For many collectors, no sports card is more important than the rookie patch autograph.
But as the number of RPAs has grown during the ultra-modern era, so also has the variance in quality. Once expected to feature only game-worn memorabilia and on-card autographs, many RPAs now arrive with sticker autos and memorabilia from unknown origins.
Topps thought it could do better.
“The rookie card is always evolving, right? We wanted to one-up the RPA,” Topps senior vice president of product Clay Luraschi told cllct.
One-up Topps certainly did.
One year removed from making their own debut, Topps’ Rookie Debut Patches are poised to ascend to the top of the sports card market alongside a potentially historic rookie class.
Featuring on-card autographs and one-of-one patches created for and worn only during a player’s MLB debut, Topps Rookie Debut Patches first launched in 2023 Topps Chrome Update with 91 players, including Anthony Volpe, Jordan Walker and Masataka Yoshida.
For 2024 Topps Chrome Update, which arrives Wednesday, the checklist has jumped to more than 250 players, and includes hobby favorites Paul Skenes, Elly De La Cruz, Jackson Holliday and more.
Among the players tracked by data tool Market Movers, only Shohei Ohtani has had more sales than De La Cruz or Skenes over the last year, and Holliday lands just outside the top five.
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The first set of Topps Rookie Debut Patches was strong, but 2024 features some of the most popular players in baseball.
“This class is really going to solidify the program ...” Luraschi said. “It really lines itself up to be impactful, and there’s three times the amount of cards. These cards are going to be popping more frequently, and you’re going to see some incredible names.”
If there was a lineup of rookies capable of catapulting a category of card to the top of the hobby, it might be this class.
While highly sought after, the first class of Rookie Debut Patches hasn’t thrived on the secondary market. To date, the highest price paid for a 2023 Rookie Debut Patch was the $150,000 for Volpe’s 1/1 as part of a bounty from Dave and Adam’s Card World. According to Card Ladder, the highest public sale at auction is the $17,080 paid for the Kodai Senga SGC 10 at Goldin in March.
This year’s class of Rookie Debut Patches is expected to perform better on the secondary market, with Skenes’ top-selling card, a superfractor 1/1, fetching $123,220 earlier this year. De La Cruz has seen similar popularity on the secondary market with a superfractor 1/1 selling for $116,534 in September.
Comparing superfractors to Rookie Debut Patches isn’t apples to apples — superfractors have long been among the most important cards in the hobby — but Luraschi believes these chase cards could eventually overtake supers as the key cards across the hobby.
While superfractors feature an iconic parallel, Rookie Debut Patches attempt to deliver a specific moment to collectors. Among those moments will be Jasson Dominguez’s first career home run, which he hit in his first career at-bat Sept. 1, 2023, while wearing his Rookie Debut Patch.
“Because there’s such a deep connection with the player, I think over time these cards will become the most important,” Luraschi said. “I’m not saying that the superfractor is not going to be important — I think both cards will be highly sought after — but they’ll feed the needs of different types of collectors. I think as far as connection and storytelling, this card will be the most important.”
An injection of storytelling into cards has been something Topps has put a priority on, especially across flagship sets such as Topps Series 1 and Topps Chrome sets, though it has been far from easy.
Topps went through 20 different designs before landing on the current iteration, which needed to pair a special patch design alongside an autograph.
Then there’s the significant amount of collaboration required to ensure the patches are worn, retrieved and delivered to Topps to create the cards at all.
“There’s a lot of work there, and what I’d say we’ve learned is that pushing the envelope in this manner is worth it,” Luraschi said.
“At the end of the day, storytelling is really what drives our business, so we want to do more of it.”
Once Topps figured out how to create the right cards, it had to place them in the right product. Game-used memorabilia and on-card autographs are considered high-end elements, and collectors expected the debut patches would land among Topps high-end sets — Dynasty or Transcendent were among the early guesses.
According to Luraschi, that wasn’t what Topps was aiming for.
“For a card to become important and a focal point in our hobby, it needs to be something that’s attainable,” he said.
Whether or not Rookie Debut Patches do become that focal point has yet to be determined. It’s hard to imagine a better checklist than what 2024 Topps Chrome Update delivers, however, and it’s also hard to see a manufacturer jump through more hoops to create a single set of cards.
Topps set out to create the ultimate rookie card, and, at least for now, the company believes it has.
“This is at the top,” Luraschi said. “It’s really that connection to the first game. To make this type of rookie card that has that connection to the first game with a player, it’s ultimate storytelling. There’s one patch that was worn on one day by one player, and you get that one card. It’s the true one-of-one when you think about it.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.