2023 Topps Chrome Baseball releases on July 26th, so it’s no better time to go over the product, and see what these darned Tacofractors that everyone is talking about are?! To start, the set consists of a 220-base card set, and 27 parallels (we’ll be going over that shortly). Here are the Hobby and Jumbo box and case breakdowns. Each 2023 Hobby Box will have at least 1 autographed card, and each Hobby case will have at least 1 Topps Chrome Authentics Chrome Relic and 1 Ultraviolet All-Stars Insert. Each 2023 Jumbo Hobby Box will have at least 3 autographed card, each Jumbo Hobby case will have 1 Topps Chrome Authentics Chrome Relic and 2 Ultraviolet All-Stars Insert cards. As far as Retail Blasters go, they’ll have 2 Sepia Refractor and 2 Pink Refractor Parallels. If you read this far, you’ve probably already noticed that Topps is cutting down on the autographs per box, as the 2022 product dropped 2 per Hobby box and 5 per Jumbo box, which is a disappointment to say the least. There also does not seem to be a Hobby Lite version of Chrome this year, if you wanted to save some money.
For this year, Topps is bringing one of the most odd parallels to the set that we’ve seen in collector history. The Tacofractor (1:8,412 Hobby packs). Yes, if you haven’t already heard or seen this new parallel, you can look below for a few examples. The one thing that’ll get people hunting down these taco-licious cards is the fact that all of them are serial numbered to five. That’s right, they’re basically a variation of your normal Red or Red Wave Refractors that are numbered to only five copies each. Whether or not they’ll be regarded to be as valuable as the Red/Red Wave Refractors in the long run is to be seen.
Another new parallel is the Sub-Zero FrozenFractor found only in Jumbo packs, also serial numbered to only five copies each. The other set of parallels are the Sonar ones, coming in Purple which are printed to 275 copies, Blue which are printed to 125 copies, and Green which are printed to 99 copies.
As far as Inserts go, there are a wide array of them to be found in this year’s product. You have the 1988 Topps Baseball (1:6 Hobby packs), Future Stars (1:16 Hobby packs), Hidden Gems (Unknown odds), Let’s Go! (1:11,241 Hobby packs), Topps Chrome Exposé (serial numbered to 10, 1:28,102 Hobby packs), and the new addition of Radiating Rookies (1:686 Hobby packs). We can also look forward to finding the Youthquake inserts (1:2 Delight Hobby Breaker Box), Topps Chrome Titans (1:12 Hobby packs), Topps In Technicolor (1:24 Hobby packs), case hits in the Ultraviolet All-Stars (1:686 Hobby packs). The Technicolor and Ultraviolet Inserts can also be found in serial numbered parallel versions. Following last years’ first MVP Buyback program, Topps will be doing the same for the 2023 NL and AL MVPs. Those who are wondering what happened to their returns of the 2022 AL and NL MVP award winners in Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt, they’ll be stuck back into this product as stamped buyback autographed versions numbered to 22. There will also be unsigned 2022 Topps Chrome Buybacks (1:21,136 packs) that are stamped and numbered to 199 or less.
When it comes to variations and short prints, there will not be the Gold Mirror SSP like in Topps Series 1 & 2. There will be a 20-card Image Variation Set (1:497 Hobby packs) with five different parallels. There will also be a 5-card Super Short Print from the base set (1:16,938 Hobby packs) that consists of all Rookie Cards.
Moving onto the autographs, we start with the 129-card Rookie set (1:52 Hobby packs). After Series 1 and 2, along with several other Topps products that have been released, the premier Rookie Chrome set is ready to be released! You have 15 different colored parallels to match ranging from non-numbered all the way down to the 1/1 SuperFractor. There is also the small 5-card Dual Rookie Autographs set (1:79,772 Hobby packs), with all cards serial numbered to 25, along with Red parallels numbered to 5, and the 1/1 SuperFractors for each. Then we have the 1988 Topps Baseball Autographs 11-card set which are all serial numbered to 25 or less (1:16,709 Hobby packs). The Future Stars (1:33,876 Hobby packs), Radiating Rookies (1:20,438 Hobby packs), Topps In Technicolor (1:8,993 Hobby packs), Ultraviolet All-Stars (1:13,972 Hobby packs) Inserts all have autographed versions, along with the Topps Chrome Legends Autograph Refractors Set (1:19 Delight Hobby Breaker boxes) which may be some of the tougher autos to find as they are all serial numbered to 50, and it is a small 14-card set.
The least talked about, but probably most beautiful looking cards have to be the Topps Chrome Authentics Relic 18-card set (1:4,693 Hobby packs) that only fall one per Hobby and Jumbo case. There is one HOF on the checklist and the rest are all current stars and MVP award winners, World Series winners, and some that may be Rookie Cards.
If you wait each year for the Topps Chrome Baseball product, I wish you good luck on your hunting!
