Of all the patch designs used for trading cards over the last two decades, none has been more iconic than the Logoman.
From the silhouettes of the NBA and MLB logos to the stars on the NFL Shield, cards featuring league logos have stood out from even the most exquisite patches made from any other part of the uniform.
At least until now.
Featuring a patch made for and worn only during a player’s MLB debut, Topps delivered its first Rookie Debut Patch Autographs in 2023 Topps Chrome Update Series, aiming for the goal of creating the most important rookie cards in existence.
A year later, it appears Topps has accomplished exactly that with the hobby consumed by chases for debut patches worn by Paul Skenes, Jackson Holliday and other superstar rookies.
For many collectors, the best patch autograph for baseball’s top rookies is now clear, but the same can’t be said for many current All-Stars, former MVPs and even retired Hall of Famers.
Topps hopes to fix that next, and it starts with an increased priority on delivering high-end Logoman cards for active stars, including Shohei Ohtani and Bobby Witt Jr., to Hall of Famers such as Mariano Rivera.
“I think what happened is that the debut patches forced people to think about the guys who aren’t going to have a debut patch that came out before the program,” Topps senior vice president of product Clay Luraschi told cllct.
“What’s going to be their key card? We go with and follow the energy of the market. You try to bottle that up and make something that people want. Then at the same time, it’s about how to make that even better. I don’t know what comes after this, but innovation breeds innovation.”
The Rookie Debut Patch was a welcome change for collectors, but the Logoman patch itself is far from new.
Largely associated with basketball products, Logoman patches first debuted with the 2002-03 Upper Deck NBA Logo Mania set and have remained among the most coveted cards in the hobby.
To date, the highest known sale for a Logoman is the $4.6 million paid for a 2018-2019 Panini National Treasures Luka Doncic RPA Logoman 1/1 via private sale in 2021.
Despite the Logoman’s extreme popularity, many collectors have felt Topps has underutilized the design as manufacturers such as Panini America deployed it often. Logoman patches have appeared in Topps products, including Dynasty and Sterling before, but those appearances were far less common than what collectors can expect moving forward.
“These cards have always been there. They’ve just been kind of sprinkled into products, and because of the attention that Logoman cards are getting, people are now going back and looking at some of the older baseball ones that may not have been collected as heavily in the past,” Luraschi said. “We’ve seen it, and what we’ve started to do is kind of organize around it more.”
For Topps, it’s critical the increased use of Logoman patches isn’t simply an attempt to copy what other manufacturers have done with volume. Dumping Logoman patches into a number of baseball releases has been possible, but could have also seemed hollow for collectors.
The company has instead put a priority on connecting important cards with specific moments, which was a key component of the Rookie Debut Patch, and the goal is to continue that concept with future Logoman releases.
As other manufacturers have increased the use of the Logoman, the use of patches not associated with any player, team or event has increased as well. Topps wants to avoid that, and is instead looking to deliver patches that are connected to the game’s iconic moments when possible.
One of the first breadcrumbs from that initiative was the announcement of Dynasty Black, which will arrive for the first time later this month as part of the 2024 Topps 50-50: Shohei Ohtani set. A spinoff set of the ultra high-end Topps Dynasty, which is most associated with game-used patches and low serial-numbered cards, Dynasty Black will include game-used memorabilia from specific moments, not just specific games.
The first Dynasty Black cards announced were a trio of 1/1s made with memorabilia from Ohtani’s historic 50/50 game, including a Logoman from the pants and two cards featuring the batting gloves worn when he hit his 50th home run.
“We’re trying to do something better than [the Logoman],” Luraschi said. “The debut patch, to me, is the next level of the Logoman. So, in parallel, we’re trying to be intentional about how we present the MLB Logoman to our consumer, and at the same time bring it up to be completely new and different.”
In addition to Ohtani’s 1/1s in Dynasty Black, 2024 Diamond Icons set is expected to return with a number of 1/1 Logoman autographs. After previewing a game-used 1/1 Logoman autograph for Rivera from the set, Topps revealed images for similar cards featuring Witt Jr., Ohtani, Cal Ripken Jr., Ken Griffey Jr., Derek Jeter, Elly De La Cruz and Chipper Jones.
Considered one of Topps’ ultra high-end releases, Diamond Icons has been a popular home for Logoman cards in previous years. With a retail price of $3,199 for 2023, Diamond Icons seems like a fitting home for a high-end card, though Luraschi has hinted Logoman cards won’t necessarily be trapped in sets for only high-end collectors.
Topps shocked the hobby when it announced the Rookie Debut Patch Autographs would be included in Topps Chrome Update, which is one of the company’s most accessible sets, and Luraschi isn’t ruling out exploring more achievable sets again.
‘We’ve discussed a lot of different options the way we did it with Chrome Update — you never see a card like that in a product like that,” Luraschi said. “It makes you have to consider other things. … We’re thinking about where this business is going to be when it’s our time to launch.”
It’s currently unclear what other products Topps is targeting for additional sets of MLB Logoman cards, though the hobby will speculate plenty. According to Luraschi, Topps has been willing to take it slowly and deploy ideas only when it feels right.
The success of the Rookie Debut Patch comes during an era where the hobby has clearly put a premium on patch autographs, and Luraschi believes Topps will create the right cards at the right time, even if it was a little bit later than many might have hoped.
“We were doing a lot of great things that other companies weren’t doing that we felt would help grow the hobby and some of those competitors quickly adopted them,” Luraschi said. “I would say the release of the debut patch has really put us in the discussion of the autograph patch, but at a whole different level. I don’t necessarily want to do something that we think we missed out on. I actually want to take it to another level.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.