The Topps Company has been producing Major League Baseball trading cards since 1950 and each year they release their flagship baseball card product simply called “Topps Baseball”. The release of the 2023 Topps Baseball set is still a few months away but based on the release schedules and timing of previous years, here are some insights into when fans and collectors can expect to see the new 2023 cards hit the market:
Topps has generally released their new baseball card series in late January or early February leading up to the start of spring training and the upcoming MLB season. This timing allows for all the player photos and stats to be as up to date as possible heading into the new year. Sometimes weather delays or other production issues have pushed the release back by a week or two on rare occasions. Looking back at recent years, the 2022 series was officially released on February 9th while 2021 came out on January 27th. So based on this pattern, the safest bet would be that fans can expect to see the retail release of the 2023 Topps Baseball cards sometime between late January and mid February 2023.
In addition to the regular retail release where packs and boxes start appearing on store shelves everywhere from mass retailers to local card shops, Topps also does early pre-release offerings for their biggest customers and industry insiders. In these early pre-sale versions, hobby shops and online distributors will start offering incomplete “boatload” mockup boxes of the new Topps cards weeks before the full official release date. These are usually missing odds and end parallel and insert cards but give the earliest adopters a chance to get their hands on the new designs. These partial mockup boxes tend to be available for pre-order in early-mid January.
Another key release date element is Topps’ highly anticipated box break preview events that many major card conventions and trade shows hold in late January with full factory sealed cases of the upcoming release. These early look events are a big thrill for collectors. Topps also uses these major early unveilings as branding and marketing opportunities at these winter/early spring card shows. Dates for these early box break events usually fall in the last weekend of January or very early February each year.
Once the full retail release happens in late January/early February, Topps launches production of special parallel and insert card variations that continue rolling out throughout the spring and into the season. This includes retail exclusive parallels only available in finite production box configurations sold through mass merchandisers. Limited numbered parallels and autograph or memorabilia cards extend into the summer months while high end vintage parallel reprints and 1/1 autographs can sometimes be offered until late summer or beyond to keep the flagship set fresh all season long.
In addition to their flagship Topps Brand set, Topps also produces specialty subsets each year like their Allen & Ginter’s release which features unique artist renditions of the players along with non-sports inserts. These special supplemental sets usually drop in mid to late spring several months after the base release. And of course, Topps also handles the popular annual MLB postseason and World Series release when the season reaches its climax in the fall.
While we don’t have the official release date yet, based on Topps’ prior year patterns, collectors and fans can anticipate the 2023 Topps Baseball full retail release to hit store shelves sometime between January 25th and February 15th, with pre-release box mockups and trade show preview events occurring in mid to late January. With Topps leading the baseball card industry for over 70 years, their 2023 flagship series is sure to thrill collectors both old and new with its vintage designs and depictions of the upcoming season.
