2021 Topps Baseball Forum

I find it weird that the term is "relic" card. As mentioned earlier a relic by definition is "from an earlier time" and most of these cards contain modern "relics" (sic).

I have always refered to them as "memorabilia" cards. Memorabilia being "objects kept or collected because of their associations with memorable people or events".

Part of Matt Chapman's hat is memorabilia because it is (part of an) object kept or collected because of its association with a memorable person (assuming you find Mr Chapman memorable).

Hockey also uses "Event worn" .

It's not even from Chapman's hat. Or any hat. The back of the card explicitly states that the relic is specifically manufactured for Topps to use - you can see some of them on eBay. So I wouldn't even call it memorabilia. In fact, it's denoted in the Database (or should be, I haven't checked to see if it actually is) as "MANU", for "Manufactured Relic".

And yes, Topps has been doing this for a while now. I can remember at least 2011 with the Throwback Patches. It's not what I consider fun, though if you're a player collector and lucky enough to pull "your guy", that's probably a thrill. I never seem to have that luck myself.

Thankfully I don't buy for the "Hits" because I understand that the "Hit" will be worthless 99% of the time. Thats the kicker about the current market. People are only buying boxes for the hits and then throwing away all the other cards. I was looking around and saw that the next Basketball Donruss hobby box is being priced at $1,050. They are only designed to pull that 1 of 1 that no one will ever get. To new collectors they see the card market more of gambling then actually collecting. The card market will crash within the next year and that's beginning to be a scary thought but a very real one.

If anyone is throwing away 2021 cards, message me - I'll happily supply my address!  

Clearly Panini is putting out superior products right now. Unfortunately with no license they can't use team names/logos which is a real bummer. Topps definitely lost their way...