SCU Go-Live Report: 2014 Topps Supreme Baseball

For the first time in the US, Topps is putting out Supreme in baseball after some initial success with an Asia only release last year. Since its release in football back in 2010, Supreme has quickly risen to be one of Topps’ better products, and it should not be surprising to see them try to port it to Baseball. I think the international market is a bit more high end focused, so this will be more of a test of how the US can handle it this time around.

Here are some of the bigger hits up so far:

2014 Topps Supreme Yasiel Puig / Mike Trout Dual Auto

2014 Topps Supreme Madison Bumgarner Auto Patch

2014 Topps Supreme Jeff Bagwell / Craig Biggio Dual Auto

2014 Topps Supreme Jacob deGrom Auto RC

2014 Topps Supreme Geroge Springer Silhouette Style Auto Relic

When you look at the cards, I think there are two very different sentiments that the designs can elicit. Some of the work looks clean and REALLY nice, with a focus on using the swooping lines and whitish gray backgrounds to highlight the players. Others look about as hideous as they can be, with Gold Foil boxes taking most of the fun out of a product that has a history of these type of signature presentations.

Baseball and high end can be a real fickle bitch, as it is clear that there is a growing separation between the dwindling amount of set collectors and the ever growing portion of the remaining collector base that chase hits. Supreme has always been a top singles product, because when you hit it big, you can definitely make some bank. But, there are also circumstances that prove otherwise – leading to a really bad break.

Topps has said that there are a lot of rare cards in this product, with no autograph numbered over 50. Im guessing this is a pretty short run, as Topps is trying to gauge if a one pack higher end release can survive in a hobby where the victories in high end can be few and far between.

Pairing Supreme with Baseball is definitely a risk, but nothing like the upcoming release of Dynasty, which takes it more to the extreme part of the spectrum. Although I think many of the Supreme cards are well designed, im just not sure how the collectors will react. This could end up dropping like a rock if the experiment fails, but I think there is enough really nice content in the product to leave collectors wanting more.

Ill be interested to see how it plays out.

One thought on “SCU Go-Live Report: 2014 Topps Supreme Baseball

  1. Pingback: Around the Carding Blogosphere for October 31, 2014 : The Baseball Card Store

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *