2013 Topps Tier One Baseball Preview

Much of the country has been experiencing its first big taste of winter but seven months from now, it’ll be a distant memory and 2013 Topps Tier One baseball should be on store shelves.  Topps has announced the return of one of last year’s most talked about products with the same hit-focused concept.

Set to release July 13, Tier One 2013 will feature one pack boxed containing two autographs —one On the Rise autograph and either a Tier One autograph, a Crowd Pleaser Autograph, an autograph relic, or a cut signature as well as a relic card.  Every fourth pack includes a bonus relic card.

Dealer cost will be around $75 per box.

Topps loves acetate and back for another go-round with Tier One are Clear Reprint Autographs which will showcase old Topps card designs done up with modern technology and featuring cards signed by the likes of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson and Buster Posey.

Each 2013 Tier One baseball pack will definitely contain at one On the Rise autograph, all numbered to 399 or less and signed on card.  At least 50 young stars have agreed to sign for the product including Mike Trout, Manny Machado, Dylan Bundy and Yu Darvish.

Crowd Pleasers will include at least a few dozen current and former players including  Hall of Famers Al Kaline and Jim Palmer, along with ever-popular Dale Murphy, NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, Robinson Cano and others.

Case hits will include a Tier One Autograph of a superstar and Topps has again lined up some biggies.  Aaron, Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax and newly-christened Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera are part of the mix.

Last season’s popular bat knob cards return in 2013 Tier One, although they’ll have a horizontal look this year and contain larger pieces of the bat.  There are 25 hand-signed bat knobs this year as well.

Another new addition will be All Star Relics, which will be 1/1 jersey pieces from the 2012 All-Star workout jerseys.

All subsets will have three harder to find parallels including those signed in red, silver and 1/1 gold.

There are 25 cut signature cards that will be 1/1 and dual/triple autos with a population of no more than 25.

The autograph Tier One Relic cards will feature more than 70 current and former players, all numbered to 399 with dual swatch and triple swatch versions also for the taking.  Triple patch autographs will be 1/1 while Tier One Relic Book cards will have dual sticker autographs but be numbered to 10.

There are also Dual Autographed Tier One Relics book cards. Numbered to 10, they use sticker autographs.  Also numbered to ten are Prodigious Patches, which will feature large size patches from current and former stars and contain on card signatures.

You can see preview images of 2013 Topps Tier One below and click here to check cards from the Tier One brand for sale on eBay.

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About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for more than 30 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected]