Topps is bringing back a brand that had a multi-year run more than a dozen years ago and it’ll arrive by series, just as cards did from the 1950s through the early 70s. However, 2019 Topps Total baseball comes with a fresh set of challenges.
Topps Total baseball was produced from 2002-2005 and included base sets that included dozens of cards for each MLB team—upwards of 1,000 in all. There were also football sets from 2003-2007, a pair of basketball sets and even a hockey set from Topps’ days as a multi-sport producer of trading cards.
The 2019 edition will include a 900-card base set printed on 16-pt stock. The cards will only be available through Topps’ website in 10-card packs for $10 each ($80 for 10 packs). Shipping is free.
The design is simple with the player’s name and team logo at the bottom. Backs appear to contain only a brief bio and some ad copy with no statistical information.
The set will be released in 100-card “waves” every three weeks from now through World Series time. A collector will be spending $720 over six months to get 900 cards from packs but will likely have to do some trading or additional buying online to complete the set. That probably means the population of each card at the end of the promotion will be quite limited. Print runs will be revealed after each three-week sales period.
Topps says the checklist will include established veterans superstars, rising young talent and rookies. The first “wave” or series checklist of cards #1-100 is below.
There’s no indication any autograph or memorabilia cards will be found but there will be base set parallels numbered to 10, 5 and 1 randomly inserted in packs.
You can check out the offer for Topps Total and see more details here.