Beckett Sports Card Hot / Cold – September 24, 2022

Welcome to another Beckett Sports Card Hot/Cold where we take a fun and quick look at what’s hot and what’s not in the worlds of sports cards and sports.

Home Run Heroes

As the baseball regular season hits it final stretch, it’s a couple of home run milestones that have people buzzing. Aaron Judge enters the weekend with 60 on the season, one shy of Roger Maris’ American League record. But with the fanfare it’s receiving, in some ways it feels more like some are ignoring the achievements of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and the Judge is going for the MLB record, official or not. This includes million-dollar bounties put on the ball for home run #62.

And then there’s Albert Pujols who became just the fourth member of the 700 Home Run Club on Friday after hitting two against the Dodgers. Possible postseason magic aside, it’s like the final capstone to a legendary career.

Chrome Dilemmas

This is the first full week of 2022 Topps Chrome Baseball being on the market. Under normal circumstance, this juggernaut of a product would be at the top of the Hot side. It still is the product driving things at the moment, but an argument could also be made for it being on the Cold side simultaneously as box prices have tumbled from their pre-sale highs. A big part of this was speculation. Prices for hobby and jumbo boxes were far higher than they’d ever been. Market trends and checklist expectations combined.

But when it released, there was the flub of the missing Extended Series cards that included top rookies. As collectors got a chance to dig into the checklist, there’s the massive list of Rookie Autographs. The addition of a significant number of Veteran Autographs is also new. These have led to a quick — and significant — market correction for unopened wax. At more reasonable prices and with the added clarity of the Silver Packs getting the missing cards to market, 2022 Topps Chrome Baseball will likely settle in for its usual long run.