The Topps 2021 flagship baseball card set was released in January 2021 and consisted of 162 base cards plus additional insert sets. This marked Topps’ 71st consecutive year producing baseball cards and the set featured many of the game’s top stars and rising young players. With licensing agreements in place, Topps has the exclusive rights each year to produce the definitive rookie cards and base cards for every MLB player.
The 2021 set returned to the traditional card design Topps fans had come to expect over the decades. Each base card featured a current photo of the player in their team’s uniform along with their career stats and bio on the back. Some notable rookie cards included Wander Franco of the Rays, Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals, and Jarred Kelenic of the Mariners. Veteran stars profiled included Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Fernando Tatis Jr.
In addition to the base set, Topps included multiple insert sets that added several hundred additional chase cards to collect. The ‘Topps Chrome’ parallel insert set featured refractor versions of selected base cards with a glossy finish. The ‘Topps Fire’ insert showcased additional player photos with animated fire effects. Topps also produced ‘Topps Now’ and ‘Photo Variations’ cards highlighting top performances and photographic anomalies from the previous season.
Perhaps the most coveted insert set in the 2021 release was the ‘Topps Heritage’ mini set. Paying tribute to the classic design of the original 1968 Topps cards, these retro-styled parallels featured today’s stars in a period-appropriate style that was a big hit with collectors nostalgic for the early days of the hobby. Other popular inserts included ‘Topps Highlights’, ‘Topps Gold Label’, and ‘Topps Holiday’ winter-themed variants.
While packs of the base 2021 Topps cards could be found in virtually any sport or hobby store, locating and completing all the varied inserts sets presented a sizable collecting challenge. As is typical for modern issues, Topps also released multiple factory-sealed retail box products at higher price points containing more guaranteed hits. These included ‘Hobby’ jumbo boxes, ‘Jumbos’ with guaranteed autograph or relic cards, and high-end ‘Hobby Master’ cases.
For the serious collector or investor, Topps offered a luxury ‘Tier One’ cloth-wrapped box product exclusively through its website. These extremely limited edition boxes guaranteed extremely rare 1/1 autograph cards and memorabilia cards featuring game-used equipment, with most cards hand-numbered to single digits. At prices ranging from $500 to $1000 per box, Tier One represented the ultimate premium Topps product.
When fully collected and assembled, the 2021 Topps flagship set plus all its affiliated inserts and parallels amounted to well over one thousand individual trading cards profiling the current MLB season. For aficionados of today’s sports memorabilia industry, it stood as a virtual catalog of the year’s baseball talent. Over the decades, Topps baseball cards have become one of America’s most iconic hobby collectibles, and the 2021 set aimed to continue that legacy while celebrating the game’s greatest stars. With sharp design, plentiful parallels, and high-quality printing, it offered collectors a start-to-finish journey chronicling the season that was.
