Winter 2024 has been a popular time for Topps baseball releases–one from the upcoming season and at least a couple branded to last year. 2023 Topps Stadium Club arrived this week, 2024 Topps Series 1 will be out in mid-February and a week later, 2023 Five Star Baseball will hit the streets.
If you’re not into base cards, Five Star is probably up your alley. Boxes contain a single two-card pack. It could contain two autographed cards or one autographed card and a cut signature card of a player from long ago or a pop culture celebrity. Cases contain eight boxes.
With no base set, let’s get right to the meat of it: autographs.
Five Star Autograph Jumbo Prime Cards feature on-card autographs of the game’s greats, with game-worn uniform pieces. They’ll be numbered to 25 unless you find one of these parallels:
- Green Parallel – #’d to 15
- Gold Parallel – #’d to 10
- Silver Rainbow – #’d to 5
- Button Parallel – #’d to 5
- Team Patch Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
- MLB Logo Patch Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
- Laundry Tag Patch Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
- Manufacturer Patch Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
Five Stars Autograph Relic Book Cards will pair autographs and game-used memorabilia from five baseball stars on book cards numbered to 5 or less.
Base Autograph Cards are standard signed cardboard, with seven different parallels:
• Aqua Parallel – #’d to 75
• Purple Parallel – #’d to 50
• Blue Parallel – #’d to 25
• Green Parallel – #’d to 15
• Gold Parallel – #’d to 10
• Orange Parallel – #’d to 5
• Red Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
Dual Autographs pair two players on the same card and will be numbered to 10 or less. Triple Autographs have three players and three autos. They’ll be even rarer, with none numbered higher than 5.
Five Tool Phenom Autographs will have a checklist of players who can provide consistency, power, speed, defense and more. The on-card signatures here will be numbered to 25 or 1.
Five Stars Autographs will showcase “five players that share a common bond,” according to Topps, with both sides of the cards utilized.
Baseball Royalty Autographs will include both current and former greats with on-card signatures. All will be numbered to 15 or less, including:
• Gold Parallel – #’d to 10
• Orange Parallel – #’d to 5
• Red Parallel – #’d 1 of 1
Golden Graphs will be signed, not surprisingly, with gold pens, while Silver Signatures utilize that color. They’ll both be numbered to 40 or less. One of each will be found in each case of 2023 Five Star Baseball. Colored border parallels for those include:
• Aqua – #’d to 30
• Purple – #’d to 25
• Blue – #’d to 20
• Green – #’d to 15
• Gold – #’d to 10
• Orange – #’d to 5
• Red – #’d 1 of 1
Five Star Signatures will be numbered to 20 or less and feature “MLB greats,” according to Topps with some carrying special inscriptions.
Five Star Pentamerous Penmanship are done in a shadowbox style. Most will be numbered to 25 but these are possible:
• Green – #’d to 10
• Gold – #’d to 5
• Orange – #’d to 3
• Red – #’d 1 of 1
There’s a dual auto version of the Pentamerous Penmanship cards on a multi-layered shadowbox, all numbered to 5 or less.
Five Star Cut Signatures and Celebrity Cut Signatures round out the autograph subsets, with both 1/1, as usual.
Boxes of last year’s product are selling online for around $250.
Related Stories:
2022 Topps Five Star Baseball Goes for Gold
2021 Topps Five Star Baseball Preview and Checklist
2019 Topps Five Star Baseball Preview
2020 Topps Five Star Baseball Preview
2023 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Preview
Sports Card Release Calendar: 1/12/24 – 1/30/24
Notes: Mahomes Cards Flying; 2024 Topps Series 1 Cards Trickle Out; Bobby Shantz
Check Those Base Cards: Topps Acknowledges 1/1 ‘First Card’ Parallels Are Missing Front Stamp
