numbered to 25
- Red: numbered to 5
- SuperFractor: numbered 1/1
There are autograph refractors too – all limited to 25 or less – and those cards included:
- Orange: numbered to 25
- Red: numbered to 5
- SuperFractor: numbered 1/1
The delivery of the Silver Packs is what makes them so fun. While the base cards usually don’t sell for too much, each pack has some big-hit potential.
How do you get Topps Silver Packs?
It’s easy to get your hands on Topps Silver Packs. Just buy a Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, or Topps Update Hobby box. Want two packs? Buy a Jumbo box? The packs are included inside the box, so you don’t have to worry about that!
Your other option is to buy them on the secondary market, which begs a question…
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Are they worth buying on the secondary market?
Are you looking into ripping Topps Silver Packs? They’re a fun rip, but the bigger question is this: are they worth it?
First, let’s determine how much more valuable the silver cards are than the normal, Topps base version.
The 2019 Fernando Tatis Jr Update rookie sales for $15. The Silver version sells for $115.
A 2020 Bo Bichette base rookie sells for $8. The Silver Pack rookie sells for $15.
A 2017 Aaron Judge Topps rookie sells for $12. The Silver Pack rookie sells for $30.
From these numbers, we can see that the silver pack rookies do sell for quite a bit more than the base rookies – although some of the results vary quite a bit. Either way, the packs should be considered much more valuable than a loose hobby pack.
So should you buy them on the secondary market?
The short answer is “it depends.” As with most unopened cards, whether or not you should consider buying these comes down to price.
If you buy them in a lot, you can get them for as little as $12/piece. If you buy them as singles, they could cost anywhere upwards of $20 depending on the brand and the year.
Remember, baseball cards cost nowhere near what basketball and football cards cost, so it’s not out of the question to pick up a hobby box for as little as $120 dollars – all of which include a silver pack.
If it were me, I’d pull the trigger on the hobby box instead of buying just the silver pack because you’re getting a lot more cards and a guaranteed hit, but if you’re just craving the excitement of opening a sealed Silver Pack, it won’t set you back too much.
Final thoughts on Topps Silver Packs
Topps Silver Packs don’t drive the high price point of some of Panini’s rewards point packs, but that’s in line with expectations for baseball cards in general.
On the bright side, they’re packs that can cost sub-$20 while still yielding big-hit potential if you were to pull a refractor rookie, star, or autograph. This means there can be quite a bit of bang for your buck if you’re willing to risk the dissatisfaction of ripping a pack to find nothing but 4 veteran base cards. But hey, isn’t that the hobby in general?
What’s the best card you’ve pulled from a Silver Pack? Show us on Twitter @card_lines.