As some of you may know, every year new sports cards come out for the public to buy, collect and maybe even make a business out of them by selling them as a sole proprietorship. For this year in 2026 Topps which is the main company that makes cards came out with the 2026 Topps Series 1 baseball cards. Many people, like me, try to collect the entire set of Topps series 1 which is 350 individual cards all with different players on them, but some people buy the cards just to chase the rare cards the 1 of 1 card, the cards that are worth a lot of money.
Topps came out right before they released the 2026 cards and said that within one of the packs of cards they hid a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card that is worth anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million dollars. This being the case many people who may not typically buy packs of baseball cards have started to purchase a pack for $25 or $50 with hopes that they might be the lucky person to find this rare card. I myself have bought well over $300 worth of cards to collect but also with hopes of maybe finding this Mickey Mantle card.
I think that Topps is absolutely genius for doing this because they have had a huge increase in sales since releasing these cards and they expected it. It is kind of difficult to put this type of selling into a category. Topps pitched the idea that you could buy our brand-new cards and start a fun not super expensive hobby, with the potential thrill of finding rare baseball cards like the Mickey Mantle 1 of 1 card. In doing so they create excitement which most people seek, they create hobbies that people need, and they generate sales for the company that wouldn’t be there if they hadn’t added the chase. Providing an opportunity for greatness but guaranteeing a fun hobby worked very well for Topps.
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This is a really great post about a sales technique that I am sure will be very successful for Topps. Providing people with an incentive and a challenge of finding one special card worth a lot of money is a really interesting strategy to bring in some significant revenue, especially from people who wouldn’t normally spend money on baseball cards.
I relate to this post in so many ways. When I was younger, all I did was collect trading cards. I have Topps packs of my dad’s collection dating back to the ’60s and ’70s. I loved to collect cards, and I remember when they used to put big cards in that were in one pack all over, and I used to spend so much money trying to get that card. It is a genius sales strategy because people will buy so many, and they are not cheap, and it varies depending on the size of the box, but those cards are anywhere between twenty and fifty dollars. That is a lot of revenue that they gain from this famous Mickey Mantle card. Nice Job on this post.
This is an awesome idea by Topps. It definitely seeks to create chaos and excitement, almost in a gambling way, which generates more activity surrounding their product. I’m concerned but impressed that you’ve bought $300 worth of baseball cards, but it clearly demonstrates how good of an idea Topps had. This is a great example of new ideas to re-excite your target market and even branch into others.