Several days ago Topps unveiled a brand new product line on their website called "Topps Now." As the name suggest, it consist of cards that highlights the biggest and most prominent events of the day. Then, they make a card to celebrate the moment and give collectors an opportunity to order it on their website during an 24-hour window. After that time period is over all sales close, the cards get printed and shipped within a week.
What this creates is a product line that has a print run that is at the whim of the collecting public. For instance, six cards have already been made and the print runs vary from 266 copies of an Francisco Liriano card to 981 copies for a card about
BTW, this isn't exactly a new concept for Topps. Over a decade ago Topps started marketing a product line they called "eTopps" that was based on the same principle - except they emphasized the investor/stock market approach to collecting. They established an online marketplace on eBay and sold individual player cards with print runs based on the same method. Cards were printed up and kept safely at an Topps warehouse. They were only shipped to collectors on demand.
For awhile these cards were on fire and sold for rather large premiums online. Then, as time wore on collector growth waned and prices fell. Today, eTopps is no more. Although, I believe there are collectors who still have cards in inventory at Topps.
Anyway, I am excited about this new venture, and I hope it continues. I figure there will be a whole bunch of nice rarities that focus on great moments.
UPDATE: The print run was 952 copies
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I'm one of those guys that still has a few cards in his eTopps account. If Topps didn't have such exorbitant shipping costs I'd have cleared those out years ago. As for Topps Now it'll be interesting to see if Topps can keep this up all year long. It's nice to see that shipping is included in the price and there is a quantity discount, and cards ship within a week supposedly sooner. Did you end up picking one of these up?
ReplyDeleteOh and the Maeda has a print run of 952 just under Trevor Stories first card in the set, who, ahem, is a on the Rockies not the Diamondbacks, just saying
DeleteLOL
ReplyDeleteNo, I decided not to buy any Maeda's. I probably should have, though.