A new Topps concept: Introducing Topps PLUS+

As a collector who would like to see improvement from Topps, I'd like to know your thoughts on a new concept I thought of. Although I have always been a huge fan of Topps cards, lately I have been numb to increasing numbers of junk inserts and parallels found in the heavily watered down flagship Topps product. Let me know if you think something like this would work. I'd like to hear your thoughts both good and/or bad:

A New Topps Concept: Introducing Topps PLUS+ | My Baseball Card Blog

Let me know!

Thanks!

Craig from Texas

Once I read that Olds was involved, I stopped reading.

Hobby - 10 cards for $2 ($0.20 per card)
Jumbo - 50 cards for $10 ($0.20 per card)
PLUS+ - 15 Cards for $3 ($0.20 per card)

Looks interesting but it seems like its just another product to add to all the other products that blend together and flood the market with more and more autos of HOF'ers and Rookies.

Bob, Chris Olds had nothing to do with this. He and I were just tweeting back and forth and the concept just came to my mind.

VWNut13 -- good point. Because I would expect the quality of the autograph and relic subject to be higher than what is found in regular Topps, I'm sure the SRP would need to increase for Topps PLUS+. Obviously if Topps were to go ahead with this concept , there would need to be some adjustments when it comes to price, odds, and marketing.

Craig from Texas

If it were up to me, I'd scratch base Topps the way it is now and completely replace it with my concept. However, I know that will never happen and thought that this could work to please different kinds of collectors. I could see your point of another product to flood the market but if marketed correctly, I could see this product standing out rather than blending in.

Craig from Texas

maxe0213 said:

Looks interesting but it seems like its just another product to add to all the other products that blend together and flood the market with more and more autos of HOF'ers and Rookies.

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cparker94 said:

If it were up to me, I'd scratch base Topps the way it is now and completely replace it with my concept. However, I know that will never happen and thought that this could work to please different kinds of collectors. I could see your point of another product to flood the market but if marketed correctly, I could see this product standing out rather than blending in.

Craig from Texas

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First, Scrapping base Topps is never going to happen. Base Topps is one of the few products topps has that they will never get rid of. In a market where we have Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, Topps Update, Topps Chrome, Bowman, Bowman Chrome, Bowman Sterling, Bowman Inception, Bowman Draft, Triple Threads, Museum, Tribute, Tribute WBC, Topps Mini, Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Finest and I'm sure I missed a bunch we don't need more products even if they are "new and different" We need less products before we start trying to make more.

Just my opinion BTW. It is a cool product idea, I just think its not what this hobby needs.

I don't mean that I would do away with base Topps. I just think that today's base Topps needs fixing and would like to replace the way base Topps is today with my concept. There are just way too many inserts that no one seems to care about and parallels too. I guess I like to keep things simple and prefer a few quality inserts rather than many crappy inserts in my opinion.

Craig from Texas

maxe0213 said:

Just my opinion BTW. It is a cool product idea, I just think its not what this hobby needs.

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Lots of collectors gonna be disappointed when all they have for nearly $100 is one Gu or auto, two inserts and a ton of Low end base cards.

Personally, I think base topps is nearly always the best product made every year. Insanely fun to open with lots of varieties and shiny cards at a low price.

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BBCgalaxee said:

I think base topps is nearly always the best product made every year. Insanely fun to open with lots of varieties and shiny cards at a low price.

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I agree.

Austin said:

I agree.

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Make it three!

Series One always does unbelievably good and with some good luck of great rookies hitting the last three years, Series 2 and especially Update have done MUCH better than they used to. And I think the inserts and parallels are the main reason why.

Also, I think your print run counts are off. Going by the 1 per case auto relics, you only have 1,250 cases spoken for. That seems pretty low and would make it a much pricier product if the print run is really that low.

Now if you can talk Topps into limiting the "old-style" sets to one per year on a rotating basis, then I'm in...

It sounds cool but I'm not sure it appeals to a lot of people. Yes the crazy topps collectors will go after it. But IMO topps already gouges the hell out of master set builders as it is. Something like this might make some people either ignore it or just plain give up.

Is it pronounced topps plus plus?

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I agree that lots of collectors would be disappointed and this product would not be for everyone. This product would be for those people who prefer, for example, one $36 card rather than 36 $1 cards.

Yes, the low print run would have to make it a pricier product. I still believe that there would be a market for this kind of product. It wouldn't appeal to everyone but it would appeal to a select group and I feel it would sell out.

Craig from Texas

BBCgalaxee said:

Lots of collectors gonna be disappointed when all they have for nearly $100 is one Gu or auto, two inserts and a ton of Low end base cards.

Personally, I think base topps is nearly always the best product made every year. Insanely fun to open with lots of varieties and shiny cards at a low price.

Sent from my HTCONE using Freedom Card Board mobile app

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The concept seems simple enough and not incredibly far from what Topps does now with hobby and jumbo having different types of hits, or actually upgraded hits that can only be found in one or the other. You're basically just suggesting that there is zero overlap of parallels in your Plus+ product and it has its own batch. While your description of what type of inserts to include is fun and quite specific, I could see Topps using the concept with their own formula.

MEH. just another form of Topps base that would render hobby boxes worthless imho.

Jim,

After receiving feedback from you and several others, I think that my preference would be for Topps to replace their hobby jumbos with my concept of Topps PLUS+. I like the idea of zero overlap in inserts between hobby and jumbo and I'm sure Topps would too as master set collectors would try to collect them all. I would open jumbos at a premium price simply because I prefer a chance at fewer quality inserts over the chance of several cheaper inserts and I'm sure that people who prefer the chance at several cheaper inserts would buy hobby at a cheaper price. I think Topps is heading to my zero insert overlap concept. In 2014, Topps introduces new clear parallels. These parallels can only be found in hobby packs and NOT jumbos. This marks the first time that there are inserts found in hobby packs but not in hobby jumbo packs. Usually, its the other way around as jumbo packs have exclusive inserts not found in hobby packs. I think replacing hobby jumbos with my concept would work. Don't you think? I would like to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

Craig from Texas

BowmanChromeAddict said:

The concept seems simple enough and not incredibly far from what Topps does now with hobby and jumbo having different types of hits, or actually upgraded hits that can only be found in one or the other. You're basically just suggesting that there is zero overlap of parallels in your Plus+ product and it has its own batch. While your description of what type of inserts to include is fun and quite specific, I could see Topps using the concept with their own formula.

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1. Get rid of 75% of the new sets they got now
2. Go back the 1990s idea of making cards (the golden era of collecting) which is what 2013 Topps Finest is trying to do

They already make too damn many inserts now. I already hate the fact that retail and hobby are any different for any product. If all I'm after is a standard master set, what in the heck is motivating me to bust retail(for retail exclusive content) hobby and hobby jumbo or this topps plus stuff to do it? It's more of a motivator for me to say to hell with it. Best case scenario, it costs me more money and ends up being a pain. It might be ok for topps but it's not ok for the collector or the hobby in general. We need to get away from there being like 10 parallels for each product and there being 10-15 insert sets ,which sometimes include up to 100 or more cards, in every set. It's ridiculous, they don't hold any value a year later, and it's really making people ponder why they should bother...

I could see if all I did was base topps every year. But even then if I tried for a standard master set( lets say all parallels up to the black bordered) and all the non-GU and non-auto insert sets, even then I'm looking at at least what? $500? On a good day? So explain the draw of the product you're introducing.