The final football releases of the 2018 season joins a hugely popular baseball product, late season hockey and more on the sports card calendar. Here’s a roundup of what’s coming over the next couple of weeks courtesy of The Break Exchange:
2019 Donruss Diamond Kings Baseball 4/10
Panini’s latest baseball release puts an artsy twist on the game. Each box of 2018 Diamond Kings will carry one autograph, one memorabilia card, three Framed Parallels, one Artist Proof and 12 inserts.
Highlights include autographed memorabilia cards of the 2018 rookie class in Diamond Kings Rookie Material Signatures. There will be memorabilia swatches from all-time greats and Panini is promising “more variations than ever before.” Those include black-and-white, name, photo and sepia.
Diamond Kings had a First Off the Line release so some cards and boxes have already made their way to eBay. Hobby boxes cost around $75.
2018 Panini Honors Football 4/12
Honors will offer updated and autographed cards from previous 2018 Panini football releases as well as signed cards from past designs and buyback cards.
Each box will have four cards: two autographs and two base. Every card in Honors is numbered to 99 or less and the base set will have just one card per NFL team (plus parallels, of course).
2019 Bowman Baseball 4/17
Celebrating its 30th anniversary as a Topps product, 2019 Bowman will again come to two main forms: Hobby boxes that will contain 24 packs of ten cards (five base and five prospects) and 12-count Jumbo boxes that will have 32 cards in each pack with a 16/16 mix. Hobby boxes will have one autograph while Jumbos will carry three. There’s quite a price difference online between the two.
Wander Franco is one of the MLB’s best prospects — and he’s signing autographs for 2019 Bowman Baseball. Check out his cards coming April 17. #BowmanBaseball pic.twitter.com/Ptgrvl4UbT
— The Topps Company (@Topps) April 5, 2019
It’s one of the most popular products for prospectors with a long history of producing some of the hobby’s most valuable modern cards and Topps makes no bones about it with promotional literature stating the brand will “establish this year’s prospect and rookie trading card market.”
2018 Flawless Football 4/17
The final 2018 football card product again comes packed in its usual metal briefcase. Thanks in part to a strong rookie class and general scarcity, Flawless boxes are selling online for a little under $2,000 right now.
So…what do you get?
On average, boxes will contain six autographs, two gem cards and two memorabilia cards. Every card is numbered to 25 or less and each autograph will be signed directly on card. Cut autographs from former greats will also be in the mix. Panini says Flawless will include “more patch autographs and 1/1s than ever before.”
There will be some new booklet cards to look for including Rookie Booklets, Veteran Booklets, Signature Gems, Flawless Duals and Super Bowl Gems.
2018-19 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee Platinum Hockey 4/17
Each box of Platinum will have 20 packs with four cards per pack. Each box should have an on-card autograph and several parallels, at least two of which will be serial numbered. There are eight different parallels for base cards and autographs including the new Arctic Freeze version.
Standard Rookie Autos will be found about one in every 30 packs. Boxes are online for around $90.
Other products set for release include Donruss Soccer (4/10); Topps WWE RAW (4/10); Leaf Metal Draft (4/12); Topps UEFA Champions League Museum (4/17).