what's your damage?

i have not seen any non-flagship topps baseball product on the target shelves this year. not even celebration mega boxes. just series 1 and 2, with a few of the collector's boxes for those releases. so, when i walked by the card aisle one day last week, i was surprised to see a handful of blasters (or value boxes) of 2026 topps chrome.

i've already opened a blaster sent directly by topps, and i am still waiting for my mega box to show up, but i decided to try my luck with retail. i bought two of the boxes, including one that was absolutely mangled.

that's the theory, though - right? damaged boxes contain "sick hits". let's find out.

i was a bit concerned about card condition, but things were ok in the first few packs. here's pack 1:

a 3:1 insert/parallel ratio is not bad, unless you are trying to complete the base set. not sure anyone is doing that with chrome these days. also, i really do like the "seams" parallel. reds cards look especially nice in that design.

pack 2:

only one insert, but it's a good one for me! have a closer look at the shohei ohtani wrecking crew card

it's not a big hit by any means, but i will take it for my dodger collection

pack 3:

i like the idea of the "past to present" inserts, but am not sure about the execution. still, i'd like to pick up the jackie robinson/mookie betts card. the cole ragans card is a refractor, by the way.

pack 4:

two mets and a raywave refractor. these cards had just a touch of abnormal warping or even bending near one of the corners. at this point i figured that the rest of the cards would probably be damaged.

pack 5:

here's the red, white and blue parallel for the blaster. it and the other three cards look fine on the front, but the backs all have a tiny bit of creasing

it's hard to see in the scans, but there are small creases from the bottom edge (bottom edge of the cards as shown in the scan, that is) up the center of the card.

pack 6:

well would you look at that! a retail rookie autograph, and it's (former) dodger jack little. these four cards have that same creasing on the back

and the crease extends a bit further towards the center of the card. i will show a better example of the creasing, but first, here's another look at the dodger autograph that i pulled from a pack (that doesn't happen to me too often)

here's the back:

still hard to see, but the creasing runs from the right edge of the card towards the center.

pack 7:

the ratio is reversed from pack 1, with a 3:1 base to refractor parallel ratio. lots of yellow on jacob wilson's card! 

these cards have the crease running pretty much all the way through the center of the card

here's a photo of the back of bryce eldridge's card that shows the crease pretty well

for the record, i am not going to seek any replacement cards - the fault for this is probably target's fault and not topps' anyway. besides, i knew what i was getting into with this blaster. and as far as the theory goes, i found an ohtani insert and a rookie autograph, so maybe there is something to it.

the other blaster i bought yielded some similar inserts and parallels, but no autograph. i was able to add three cards from it to my dodger collection, including yoshinobu yamamoto's base card

roki sasaki's red, white and blue refractor

and yamamoto's perspectives insert

these inserts look nice in chrome fashion, so i am glad that they weren't a flagship insert like they were back in 2017 or whenever topps last put them out.

i plan for my next 2026 topps chrome post to feature the haul from my mega box, but who knows what might happen if i stop at a target in the meantime.

here's a 2026 topps chrome blaster - all 28 cards of it

my blaster of 2026 topps chrome that i purchased directly from topps showed up on wednesday. that was in line with release day which is nice. four cards per pack, seven packs per blaster meant that these cards are priced at just over $1.40 each. that's steep. here's what i found:

pack 1:

three veterans and a gunnar henderson big ticket player insert

pack 2:

three more veterans (meaning non-rookies) and our first rookie of the pack - a nathan church refractor parallel.

pack 3:

konnor griffin base rookie, plus a sal stewart rookie 1991 design card and a raywave refractor of giancarlo stanton. elly de la cruz is sort of lost in the mix here.

pack 4:

the most interesting pack of the bunch! a second dodger for my collection, plus two cards of munetaka murakami. the seams parallel is decent - at least the design is clearly baseball affiliated.

pack 5:

three more veterans and a fernando tatis jr wrecking crew insert, paying tribute to a 30-year old insert design.

pack 6:

a rookie, a vet, plus a past to present insert featuring david wright and francisco lindor, and a george kirby refractor parallel

pack 7:

two vets, a rookie, and a red, white, and blue refractor parallel of daniel schneemann.

so that's it. that's a blaster.

i was surprised to see these packs be so veteran heavy as it feels like more and more of the checklists are devoted to rookies. not a lot to say other than i like the two blaster/value box exclusive refractor designs than some of the more traditional refractor parallel designs.

i also ordered a mega box that will trail this post by a couple of weeks i believe, and there will be more to share when it arrives. 

i sort of forgot about this update

with 2026 topps series 1 out, i should close the book on 2025 topps update. i had previously shared the non-dodger cards that i deemed post worthy and then forgot to get that dodger-centric post published. well, it's here now.

i found some of the dodger cards in the blasters i ordered from topps, including world series hero miguel rojas

the tyler glasnow/blake snell combo card

roki sasaki

dustin may

shohei ohtani

and a trio of dodger relievers - evan phillips, blake treinen, and jack dreyer

the treinen card is nice with the gold championship jerseys, but we all know that's still charlie hough's number.

i didn't find hyeseong kim's base card, but did find his holiday black & orange parallel

those cards always make me a bit jealous of tigers collectors.

i found two of the dodger all-star game inserts - yoshinobu yamamoto and ohtani

plus sasaki's 1990 35th anniversary insert

and the unavoidable stars of mlb inserts, of which two were dodgers: dalton rushing and kim

not a bad dodger haul from a couple of blasters, but not a complete team set. 

i mentioned in my original update post that i had bought into a team break, and that's where i found the kim base card

plus the ohtani/sasaki combo card

i also netted a rainbow foil insert of the glasnow/snell combo card

plus all-star game inserts of freddie freeman and will smith

i did well with dalton rushing inserts, finding his night terrors, black gold, and 1990 35th anniversary cards

and then topped things off with cody bellinger's mvp insert

good stuff, but i had also ordered some cards from sportlots prior to winning that team set slot, so i wound up with too many cards of anthony banda, alex vesia, and dalton rushing

i did add some more inserts via sportlots, including ohtani's stars of mlb insert

snell's 1990 35th anniversary insert

clayton kershaw's all-star game insert

and kershaw's mvp insert

what a year he had in 2014.

i was also able to find some dodgers from this release at the december card show while looking through some of the regularly rewarding bargain boxes.

jack dreyer gold parallel

dustin may blue holofoil parallel

evan phillips holofoil parallel

and a pair of miguel rojas parallels - rainbow foil and holiday black & orange

there was one card that i knew i would have to acquire via ebay, and that was steve garvey's 1990 all-star design autograph card. i actually found his gold parallel first

and later added the base

i would like to tell topps that not everything needs a gold parallel, but if they must, make the border gold and not the name lettering. here's the back:

nothing special about it. so far with these topps inserts, garvey has only been featured in 2024 and 2025, and only on the all-star designs, and only in autograph form. it would be nice to have him on a base 35th anniversary insert someday.

well, that's the update. stay tuned for more late to the market posts!