Topps Now...ish

A few years ago, when the Cubs still stunk, I had developed a newspaper style custom card that had a headline and photo on the front and a box score with some highlights on the back. The plan was to make a 162 card set, commemorating each game. It was loosely based on the Darwin Barney custom in my header. As I mentioned, back then the Cubs stunk so it quickly lost steam.

I've seen the Topps Now cards gradually starting to appear on the blogs. The general consensus seems to be love the idea, hate the price point. Getting these on the secondary market for slightly cheaper seems to be a safe bet.

I'm still waiting on my eBay purchases for the first two Cubs cards produced but my initial Topps shipment came in for Cubs cards 3 & 4.

These two cards were produced for highlights that occurred during the same game. As some of you may remember, a few weeks back, Jake Arrieta threw his second no-hitter when the Cubs beat the Reds 16-0.

Card #29 recognizes Kris Bryant for his 2 home run (including a grand slam), 6 RBI output during that game.

Print Run to 1644

Card #30 commemorates the actual no-hitter.

Print Run to 1808

Until Bartolo Colon's home run the other day, these two cards had the highest print run to date, 1,644 for Bryant and 1,808 for Arrieta. Colon's print run sits at 8,826. Unless something amazing happens, or its a big name player, the print runs seems to run 300-800ish

I titled this post Topps Now...ish, because these cards arrived about two weeks after the event. So not as "Now" as one may like. The cards are listed for a period of 24 hours on the Topps website. They ask for 3-5 days for production and then of course, actual shipping time. Part of the problem with these particular cards were that the event happened on a Thursday and sold on Friday/Saturday. Which means the "production" probably didn't even start until the following Monday, thus the delay.

Personally, after missing out on the first two Cubs, I decided to go ahead and pick up 10 for $50 going forward. With the way the Cubs are playing, that could potentially get quite expensive. So fellow Cubs fans, check with me before buying any. I'll have extras of Cubs cards going forward to trade, including these.