It’ll be a busy first quarter of 2019 for collectors of current baseball cards. Topps will release a number of products during the first three months including one that’s being moved up in the rotation. Scheduled for release on March 20, 2019 Topps Inception will join Series 1, Heritage, Tribute and perhaps at least one other product in the company’s pre-season stable. This year, Inception was released in June.
2019 Topps Inception Basics
The 2019 edition will focus on rookies and young stars. Inception should hit the online market at around $55-65 per box.
Just as it did this year, 2019 Topps Inception boxes will have seven cards, one of which will be an autograph or auto patch card. Two others will be parallels. Each 16-box case will guarantee:
- 4 Inception Autograph Patch Cards
- 1 Inception Silver Signings or Gold Signings Autograph Card
- 1 Inception Autograph Jumbo Patch Card
Base Set
The base set will consist of 100 cards.
Base Card parallels will include:
- Green Parallel
- Purple Parallel – #’d to 150.
- Magenta Parallel: #’d to 99.
- Red Parallel: #’d to 75.
- Orange Parallel: #’d to 50.
- Blue Parallel: #’d to 25.
- Inception Parallel: #’d 1/1.
- Printing Plates: #’d 1/1.
Autographed Cards
Base Rookies and Emerging Stars autographs will feature numbered on-card autographs of the top 2019 rookies and young stars and include:
Magenta Parallel – #’d to 99.
Red Parallel – #’d to 75.
Orange Parallel – #’d to 50.
Blue Parallel – #’d to 25.
Inception Parallel: #’d 1/1.
Legendary Debut Autographs will feature star players pictured during their MLB debuts. Again, all will be on-card and numbered to 20 with Orange (# to 10), Blue (# to 5) and Inception (1/1) parallels.
Short Print Inception Autographs will be numbered to 10 and include a checklist of major stars, according to preliminary information from Topps.
The Silver Signings case hits will have parallels signed in gold ink that are numbered to 25 and Gold Inscriptions that are 1/1.
Autographed Patch and Relic Cards
Rookies and young players are again the focus here with autographs and jersey patch pieces. Base versions are numbered. They’ll be packed four per case and include:
Magenta Parallel
Red Parallel – #’d to 25.
Orange Parallel – #’d to 10.
Blue Parallel – #’d to 6 – Utilizing jersey buttons
Inception Parallel – #’d 1/1 – Utilizing the Majestic jersey logo
Jumbo Patch Cards will be even tougher pulls at one per case. Parallels for these will be a little more limited but will include Orange (# to 25); Blue (# to 10) and Inception (1/1) parallels.
Inception Autographed Team Logo Patch Book cards will have an on-card autograph on the left panel and a jumbo team logo patch on the right. Cards will be sequentially numbered to 2.
Inception Autographed Letter Book cards will have an on-card auto on the left and a jumbo letter jersey patch on the right. These will also be numbered to 2.
New this year are Jumbo Autographed Hat Patch cards, which will have three different jumbo patch pieces from player-worn caps. All are numbered to 5.
Inception Autographed Laundry Tag Book cards are 1/1 and will put a laundry tag on the left with the on-card auto on the right. Also numbered 1/1, Inception Autograph MLB Silhouetted Batter Logo Patch Book cards will have a similar appearance with the MLB logo patch.