First look: 2011 Topps Update baseball cards
By Chris Olds | Baseball Editor
The baseball season isn’t even at its midpoint — and Topps Series 2 hasn’t yet arrived — but that means one thing with new product news.
It’s time for 2011 Topps Update to be unveiled.
Topps released the basic product information and preview images for its season-capping set on Friday, a 330-card set that will arrive in early October.
The first half of the 2011 season will be recapped with 55 new rookies, recently traded players and highlights from this year’s All-Star Game all among the checklist.
New this year will be Hope and Cognac Diamond Parallels with base and base variation cards from the first two series in these packs as well as Glove Leather cards, 1/1 player-produced sketches, All-Star autographs and Relics and, of course, Silks and other inserts that we have seen this season.
Each 36-pack hobby box will include one autograph or Relic, while the 10-pack HTA Jumbo boxes will include an autograph and two Relics.
Read more and see more images after the jump.
Because of the added parallel cards, the 50-card Jumbo packs will include four parallel cards while the standard packs will include just 10 cards total (parallel quantity not noted).
The All-Star Stitches Relic cards will include Canary and Platinum 1/1 parallels along with a piece of jersey worn at the event, while 15 of the 65 players will have autographed versions. Just 55 of the players will have Jumbo Patch cards — each limited to just six — while the other 10 will have jumbo autograph patch cards. There also will be dual and triple Relics — the triples only found in hobby and jumbo boxes.
The manufactured glove Relics are back again, falling one per hobby case and one per jumbo box. Also back will be 1/1 nickname versions. There also will be another batch of Diamond Duos cards with Relic versions, a 1966 Mickey Mantle reprint Relic, 60th Anniversary sketch cards, the aforementioned player sketches, the final batch of Kimball Champions minis and another batch of 60th Anniversary autographs.
The newly signed Joe DiMaggio will appear on some of the inserts, while notable autograph signers for the Topps 60 cards includes Albert Pujols, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax and Gary Carter. That checklist has a heavy amount of younger players.
New for this series, though, are Next 60 Autographs, a checklist that includes Brandon Belt, Michael Pineda, Mike Stanton, Aroldis Chapman, Jeremy Hellickson, Neftali Feliz, Freddie Freeman and more.
The All-Star autographs and Relics are, of course, still to be determined.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an e-mail to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
topps update now!!!! why not celebrate xmas also while we are at it. this hobby is going to wind up in the circular file if the powers that be don t right the ship. but since the captain is the great grandson of capt. john j. smith(titanic’s captain), well it will be full speed ahead into the preverbial iceberg. and this time there are zero lifeboats. save the traded sets for the fall. let the collectors and dealers have some time to breathe. this is way out of hand. when i got back into collecting in 1981 when fleer and donruss were topps’ only competition i remember saying to my friend” do we really need cards of ROD CAREW? EVEN NOW 30 years later thet are not worth what we thought they would be. thank you again licensing arm of all sport leagues. your fees are ridiculous. of course the manufacturers pass that on to the collectors and vendors. here s an idea- how about 3 sets for each sport from each manufacturer. of course that won t work. do you know why? GREED!!!!!!!!! 3 sets is more than ample . a regular set , a low end for the kids with alot of inserts and game used, and a high end set. where you can find your 1/1 ‘s and items of that nature. do the right thing. WAKE UP AND RETHINK YOUR MARKETING STRATEGIES WHICH TO ME ARE ANTIQUATED. as they used to say on the ragus commercial”try it you’ll ki
like it”
Bring back the old topps traded sets from 1989 or 1999
In response to the above post
This is a first look, not a release article. If you read the article that would have been clear. Also, if you think card pricing is high now, the three sets you suggest would be even more expensive. Each set that topps releases allows them to spread the cost of paying that license fee across each release. I am also pretty sure that the MLB defines how many sets will be released each year by Topps. Do you happen to remember when Upper Deck and Panini/Donruss were in the baseball business? There was countless releases that were worthless every other week.
I just got back into collecting recently after a many year hiatus. I must say that I can’t believe all the sets that are now available. I mean, I am struggling with all of the sub-sets that come with each set. A little overwhelming and expensive if you were to collect everything that is available to us. I remember when I was doing this years ago that cards were priced so that kids could go to the store and buy a couple of packs and try to complete their sets. It used to be geared more to the kids. Kids buying packs hoping that they would get their favorite star. You used to have the opportunity to complete your sets in a timely fashion because you didn’t have to buy series 1 AND series 2. It used to be a hobby, but now alot of people just hope that they get the big money cards and flip them for fast cash, which is fine. I, myself have alot of cards that I want to get rid of, but they are basketball cards and I am not a basketball fan or a fan of the cards. Baseball is what I collect and takes me back in time to my youth. A time when my goal was to get one of every card in a set and trade my doubles to accomplish this goal. A time when I could get a hobby box for like $15. Now I spend $20 and get like 8 packs. At those prices, I guess you have to hope and pray that you get those big money cards. I, myself, have decided to collect the 2011 Topps set and that’s it. If I get the sub-sets completed during this process, then great, but once my set is complete then I am done for the year. Each individual is going to have to make the decision on how much money that they want to invest every year for all of these different sets.
I don’t buy a whole lot of new stuff, I do buy complete sets of the basic Topps for my son, I focus on vintage stuff, stuff I know (hopefully) I can cash in on someday later in my life. I agree, way too many cards and sets available, and truthfully, I’m not a fan of the new glossy look to them, I like the old school cardboard cereal box feel to them. Just my preference.
I agree with all of you, I remember when the market got flooded in the early 90’s or it began too rather, now their are so many, I focus on football and their are just too many sets, and some sets their packs sell for 10 to 15$ seriously?
Just keep in mind that you don’t have to buy everything. I’m only trying to build two sets this year, the flagship topps series and Allen & Ginter, and that’s because I love the design of the flagship and the historicalness of Ginter. Everything else is strictly team sets and the occasional single, which are generally cheap.
Next year I may just do team sets. It really comes down to the individual card design.
I only collect the Topps set….and I do that a year behind. Right now..I’m finishing up 2011 set…boxes and singles are cheaper than trying to compete for the new stuff. Other than that I collect just about everything from my favorite team, Tigers, and still I never buy the most recent stuff out. This lets the pricing even out and I’m not paying high $$$ for a rookie that blows his arm out!
Okay I’m totally confused on all this. I sell cards at a local flea market and set up at an occasional show now and then. With MLB limiting the card company to just Topps its made things totally out of control. Every product that comes out jumps in price the week it comes out know or the week after. Which makes it difficult for me as a small dealer to compete as far as opening product or selling packs. Its happened straight down the line from Heritage, Gypsy Queen, and now Bowman. This hasn’t made things better its limited our choices and raised product price on the secondary market. I don’t see this in football because there’s choices for the dealers and collectors to. Just my thoughts on the subject.
There are way too many sets. I only get Bowman,BC and BDPP. Doing those sets are a task in and ofitself. I can’t imagine if I collected anything else.
is the cognac diamond card #d?
Could someone tell me what cards in the 2011 Topps Update have A & B.
Thanks Jim
Collecting baseball cards has always been one of my favorite hobbies. I stopped collecting when I was 12 in the 7th grade. Last Christmas I received the complete 1990 set from Topps. Brought me back. Some of the first cards I had were the 1991 Topps cards and those are still my all time favorite. Mostly because my t-ball coach gave out packs to the team. I’ve been looking through flea-markets, garage sales, antique stores trying to find the complete 1991 set as well as 1988, 1989, and 1992. I did find some vendor box cards from 88 & 89 that feature duplicates (the 88 set has two Mark McGuire’s and two Ron Guidrey’s.) I’ve been tempted to start collecting again but don’t really feel like forking out for the new stuff since the there seems to be too many sets per year. Just keep it basic with the complete set and the traded/update series. Also, I’ve noticed that now they don’t release the manager in the Topps set which is disappointing since I like collecting the managers also. And I agree with a poster on how the cards should go back to cardboard. All in all, I’m still a fan of Topps. Just looking to get complete 1991, 1989, 1988, and 1992 sets.
Don’t you wish you had scarfed up a few cases of this back in 2011? Trout, Goldschmidt, Altuve, Rizzo, etc. Product is LOADED!! Hobby boxes at $400-$500. Jumbos at $700.00. Parallel Trouts through the roof. Love this hobby!!!!