Its rare in this hobby that a mainstream company comes out with a box that costs over 500 per. That price tag has been known to price people out of an entire print run of a product, as the cost is just too expensive for a good portion of the hobby. That being said, super high end is my favorite type of card, and I fully support more of it as long as it is fresh.

Here are some of the reasons why I love high end Baseball so much:

2013 Topps Five Star Sandy Koufax Auto

2013 Topps Five Star Mike Trout Auto Patch

2013 Topps Five Star Frank Thomas Auto Inscription
2013 Topps Five Star Bryce Harper Auto Quad Relic Booklet

Topps Dynasty is the newest baseball product and the first non-basketball product to break into the $1000+ category for “box” price. Even though each box is one card at 200, its five cards per case at 1000. That almost assumes this will be opened in case form.

The cards, as one could imagine, look absolutely stunning, and I could not be more happy to have more high end baseball in the pipeline. Unlike Basketball, where super high end is the norm, Baseball did not have a true “Exquisite” style product until the release of Five Star a few years ago.

The reason being, from what I gather, is that Baseball collectors are of a different breed than other sports, still having influence from the early days of the hobby. Although set collectors are becoming more and more of a tiny minority, giving way to hit collectors migrating from all sports, the influence still has an effect on each product's collector reception.

Five Star baseball was a huge step in progressing towards a higher end existence for the baseball hobby, but Topps has missed continually on providing a checklist worthy of a product of that type. Again, like Dynasty, the cards from Five Star are easily the best of the best in terms of design, but content has been widely panned.

I mentioned, back when Panini released Flawless, that it was not bringing anything unique for a box that costs as much as the product does. No logos, no ridiculous cards, just a bunch of autographs of good players packed into a box. I will say the same thing here, as Dynasty will need to have some sort of wow factor that Flawless never had, because without it, this will be just another blip on the radar as Five Star has sadly been.

Here is the scary thing. In basketball, there are a number of players that can easily generate $200 plus cards with very little effort, even when Lebron and Jordan are removed from the list. Add in a rookie class chased internationally, and its only easier to expect that people will not have an issue with getting some return. In baseball, there really arent many players who sign that can generate that kind of number. Mike Trout, at the moment is probably the most valuable Baseball player in terms of hobby value, but one guy does not a checklist make.

Topps continually proves that they have the best design team around, consistently delivering great looking cards, of which Dynasty fits the mold. I sincerely hope that 200 per card in a 5 card box, will live up to a standard being set, as there are great environmental factors that do not play well in a market like this.