Fans and collectors bought more than 46,000 “Living Set” cards of Atlanta Braves’ rookie Ronald Acuna during the seven-day sales period that ended early Wednesday afternoon, setting a record for the newly launched on-demand platform and nearly tripling the number of the biggest selling Topps NOW card to date.
Acuna, the 20-year-old who made his MLB debut late last month, was featured on card #19 in the ongoing set, which launched earlier this year. Topps’ print run for the 1953-style Acuna card was 46,809, more than double the 20,966 Shoehei Ohtani cards that were sold when the Japanese rookie’s card was offered last month. Aaron Judge (13,256) and Derek Jeter (10,692) are the only two cards from the Living Set release to have reached five-figure sales numbers.
The biggest selling card from Topps NOW, the company’s other on-demand baseball product, featured Ohtani just after he signed with the Angels. It sold 17,323 copies.
Three Living Set cards are released each week, priced at $7.99 on Topps’ website (less in quantity) but only available for seven days. “Bundles” of the three newest cards are sold at $14.99. No player will have more than one card unless he changes teams.
Sales of Living Set cards have been rising in recent weeks as more customers opt to collect the set. While “common” cards from the first couple of weeks have print runs as low as 2,678 (Nick Markakis) and 3,042 (Ian Happ), recent numbers have been much higher. Topps sold 9,671 cards of Jose Ramirez and 9,631 of Matt Olson during the same period if offered the Acuna card. Most other print runs have been above 4,000 over the last few weeks.
Buyers who purchase quantities of each card typically make them available on eBay at lower prices and secondary market sales of some cards with lower print runs have been strong. Some sellers were offering lots of 100 or more Acuna cards.
Topps launched three new cards on Wednesday: Albert Pujols, who is likely to reach the 3,000 hit plateau this week, Mets’ rookie Amed Rosario and veteran Chase Headley. You can see them here.
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