2023-24 Topps Chrome Basketball discussion

[FrankAZHP]

Okay we know everyone's got an opinion. Lets hear those great takes, or those garbage ones.

Base design:




Inserts:







I have a WHOLE LOT TO SAY as those of you who follow me on IG have likely noticed but I'd like to hear your voices.
I'll chime in later.

[SacKingsCards]

I mean, they're unlicensed and don't even look good. Inserts are all inferior versions of recycled designs. I guess the base isn't, but where are the in game action shots that make Topps Chrome awesome? I mean, the last two years of Topps Chrome in 08 and 09 are so famous for their photography, and they bring it back with cropped mundane photos? Not an encouraging sign for the future!

[mindcycle]

Good time to self promote..

I posted my thoughts in the first segment of my latest YT video here:

[AbraCalabro]

ALSO:

Good time to self promote..

I posted my thoughts in the first segment of my latest YT video here:

Checking this one out now.

ALSO, reported to admin for self promotion.

[green_stiller]

After listening to WaxMuseumPod today I got bored in a meeting. We won't get this, but should...

[darz90scardz]

Gotta love how the Frankazhp and greenstiller mockups crap on the actual Topps execution.

Outside of the bad photo and design choices, something I don’t think I’ve heard mentioned is how they don’t fully etch their cards anymore. That’s a huge problem in itself.

You can see this with the new Finest baseball release and the last Finest basketball. How are you going to release “chromium” cards without etching? It’s not even chromium at that point.

Maybe it will be different with this latest release, not that it would help much.

[ChrisP57]

I think it's a terrible looking product, the airbrushing is so laughable. I can't wait to roll my eyes and watch the usual suspects (Packman, CC2, Geoff, Sports Card Nonsense..etc etc) pump this crap up as the greatest ever so they can fill group breaks to their sheep customers/followers

[Deadshot]

A Heritage set made so much more sense right now without the license. But they got greedy and wanted to milk the Topps Chrome brand. All while weakening it for the long run in the process. I know I'm just preaching to the choir though.

[AbraCalabro]

Dude, saw some Reignman stuff in this product and got excited, the photo they chose was crap though. They also reused something that Leaf has used a billion times for his autograph card...but I figured hey, if they did something cool for the card backs, I might be a customer.

LOL

What the hell is this. I'm guessing they can't legally even type the team names, or are they just that lazy? Can't they write Seattle, Cleveland, Portland, Orlando?

"Hey you done in there? I really need to take a dump!"

I really wanted to like these. Oh well.

[FrankAZHP]

Dude, saw some Reignman stuff in this product and got excited, the photo they chose was crap though

What's worse than the airbrush? These Finest/Prizm style colored shapes in the background. They could have at least taken a non descript photo of a stadium and blurred it in the background like they've done for rookies in the past. If they had done at I could have at least overlooked (SOME) of the unlicensed badly airbrushed jerseys and bad photo selection. But I can't do both. It's like they took something that would be bad, and made it worse.

The worst part about all this is, I have REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed the Topps Chrome basketball releases we've had in the last 3 years:

2021-22 Topps Chrome OTE
2022 Topps Chrome McDonald's All American
2022-23 Topps Chrome NBL
2022-23 Topps Chrome OTE
2023 Topps Chrome McDonald's All American
2023-24 Topps G League
2023-24 Topps Chrome NBL
2023-24 Topps Chrome OTE

All of them have been great IMO. They've been cheap, with some decent to great stars available to pull (exception of NBL of course), and they have felt, and looked like Topps Chrome.

This new release is a disgrace to the "Topps Chrome" name/brand. They should be ashamed and learn from this atrocious mistake.

[AbraCalabro]

Dude, saw some Reignman stuff in this product and got excited, the photo they chose was crap though

What's worse than the airbrush? These Finest/Prizm style colored shapes in the background. They could have at least taken a non descript photo of a stadium and blurred it in the background like they've done for rookies in the past. If they had done at I could have at least overlooked (SOME) of the unlicensed badly airbrushed jerseys and bad photo selection. But I can't do both. It's like they took something that would be bad, and made it worse.

The worst part about all this is, I have REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed the Topps Chrome basketball releases we've had in the last 3 years:

2021-22 Topps Chrome OTE
2022 Topps Chrome McDonald's All American
2022-23 Topps Chrome NBL
2022-23 Topps Chrome OTE
2023 Topps Chrome McDonald's All American
2023-24 Topps Chrome G League
2023-24 Topps Chrome NBL
2023-24 Topps Chrome OTE

All of them have been great IMO. They've been cheap, with some decent to great stars available to pull (exception of NBL of course), and they have felt, and looked like Topps Chrome.

This new release is a disgrace to the "Topps Chrome" name/brand. They should be ashamed and learn from this atrocious mistake.

Just out of curiosity, because I haven't been following very closely, but at what point did Fanatics get involved with Topps releases, or is that still pending. Might have even already happened and I'm completely blanking.

[FrankAZHP]

Just out of curiosity, because I haven't been following very closely, but at what point did Fanatics get involved with Topps releases, or is that still pending. Might have even already happened and I'm completely blanking.

I think the only people that truly know the level of hands-on decision making that Fanatics may or may not be making in Topps is the executives and employees of Topps. Fanatics hasn't been a large profit company for nothing, so I'm sure there's some judgements and demands, but we just don't know how much. If we continue to see more lazy cash grabs from Topps now it will be fairly easy to put 2 and 2 together.

Topps has been owned by many companies over the years, I doubt Fanatics will be the last. Topps has a legacy to maintain to make sure their name and brand stays important not only for the sake of the consumer, but also for the company that owns them and any company that will own them in the future. It doesn't make sense for Fanatics to drive the brand into the ground for the long term. ::shrugs::

We can only hope that Topps (and perhaps Fanatics if they play a big hand in this) can learn from this mistake.

[AbraCalabro]

Just out of curiosity, because I haven't been following very closely, but at what point did Fanatics get involved with Topps releases, or is that still pending. Might have even already happened and I'm completely blanking.

I think the only people that truly know the level of hands-on decision making that Fanatics may or may not be making in Topps is the executives and employees of Topps. Fanatics hasn't been a large profit company for nothing, so I'm sure there's some judgements and demands, but we just don't know how much. If we continue to see more lazy cash grabs from Topps now it will be fairly easy to put 2 and 2 together.

Topps has been owned by many companies over the years, I doubt Fanatics will be the last. Topps has a legacy to maintain to make sure their name and brand stays important not only for the sake of the consumer, but also for the company that owns them and any company that will own them in the future. It doesn't make sense for Fanatics to drive the brand into the ground for the long term. ::shrugs::

We can only hope that Topps (and perhaps Fanatics if they play a big hand in this) can learn from this mistake.

Ok gotcha, thank you for the insight. I think that the Rubin led Fanatics is not going to do any good for Topps and certainly no good for the hobby, from what I've observed from a distance is that they're trying to appeal to the 'allure' of gambling more than anything else, while cutting every corner they can. Low, or no creativity, rehashing of past designs, with a gambling-centric 'ecosystem' for the lack of a better word. Of course, the hype train and theatrics with breakers getting the massive hits after massive hits isn't helping the image of Topps/Fanatics' integrity.

My two cents, in general, would be that we're not going to get anything close to the golden age of days gone by unless someone with a lot of money, integrity and interest in sports cards at the hobbyist level manages to land the license. Although, these mogul types only care about increasing their net worth and they want to do it in the cheapest way possible...so I'm not going to hold my breath.

On your point about maintaining the Topps legacy being important for the company, I'm reminded of the loser that owns Starbucks, when he purchased the Supersonics and he drove the franchise into the ground before selling it to people who completely uprooted and destroyed it. That's not to throw out a downer, but I can't get over the fact that to us these things have meaning, but to them it's just another thing to bleed dry until it's no longer profitable enough for them, or becomes too much of an inconvenience to run properly, then it becomes disposable.

[FrankAZHP]

On your point about maintaining the Topps legacy being important for the company, I'm reminded of the loser that owns Starbucks, when he purchased the Supersonics and he drove the franchise into the ground before selling it to people who completely uprooted and destroyed it. That's not to throw out a downer, but I can't get over the fact that to us these things have meaning, but to them it's just another thing to bleed dry until it's no longer profitable enough for them, or becomes too much of an inconvenience to run properly, then it becomes disposable.

There's always going to be brands that we can use as examples that were shown to be run into the ground. I get what you're saying with the Supersonics example, but you could have found a better example to further steelman your point. Companies like an NBA franchise, or like the company/brand Topps, will always maintain a certain level of value.

Sure Fanatics wants to print money, and I'm sure they will, but they also want to make sure that the brand/heritage/legacy of the company remains positive. The better the company is, the more they can make money next year, and the year after that etc. And sometime likely in the next 10-40 years when Fanatics sells Topps for whatever reason, they will want to make as much money from the sale as possible as there will always be someone that will buy them up to keep that brand/heritage/legacy alive and use it to make more money.

It's in Fanatics' best interests to keep the brand/heritage/legacy of the Topps name a good one. For short term and for long term. I don't like what I've seen lately, but until we start seeing consistent issues, I'll try to be optimistic for now and hope Topps learns from this entire situation.

[siuwongkee]

Fanatics has been very straight on what they are doing, they try to make sports cards something bigger than it should be. (It is more than sub category of sports) So they will keep testing the boundaries of the market, keep trying the line regarding how to sell cards at lowest cost. (Like remember the Brady baseball rookie auto? It failed but who cares, look at the new hype, big 3 USA Auto, 1m Wemby 1/1 auto) So that they can on the one hand make modern sports card super high hand even more than vintage baseball*1 and on the other hand running a casino like business for everyone (including kids). There is basically no downside for them, except

1: People holding Panini Era relics. (The UD era, tbh, other than the big 3, Wade/KD's cards are super reasonable comparing to Panini era relics) because Fanatics will keep trying to "ATTACH" better relics to the card. (Imagine they can literally do a championship ring diamond card when their license comes, not to mention a lot of great ideas like the debut patch)
2: If things do not work out and the market is too small for their product. (But like I said, I mean a situation like the junk wax when everyone just lost interest in sports cards, I doubt this will happen)

So, what about this set? I love to see how things will go in 2-3 years, it will be fun to watch. Not like there is anything we layman can do


*1 I feel like the blueprint is to keep making modern cards and hopefully reach the 20m level and keep going. Yes it might sound ridiculous, but in reality, It is just about the auidence. Whether Fanatics can prove to the super rich, sports cards have more value then contemporary arts. (Which is manipulated by art house and sell to the 0.00001% for many reasons other than increase in value) It is just another alt investment.

[mindcycle]

This stuff has been the gift that keeps giving for me. Every time I think i've seen the worst card in the product I keep searching eBay and find something that's even more terrible. Been laughing my ass off for two days now..

Didn't know Tatum worse onesies..




This photoshop job..


Who tf chose theses images..










The face I make after realizing there was exactly zero f*cks given when designing this product

[ChrisP57]

This stuff has been the gift that keeps giving for me. Every time I think i've seen the worst card in the product I keep searching eBay and find something that's even more terrible. Been laughing my ass off for two days now..

I've enjoyed your IG story, trashing the product . It's a nice refreshing dose of reality, after seeing influencer/breaker after influencer/breaker acting like this product is an all time product. It's nauseating. The set is butt ugly and looks beyond ridiculous, but you got
guys like Packman acting like an unnumbered Steph Curry Green Insert is some kind of awesome looking hit when it looks like trash. I get it, it's their job to convince their sheep to waste their money on this crap, but it's just eye rolling to observe.

[Deadshot]

This set is worse than I imagined. It's also full of errors/goofs. Yesterday I found a Haliburton card that had the wrong number airbrushed on. Ron Artest's auto has the wrong shooting hand listed. They can't even populate the correct information from Google searches.

[mindcycle]

I've enjoyed your IG story, trashing the product . It's a nice refreshing dose of reality, after seeing influencer/breaker after influencer/breaker acting like this product is an all time product. It's nauseating. The set is butt ugly and looks beyond ridiculous, but you got
guys like Packman acting like an unnumbered Steph Curry Green Insert is some kind of awesome looking hit when it looks like trash. I get it, it's their job to convince their sheep to waste their money on this crap, but it's just eye rolling to observe.

Thanks Just so disappointing. It could have been decent with just a bit more effort, but overall was just a cash grab product driven by the chance of a lotto ticket, i.e. pulling a Wemby.

I uploaded a few of the memes I made to YT.

[mindcycle]

If you haven't already definitely check out Deadshot's video.

[vintagepacers]

Out of sheer curiosity I purchased 4 singles off ebay. I have 3 in hand and the 4th (a different color) should arrive early next week. So far, I'll say the Red Refractors look ok, not quite what they used to be but not a far cry from it. The Gold Refractors however look absolutely horrible. Anyone that follows my posts on IG knows that I do my best to capture the best elements of a card and try hard (sometimes too hard) to make sure I capture the shine and color of refractors/prizms. I did my absolute best with this card. I would guess I took somewhere in the range of 60-70 pics of this card, in various lighting and different angles. This is the best I could do. The cards are simply unimpressive.


2023-24 Topps Chrome Gold Refractors #29 Pascal Siakam /50 by SMosley21x, on Flickr

That's with some tinkering and editing after the fact. In this case, a scan is actually more indicative of how they truly look in person.


2023-24 Topps Chrome Coast to Coast Gold Refractors #CC29 Pascal Siakam /50 by SMosley21x, on Flickr



The red, like I said, doesn't look too bad. Fairly similar to the way they used to look.


2023-24 Topps Chrome '72 Topps Autographs Red Refractors #TAMT Myles Turner 5/5 by SMosley21x, on Flickr