First look: 2014 Topps Turkey Red baseball cards
UPDATE: The product will go on sale at noon Eastern on Wednesday, Feb. 19.
—
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
Turkey Red is back for another run as an online-exclusive product.
Topps released the basic information and checklist on Monday for the product that will arrive soon on Topps.com with 11 cards per $19.99 pack and one of those being an autographed card.
Full details are still to come from Topps, but the base set will include just 100 cards and there will be 34 autographs in the product, though that checklist appears to be skip-numbered with some cards removed from the checklist.
In addition, all 100 cards in the set will have printing plates for collectors to chase.
Last year’s boxes initially were $20 if purchased directly from the company — the only way that these cards initially are sold.
Notable signers for this one will include Michael Wacha, Xander Bogaerts, Yoenis Cespedes, David Freese, Brian McCann, David Price, Buster Posey, David Wright, David Ortiz and Albert Pujols.
In addition, a company official noted that this product will not have any autograph redemption cards.
We’ll have card images on this one here soon (this post will be updated) but until then here’s the checklist, which includes just two rookies (Bogaerts and Travis d’Arnaud) in the base set but several among the autographs.
Click here to view the checklist released by Topps.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
what do the brick and mortar shops think about this (Topps with many online-only releases of product in the last couple of years). I assume Topps isn’t sharing their profits of their online-only products with brick and mortar shops and it’s giving collectors fewer reasons to visit with their regional brick and mortar shop to pick up releases such as this.
Is this Topps way to continue to tick off brick and mortars so Topps can go exclusively to online sales to collectors?
Like the design. Last years autographs were lack luster with a large number of the signers having over 600 + cards where the higher profile players had very little. I hope they can kind of even it out a bit.
Ugly
Robert – Topps is a privately-owned business that has every right to sell their products online. Why would they share profits with B&M’s when the B&M stores didn’t touch the product? They aren’t under any sort of exclusive deal with card shops that requires them to kiss their feet. Brick and mortar shops can buy with the rest of us online and sell them in store. In no other industry are retail outlets babied like they are in this one. B&M’s can choose to drop Topps if it upsets them so much.
I know Topps is privately-held, but sometimes they might do something to show their appreciation to B&M stores (like sharing a percentage of the profit on a selected direct product since the hobby shop didn’t get to acquire a release at wholesale.)
Profit-sharing isn’t unheard-of. MLB is a private entity too and when you buy your out-of-market MLB package, some percentage of the money MLB made from you gets shared with the 30 clubs.
How exactly does a retail establishment “drop Topps if it likes” when Topps has a MLB monopoly on licensing as to team names and logos? This is not exactly a freely floating market.
Is Topps’ business to subsidize card shops? The company does a lot of shop-focused promotions such as Archives retro packs, Spring Fever and so on — all efforts to draw consumers into shops because of the free extras with purchase. Meanwhile, some shops just sell the cards … it’s stuff like that makes me wish it wouldn’t even bother doing that.
I quite buying cards when Topps got a monopoly license. If it wasn’t for the B & M shops, Topps would have folded years ago. How quickly we forget.
Topps survived for 30 years just fine with B&M shops. Online and retail are the present and future, hobby shops are going the way of the dinosaur. Need a box of cards? Why not hop online and spend $20 less and not pay sales tax. Need a specific single or just want to browse? Ebay/COMC. Want to meet other collectors? Blogs/forums. Topps was in retail outlets lonnnnng before there was such thing as a hobby shop. It’s time for failing hobby shops to realize that the future isn’t bright for them. It’s not because the hobby is failing, it’s because it’s gone online. Good for Topps for realizing that and selling direct. By cutting out the middle man they’re able to offer a product like this for just $20. As a consumer, I’m all for it.
Sorry, but the hobby shops really are needed for Topps to thrive.
Not that I think this product will make or break them, but a hobby store is still a great gathering
place for exchanging ideas/cards. Not everyone want to deal with only online.
And with online transactions you have to deal with the costs of mailing, possible lost packages, etc.
A good store is a blessing for a collector and provides lots of free advertising for the card companies.
I don’t exactly like the plain red design on the card and the auto checklist isn’t that great so I give it a 2 star.
Hobby shops are terrible. The prices are through the roof. Online is the way to go!!!