Topps, the pioneer in the sports card collecting industry, changed the game in a profound way. Recently, the company announced that they would extend the validity of their redemption cards from a mere two years to an impressive ten years. This change is bound to revolutionize how sports card collectors view, value, and use redemption cards.
Redemption cards are traditionally placeholders for actual autographed cards, which may not be available at the time of packing. These cards, however, have been a bone of contention in the collecting community, primarily after they outlive their redeemable period. The problem arises when collectors stumble upon seemingly valuable cards, only to discover their redemption period has passed, rendering them worthless. This extended validity of redemption cards by Topps aims to change that landscape.
By stretching the card’s redeemable period to a decade, every card issued in 2022, for example, will be valid for redemption until the year 2032, as opposed to becoming obsolete in 2024. This titanic shift towards industry alteration plans to uphold the value of products in the market and gives collectors a safety net of time to redeem their autograph cards, making the collecting game even more exciting.
Critical to the success of this policy change, however, is Topps’ ability to secure the autographs promised on these cards—a process historically fraught with delays due to various reasons, not least of which are negotiations over athlete compensation.
Swift in response to securing autographs, though, is Fanatics, who has secured exclusive licenses with major sports player unions due to begin in 2025. Thanks to Fanatics, the future might well witness a notable increase in efficiency in the process of gathering these autographs. Assumably, this turn of events would then stimulate product sales and yield benefits for everyone concerned.
Indicative of progress on Topps’ part is the significant reduction in its backlog of redemptions, decreasing from 70,000 to under 10,000 in just the last year. This substantial drop bears testimony to the relentless efforts that Topps has thrown in to tackle one of the most dogged challenges that the sports card collecting hobby has ever faced.
So, now is the time for sports card collectors to rejoice. The days of encountering worthless redemption cards in older packs due to expired autographs are over. This transformative move by Topps is reinventing a collector’s experience and is set to reshape the sports card collecting industry, promising a brighter, longer-lasting future for hobbyists the world over.
