2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball Sparks Change For A New Collecting Season

Topps’ ambitious 2023 Series 1 Baseball release aims to be a fence-buster for the new season. Featuring a complete base set redesign, new inserts and prominent signers, 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball provides collectors a taste of Fanatics’ direction for the storied brand.

Entering 2023 with an entire year since acquiring Topps, Fanatics has taken the past year to establish its team and make adjustments while moving the brand forward. There are some immediately noticeable changes upon opening a 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball box that will spark consumer interest.

Topps returned to a design pattern that has been unused since 2003. The fronts feature a picture-within-picture design for the base set, giving fans both an action shot and head shot on the card.

Diving deeper into 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball, collectors will find a user-friendly adjustment Topps made for identifying rare short-printed parallels. These rare inserts are now clearly marked with a gold SSP logo on the back, eliminating the need to pull out the magnifying glass to read fine print codes while sorting. This will save collectors precious time while sorting their wares, a much-needed efficiency the hobby will appreciate.

While Topps has made responsive design progressions, this year’s set also has multiple nods to the past that are staples to the brand’s nostalgia play. Older collectors will find the 1988 Topps 35th anniversary parallels familiar, as the insert set features both current and retired stars like Julio Rodriguez, Shohei Ohtani, Don Mattingly and Rickey Henderson. Hall of Famers are present through the varied autographed inserts, and the box toppers are fancied after the 1988 League Leaders set.

On the digital side, Topps released variants of the 330-card set through its Topps BUNT app. The set is available through March 20th, 2023, and offers collectors the opportunity to chase rare versions of each player through select challenges available through the app. The concurrent digital campaign with the Series 1 launch is another sign how Fanatics will focus on expanding the brand’s NFT footprint throughout the season.

As with every year’s debut release, hobbyists desperately anticipate getting their hands on the new rookie crop. Michael Harris II, Adley Rutschman, Oswald Peraza, Riley Greene and Gabriel Moreno headline the 56 rookies in this set fans will be choosing to load up on as they hit the 2023 campaign. Not all of the 2022 rookie debuts are included in 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball, as prospects such as Corbin Carroll made it to the autograph checklist; however, their base rookie cards are being held for later in the year.

One concern industry insiders have with this release is the expected print run. Unofficial totals from 2022 estimated over 900,000 base cards per player. Going into this year’s release, there has been speculation within the collecting community those numbers will surpass one million this season. With live online breaks continuing to gain prominence and Fanatics launching its own breaking platform later this year, they are taking a bet consumer demand will continue its upward trend.

Since its takeover, Fanatics has committed to increase circulation and availability while trying to maintain an accessible price point. At $90 per hobby box with a guaranteed autograph or relic card, 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball allows fans to kick off the season and chase their favorite players without breaking the bank to start their collections.