Now that Topps Chrome baseball has been on the market for a week, I am starting to believe this product has some legs outside of what I expected. Outside of the normal refractors and autographs that Chrome is usually known for, this year’s product has shown that Topps was willing to bring out the big guns in some of the hits that are showing up.

Usually, bigger name players arent paired together in lower end products due to the cost per card produced. Autographs are ridiculously expensive as they are, but Topps was willing to take the hit in getting some of the bigger names on the same cards. I saw that someone pulled a Trout / Pujols dual, but it hasnt been posted quite yet.

2012 Topps Chrome Yu Darvish / Bryce Harper Dual Autograph

2012 Topps Chrome Matt Kemp / Clayton Kershaw Dual Auto

2012 Topps Chrome Mike Trout / Mark Trumbo Dual Auto

2012 Topps Chrome Yu Darvish / Josh Hamilton Dual Die Cut Auto

Additionally, the Chrome buyback autos have proven to be extremely big pulls for the collectors lucky enough to find them in their boxes. Numbered to just 10 copies, and all redemptions due to extra documentation needed to be included, these cards should end up being some of the coolest cards of the year. Although Topps has experimented with buybacks before in products like Bowman Originals, the cards were almost always base cards of a Bowman product instead of rookie cards. Being that these should end up being Chrome rookie cards for the big names on the checklist, it automatically adds a level of collectability never seen before.

2012 Topps Chrome Ken Griffey Jr Buyback Auto Redemption

2012 Topps Chrome Prince Fielder Buyback Auto Redemption

2012 Topps Chrome Josh Hamilton Buyback Auto Redemption

For low(er) end releases like Chrome, it always proves to be a question mark until the final results start to show up. So far, I have heard that it is a fun break even with a watered down base autograph checklist. As I have mentioned, when a product can generate value in the parallels of a base card, even without an autograph, it is definitely something worth noting. Chrome tends to do that, even if many of the players have already been offered in other products.