Throw the Book at Them

Welcome to The Drip, your weekly fix for all things trading cards. Here’s what’s in store for today:

• Panini shouts OBJECTION!! 🧑‍⚖️ 

• Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball pre-orders sell out 🚀 

1) Your honor! Panini is suing Fanatics for monopolistic practices.

Reading that line you are probably thinking - “HEY wait a minute… aren’t those the same practices Panini used to ruin would be competitors for years?!” or “this certainly feels like the pot calling the kettle black.” or you might even think that this is “the height of hypocrisy.” To all of this I say… yes 😐️.

In a stunning lack of self awareness, Panini even implied they are suing to protect us trading card fans:

“A monopolistic outcome here will harm the public, consumers, and competition…”

Fanatics’ reply?

(this is a) “baseless last-gasp, flailing effort by a company that has lost touch with its consumers, is failing in the marketplace and has tried unsuccessfully for years to sell itself.”

Kidding aside let’s hope Fanatics taking over doesn’t eventually lead to fans being the butt of the joke.

2) Topps Cosmic Chrome pre-orders went up yesterday and they went FAST

The 2022 sets were hard to come by and resell for north of $500 now, so this is entirely expected. Checklists went up a day or two ago and some awesome designs were shown. With a $250 msrp and 2 per household - I’m guessing the aftermarket will be $400+ out of the gate for these.

The planetary pursuits are a highlight and could become a collection goal for some of us:

With rarity based on distance to the Sun, Topps is claiming “The further you get from the Sun, the tougher the chase!”

Here’s the numbers:

• Sun - 1:120 packs

• Mercury - 1:480 packs

• Venus - 1:721 packs

• Earth - 1:1,200 packs

• Mars - 1:1,680 packs

• Jupiter - 1:4,813 packs

• Saturn - 1:9,625 packs

• Uranus - 1:20,087 packs

• Neptune - 1:34,221 packs

• Pluto -1:43,999 packs

Pretty cool concept. Those Neptune and Saturn cards are going to be 🔥🔥

Tacofractors 🌮 also make an appearance in this set. Are they the same design we’ve seen before or are they in space now?

Also - if anyone comes across this gem, shoot me a message:

Heating Up 🔥 Cooling Off ⛄️ 

Players en fuego:

• Sal Frelick - 3/3 debut with a couple highlight reel catches in the outfield? ☑️ 

• Corbin Carroll - 25 homers, 35 stolen bases - 2nd fewest games to get there all time (134). Only Mike Trout has him beat at 128 games

• Shohei Ohtani - I mean I HAD to put him on here…

Players trending the wrong way -

• Brendan Donovan - Season ending surgery

• Trea Turner - High expectations + low performance = bust

BREAKing News

Some hits from recent days:

• The GOAT (but c’mon guys, don’t pass that card around)

• Try not to pass out… Try not to pass out…

• The MVP pull

• A nice UFC hit

• The break wasn’t recorded but this Ohtani card is awesome

Release Calendar

Wallets like 😢:

• 2nd - 2023 Panini Score Football

• 9th -

  • 2022 Panini National Treasures Football

  • 2023/24 Upper Deck MVP Hockey

• 11th - 2022/23 Panini Mosaic Basketball

• 15th - 2023 Panini Chronicles Racing

• 16th - 2023 Panini Immaculate Collegiate Football

• 23rd - 2023 Panini Immaculate Baseball

• 30th -

  • 2023 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball

  • 2023 Panini Donruss Elite Football

  • 2023 Panini Encased Football

  • 2023 Panini Prizm WNBA Basketball

Show Me That Card 📷️ 

The grail. The Mick 52. Made rarer by the fact that hundreds of cases containing this card were dumped into the ocean by Topps to clear out room in their warehouse.

Try not to dwell on the tragedy of that too much and instead revel in this amazing card image:

Meme of the Day

True story…