Saturday, April 16, 2016

Results of the Topps NOW Baseball Alert

The window for ordering yesterday's four Topps NOW cards is closed. I felt the offering of four cards in one day was an interesting scenario, seeing as how none of them featured a rookie, and I loosely guessed what the production numbers would wind up being.

For starters, I pointed out that two of the cards pictured superstar players; Bryce Harper and Jackie Robinson. I predicted that Topps would sell several hundred of each player, and indeed, 759 of Jackie Robinson's cards were sold. Bryce Harper surprised me a bit, as a whopping 1,286 of his cards were ordered (by far the largest print run for a veteran)... When you compare that to the 782 examples printed of Harper's first card just ten days before, one starts to see that this Topps NOW program is really gaining some steam.

Phillies pitcher Vincent Velasquez and Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia were the two other players featured on NOW cards yesterday, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that their cards would be ordered in smaller quantities. I felt that Velasquez' card would have a higher print run than Garcia's, because Velasquez is a strikeout pitcher near the beginning of his MLB career; Garcia, on the other hand, has been in the league since 2008 and has yet to achieve All-Star status. Predictably enough, Velasquez' print run was 557, while Garcia's was right at an even 300. Yesterday, I felt that Garcia had the potential to be at or near the lowest print total for all NOW cards, and my guess wasn't too far off. Garcia's print run of 300 cards is a tad bit more than the four lowest; Albert Pujols (244), Chris Davis (266), Francisco Liriano (266) and Nolan Arenado (268).

Ten of those 300 Jaime Garcia cards are mine. It will be interesting to see how low-printed cards like this fare over the next several months, and I have a feeling that set collectors will be the primary force to drive up their value. At a cost of five dollars per card, I'm really not too worried!

Click here to hunt for Topps NOW cards on eBay

 

2 comments:

  1. Haven't been keeping track of these... which sucks b/c I missed out on the Jackie. Oh well... there's a high enough print run where I'll probably be able to find one on the secondary market.

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  2. Yes, I'd think you could snag Jackie in the $10 range on eBay, the same price it would have cost to buy one from Topps. The guy who will sell you one probably only paid $5 each if he bought 20 of 'em.

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