Last year, regular Chrome’s overproduction led to an absolute disaster in the way collectors perceived the value of the product. Although the good hits were there, and looked great, they were impossible to get in a pack. Chrome mini came out a few months later and delivered much of what collectors believed regular Chrome should have been. Better odds, low parallels were easier to pull, and value was pretty consistent. Chrome mini was the better chrome product. This doesnt look to be the case this year.

Here are some of the cards up so far:

2015 Topps Chrome Mini Jameis Winston Black Refractor Auto /25

2015 Topps Chrome Mini Dan Marino 60th Anniversary Auto /5

2015 Topps Chrome Mini Marcus Mariota Blue Refractor Auto

2015 Topps Chrome Mini Matt Jones Super Rookie Retro Superfractor Auto 1/1

The biggest thing that really gets me fired up is that these cards are almost entirely sticker autographs. The sell sheet depicted the product as having on card autographs, which would result in another Chrome set that is definitely worth breaking. Instead, we have mini cards with full sized stickers, that lead to all sorts of sizing issues and a misrepresentation of what the sell sheet was showing. Now, sell sheets are NEVER final, and that goes without saying. At the same time, I feel completely taken out of this product because of how awful the stickers look, especially when seeing how nice the regular on card stuff is in comparison.

Im a sucker for on card Chrome. Ill buy pretty much anything with on card chrome autos, and that’s what I thought I was going to get here. Unfortunately that isnt the case. The sell sheet also looked to have previews of the first hard signed non-rookie chrome cards in a very long time, and that didnt happen either. Its clear that Topps has a bad draw with finishing out 2015 knowing they wont be back for 2016. That is clearly a situation I hate, and wish was not the case. At the same time, I dont think that gives them a pass here.

Right now, I dont see a reason to buy this version of Chrome over the hard signed regular version. Not only is the price point similar, but the content is far diminished. More people want the regular sized cards, and without on card autographs, this becomes very much less valuable to collect. Some of the refractor parallels are going to be valuable in low amounts, with collectors looking to pick up cheaper versions of their favorite cards, but I wouldnt break this unless you have no other options of Chrome to break.