2023 Topps Chrome Star Wars

[contrarian_cards]

This will be sort of my general impressions of 2023 Topps Chrome Star Wars based on my experience w/the product thus far -

Personally I pre-ordered 4 hobby boxes from topps website when the product was posted on May 4th, it was an interesting release in that those boxes were made available to online buyers prior to the product getting to hobby shops or online dealers. I had thought of holding the 4 boxes as a hedge against inflated singles prices, figuring I could sell the boxes sealed to offset the cost of whatever singles I bought for PC. But it became clear rather quickly that box prices would be suppressed for a good while, blowout lowered their pre-order prices and at that point I just decided to open 3 boxes and sell one back on the secondary market to recover as much of the total cost as possible. I was able to recover 65% of my total cost on the 4 boxes along with keeping a handful of singles and base bulk. The main cards I kept for PC were a Han Solo Gold /50 and a Obi Wan Monikers Green /99. I was also able to send a handful of singles to PSA at the 15$ special star wars rate in May so we will see if getting those back in slabs early allows me to offset any additional cost, I doubt it but who knows. Now ill give my quick hits broadly speaking -

1) Really fun opening experience, the box prices on the secondary market at this point are below what topps was charging directly for the most part, I think at around 135 or so it is really tempting to buy and open but I wont be doing that as I will just buy singles moving forward. There are also 20$ blasters available online and at Target, you get two exclusive wave parallels in those boxes that look considerably nicer than the base refractors in hobby boxes IMO, but the odds of hitting good color parallels are about 2x worse than hobby boxes.

2) The base set is nice, cool and simple design. Good checklist, sick Vader image. Some of the darker images do feel a bit washed out, like if you see the Qi'Ra card specifically she has a black dress on and the way the layout works it just doesnt make for a very vibrant looking card, most of the images are fine though.

3) I was disappointed in the base refractors, or rainbow refractors as topps referred to them as...they dont look like your classic topps chrome refractor....they appear almost as a hybrid between a classic refractor and a rainbow parallel from flagship. Not bad cards just not giving you that pop you would expect.

4) The color parallels are totally fine and look nice, lots of great color match and complimenting options to chase.

5) The First Appearance & Monikers Insert sets are really great IMO, especially when you add in the parallel options. Topps has really put a lot into this product when it comes to the inserts, which is nice that it is not so heavily dependent on color parallels. I would rank the inserts sets in this order personally (not in terms of market demand but in terms of how much I like them) First Appearance, Monikers, Kyber Crystal SSP, Manga, Return of Jedi 40th, and Journey of Grogu....all insert sets minus the Kybers have parallels also.

6) I was able to buy a good portion of the singles I wanted already and imagine prices will drift consistently down as the months go by, this set was released in very close proximity to Return of the Jedi Sapphire and the Obi Wan set and thus there will be a significant amount of single cards and parallels competing against each other for secondary market attention. It should be a great summer of scooping Star Wars singles tbh, or at least I hope it will be.

7) All in all I am super stoked on the set, I could see myself building up a considerable position of singles over the next couple years for collecting purposes...it was super fun to open also as unlike sports you sort of feel connected to a broader contingent of the characters in the set rather than just a specific team and such. For example I dont collect Han Solo specifically but I was stoked to pull a gold and will likely just hold the card as a memory of the experience. A few of my friends did opening videos on their respective channels and such so it was fun to see those guys dip their toes into star wars cards. Ill have a video eventually on my channel but idk the rules of self promotion here so ill likely hold back from posting any type of links.

8) Almost forgot, my box results were pretty average id say, first box pulled a green obi wan monikers /99 and a green Migs Mayfield /99, second box pulled a gold Han /50 and a gold Journey of Grogu /50, 3rd box pulled a green Ahsoka Monikers /99 and none of the autos were great, sold them all as fast as possible for like 15$ or less.

[jgp3-cards]

Excellent recap! I've been collecting Star Wars cards for about two years now with most of my main focus on the first three Star Wars sets from Topps (1977, 1980, 1983). Really like the look of these Chrome sets. Do you think its worth buying blaster or should I just stick with the singles from the set? Thanks!

[contrarian_cards]

Thanks! I do not think you can go wrong buying a blaster at 20$ considering you get two wave parallels and a handful of inserts guaranteed. Personally I lean toward just buying the singles I want, (I have 3 blasters in my target cart in the app but then I think about all the cool stuff I could buy for 60$ and just typically go that route). On the other side though if you have not opened ultra modern star wars before it can be a good way to get a feel for the set and what singles you may want to go after...for me I know I gained a pretty good appreciation for the Monikers inserts after seeing them in hand, and then I hit ebay and chased down a gold Vader. So yeah pry a balance of both...maybe buy a blaster or two to feel it out and then chase the singles you want.

[jgp3-cards]

Appreciate the input! I bet the Gold Vader is sweet! $20 for a blaster isn't bad at all! At one of the last shows I went to I was able to get a few singles of Topps Chrome of Rey, R2-D2, Han, etc!

[contrarian_cards]

Thanks! Yeah I have been trying to prioritize what order I want to target various singles in and such, the Gold Vader Monikers came up at a good price due to a couple faint print lines so I figured I would knock that one out quick. Def planning to pace myself a bit, looking back at 2022 Finest I feel I pry overpaid for a variety of cards early after release, underpaid for some too but the price patterns tend to shake out the same way w these types of sets and the opportunities for deals should be plentiful as the months go by, especially w all the sets dropping simultaneously.

Congrats on grabbing those singles at your card show, the Rey and R2 cards are great in this set.