Grip N Rip Sport Cards

HANGERS will be BANGERS for 2025 Topps Chrome Football @CardPurchaser

The streak continues! Every Marvel movie with my Grandpa since 2008! Now watching SpiderMan Brand New Day!

wtf Panini type crap is this?

@Topps Andrew McCutchen

name an athlete and i'll reply w a card of them

Top 3 jersey I’ve ever seen at PNC Park LMFAO “Me So Hearny”

@katyperry Shut up bitch what you gonna do about it?

I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it. I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for. My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.

@EmmanuelAcho @thepivot He’s a racist

“All I ever wanted to do was be accepted” -Ryan Clark in tears on @thepivot speaking of his ESPN firing. Powerful, powerful moment.

NEW SLABSQUATCH™

@zCentric It’s no where near gone

RIP SBMM 2019-2026 🪦🕊️

2026 Topps Chrome Analysis & Deep Dive I know plenty of you have been waiting for this one. Unfortunately, I got a bit of a late start. Rookie move on my part...a couple days ago I promised my son I'd take him golfing, somehow failing to consider that it was also Topps Chrome release day. And I didn't have the heart to back out on him. Priorities, I suppose. But now that I've spent an ample amount of time wading through the muck, both on the golf course and in the odds sheet, I have the scoop. A few hours later than I would have liked, but I'll do my best to make it worth the wait. I know some of the figures have already been shared by my fellow nerds. But I assure you...I have plenty to offer that you will not find anywhere else. And considering we're still getting over the smell from the rotting carcass of 2025 Topps Chrome, we have quite a bit to discuss. Welcome to 2026 Topps Chrome MLB. Part 1: First Things First Let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room. 2025 Topps Chrome was bad. Not regular bad. Epically, biblically bad. I truly believe it was the worst product released by Topps in 2025. Which is made even worse by the fact that Topps Chrome always has a nearly unmatched level of hype. My exact words last year were something to the effect of: “Trying to pick the best format is like arguing over which tire is the best while the car is already on fire.” And I stand by every word. So what made it such a disaster? In my mind, it had two fundamental flaws. Either one would have been difficult to overcome. Together, they were fatal. 1) The amount of worthless unnumbered parallels was appalling. Topps clearly tried to make boxes feel loaded, but in actuality only made it worse. We don't need 68% of a Mega Box to be worthless parallels that no one is chasing. Nobody is falling for that. 2) Despite a painfully shallow rookie class, the Rookie Autograph checklist was the largest in Topps Chrome history at 166 subjects deep. Of those, I counted precisely 10 whose autograph I would have been happy to pull from a hobby box. Even fewer would have actually paid for the box. Forget resale value for a moment. From a pure collector-enjoyment standpoint, only about 6% of the rookie autos were cards that most people would be excited to pull. So that is the main question I want to keep in our pocket while we break this thing down... Did Topps fix it? Do we have our Chrome back? Or did they simply repaint the burnt-out car and put it back on the lot? We'll get there. Part 2: Production Numbers Total cards produced: 2026 Topps Chrome 72,945,008 2025 Chrome: 67,711,008 YOY +7.73% Total production by format: Hobby- 142,440 boxes (11,870 cases) YOY +4.7% Jumbo- 66,704 boxes (8,338 cases) YOY +2.9% Value- 1,175,600 boxes (29,390 cases) YOY +3% Mega- 423,420 boxes (21,171 cases) YOY +21.4% Delight- 37,200 boxes (6,004 cases) YOY +4.8% Fanatics Mega- 40,100 boxes (2,005 cases) YOY +33.3% Part 3: Heat Map Hit Rates Per Box: Hobby- 1.06 Autos (~6% of boxes could produce an extra auto), 9.3 Inserts, 12.5 Parallels, 1.4 Numbered cards Jumbo- 2.09 Autos (~9% of boxes could produce an extra auto), 13.3 Inserts, 20.5 Parallels, 2.7 Numbered cards, Value boxes- 1 Auto per 9.6 boxes (~4.2 Autos/Case), 5 Inserts, 4.6 Parallels, 1 Numbered card per 4.9 boxes Megas- 1 Auto per 6.1 boxes, 5 Inserts, 9.5 Parallels, 1 Numbered card per 2.25 boxes Breaker's Delight- 2 Autos, 1.25 Inserts, 4.4 Parallels, 2.4 Numbered cards Fanatics Megas- 1 Auto per 5.2 boxes, 5.25 Inserts, 7.1 Parallels, 1.15 Numbered cards Part 4: More Heat % of Numbered Autos by Format: Hobby- 55.12% Jumbo- 55.14% Value- 57.58% Mega- 60.48% Delight- 72.31% Fanatics Mega- 60.5% This backs off a bit from the recent trend of Hobby containing a higher concnetration of numbered autos vs Jumbo or retail SKUs. Delight, as usual, still comes in highest. But at the price it probably should. Rare Inserts: This category is largely what made Bowman Value boxes an actual value. Traditionally, retail SKUs are harsh when it comes to rare inserts. But Bowman was an outlier. Let's see if they carried that retail magic over to Chrome. For this release, the Rare Inserts I'm including in the equation are: Radiating Rookies, Helix, Hobby Masters, Shadow Etch, Static Noise (the new retail exclusive), Expose, World Series at Night, Ultraviolet, and Minions. Some are definitely more desirable than others, but they are all tough pulls. Base Fanatical and Diamond Moments are not included as they both fall 2 per case. However, for Fanatics Megas I adjusted the formula slightly to include Fanatical parallels (not base Fanaticals which fall 2 per case and are a Fanatics box exclusive this year) and the Authentic Memorabilia Redemptions. Keep in mind, there are plenty of other rare inserts with value, like MVP Buybacks, Numbers Live Forever, Cooperstown Calls and numbered parallels of more common inserts. But I did not include these because I did not want to also include numbered parallels of every single common Insert and call them rare. This focuses on the unnumbered "Case-Hit" type stuff. Hit Rates of Rare Inserts By Format: Hobby- 1 per 7.5 boxes (1.6/case) Jumbo- 1 per 5.7 boxes (1.4/case) Value- 1 per 324 boxes (1 per 8.1 cases) Mega- 1 per 175.5 boxes (1 per 8.8 cases) Delight- 1 per 4 boxes (1.5/case) Fanatics Mega- 1 per 38.1 boxes (1 per 1.9 cases) Part 5: Digging Deeper We know total production is up a very reasonable ~8%...but what exactly does that look like? This is where the real differences begin to appear. Total Autos: 2026- 560,571 2025- 600,525 YOY -6.65% More cards, yet less autos. Total Inserts: 2026- 10,416,708 2025- 6,112,334 YOY +70.4% Total Parallels: 2026- 13,051,770 2025- 21,735,298 YOY -40% Total Numbered Parallels: (Includes only Numbered Base, No Numbered Inserts or Autos) 2026- 940,079 2025- 804,178 YOY +16.9% Far fewer Parallels, but more numbered. Total Numbered Inserts: 2026- 80,675 2025- 40,142 YOY +101% Total Quality Hits: (Includes Parallels & Inserts ≤/75, Case Hit level or rarer Inserts, Autos ≤/100) 2026- 571,900 2025- 404,231 YOY +41.5% Total Base Cards: 2026- 48,915,959 2025- 39,262,851 YOY- +24.6% So now we can see that Topps nuked a massive number of the unnumbered parallels. Autos are also down somewhat. In their place, we get far more inserts, both numbered and unnumbered, along with more numbered cards overall. I think that is a clear step in the right direction. My first fundamental concern- all the bullshit parallels- has been fixed to my satisfaction. I mean, there are still a ton. They just won’t be coming out in droves like last year. Now, it is important to understand what that does not mean. This product is not necessarily more dense with hits. The overall hit rates are very similar to last year. There will simply be far fewer of the most worthless ones, most noticeably in retail SKUs. This also means there will be more base cards than last year. I'm OK with that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly clamoring for stacks of base. But I ragged on Topps pretty hard for turning last year's Chrome into a "shinyfest". So when they make a legitimate effort to correct it, I'm not going to turn around and bash them for that too. I appreciate the effort. Part 6: Value Map Prices based on release day pricing. These will likely need adjusted soon as it will probably be impossible to find Hobby/Jumbo at launch pricing ever again. For that, I'll attach an adjustable spreadsheet to my Substack article within the next day or two so you can stay on top of values as market pricing changes. @slabsquatch" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@slabsquatch $/Card 1) Value Box- $1.43 2) Mega- $1.67 3) Fanatics Mega- $2.02 $/Parallel 1) Mega- $7.37 2) Value- $8.66 3) Fanatics Mega- $12.02 $/Auto 1) Jumbo- $200.96 2) Hobby- $233.64 3) Value- $383.20 $/Numbered card 1) Fanatics Mega- $74.56 2) Jumbo- $154.41 3) Mega- $156.80 $/Numbered Auto 1) Jumbo- $364.45 2) Hobby- $419.17 3) Delight- $554.02 $/Rare Insert 1) Hobby- $1,877.50 2) Jumbo- $2381.40 3) Delight- $3,240.00 4) Fanatics Mega- $3,240.20 $/Quality Hit 1) Jumbo- $234.86 2) Fanatics Mega- $253.44 3) Hobby- $296.75 4) Delight- $307.44 5) Mega- $309.41 6) Value- $357.74 Part 7: One More Item To Address Remember the two major questions I raised earlier? I think we answered one of them sufficiently. The other still needs some attention. The autos. Topps' recent solution to these massive autograph checklists has been to split them up. For 2026 Chrome, that allowed them to “trim” the main Rookie Autograph checklist from 166 names to 94. That sounds like a major improvement. But it's also deceptive. The catch is that they also created a retail-only autograph checklist with 30 additional names that no one has ever heard of. And even though they saved the worst of the worst strictly for retail, there are still 445 total names on all the combined auto checklists for 2026. Compare this to 351 last year. So technically, it's even more diluted than 2025...just not with rookies. And let's be clear: a 94-player checklist made up entirely of rookies is still unquestionably beefy. And there are some real squatters in there. The good news is there are at least 20 to 25 solid names in that checklist. That gives us a far better percentage of desirable rookie autos than we had in 2025. Unless you're ripping retail, of course. Among the retail formats, your chances vary quite a bit on if you'll be pulling your sigs from that list of warm bodies. Here's how that looks: % of Autos from "Retail Rookie Autos" Checklist: 1) Value- 70.5% 2) Mega- 43.1% 3) Fanatics Mega- 23% So did they fix it? The auto situation? I mean...there was an attempt. "Fixed" is probably a stretch. It was addressed, let's leave it at that. Buyers of Hobby SKUs will unknowingly appreciate it. Value Box connoisseurs might want a word. Part 8: What Would the Squatch Do? I can't do it. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend retail. Value Boxes are a tragedy. I suppose the nicest thing I can say is that they provide the cheapest path to MVP Buyback fare. There is also one Gold Logoman and one Gold Dual Logoman hiding in Value Boxes somewhere, so your chances of pulling one are technically not zero. If I had to recommend one retail SKU, Fanatics Megas are easily the best of the three. Even then, they feel a little greasy at $85. And who knows if they'll be available again. They're also difficult to consider a true retail format when the only place you can buy them is directly from Fanatics. That doesn't do you much good when you're on a diaper run and decide to reward yourself with a pit stop at the Target card aisle. Regular Megas are measurably better than Value Boxes, although calling them a good value would be a stretch. They're fine in spurts. I'm not plowing through cases though, regardless of how degenerate I am. I like that they at least give you a chance at a reasonable auto, not some stiff who had a cup of coffee and now works at D-Bat. One autograph per six boxes isn't completely offensive. The format also contains two of the Gold Logoman Relics and one Gold Dual Logoman. And because Topps produced roughly one-third as many Megas as Value Boxes, your odds are better. The downside? “Better” still means approximately 0.007%. Queue the meme..."So you're telln' me there's a chance." For transparency, I did preorder 10 Hobby Boxes, though I'm still not entirely sure what I plan to do with them. The process also wasn't particularly difficult considering everyone was gun-shy after last year's disaster and odds weren't out yet. I saw the vastly improved checklist, made a somewhat hasty decision, and thought there was simply no possible way this product could be worse than 2025. Thankfully, I was right. So, is 2026 Topps Chrome better? That's a resounding yes. Is it worth buying? If it's Hobby/Jumbo at drop pricing, sure. At least then, your exit strategy doesn't have to consist entirely of ripping and prayers. But at the dicey prices we're already seeing? Probably not, bro. You can buy some pretty sweet singles for $365/$700, maybe even a Perspectives auto. Part 9: The Print Runs Base Card production: ~163,050 ea Unnumbered Parallels: Refractors- ~17,045 ea X-fractors (Mega only)- ~8,470 ea Wave Refractors (Jumbo only)- ~1,335 ea Prism (Hobby only)- ~1,900 ea Red, White & Blue (Value only)- ~3,430 ea Baseball Seams (Value only)- ~3,430 ea Topps Refractor (Fanatics Mega only)- ~800 ea Raywave (Value only)- ~3,430 ea Geometric (Delight only)- ~120 ea Negative- ~350 ea Base Image Variations (50 card CL)- ~950 ea Base SSPs (10 card CL)- ~95 ea Lightboard Logo (Value & Mega only)- ~175 ea Award Winner Variations (6 card CL)- ~24 ea Unnumbered Inserts: 1991 Topps (30 card CL)- ~81,480 ea 1991 Geometric- ~300 ea Big Ticket Players (25 card CL)- ~84.965 ea Big Ticket Players Geometric- ~360 ea Chrome Rivals Away (Retail SKUs, 25 card CL)- ~32,780 ea Chrome Rivals Home (Hobby SKUs, 25 card CL)- ~4,185 ea Diamond Moments (Hobby/Jumbo, 50 card CL)- ~810 ea Fanatical (Fanatics Mega only, 10 card CL)- ~400 ea Future Stars (10 card CL)- ~83,660 ea Future Stars Geometric- ~330 ea Past to Present (Value/Mega, 25 card CL)- ~32,780 ea Perspectives (10 card CL)- ~83,660 ea Perspectives Geometric- ~330 ea Wild Style (Hobby/Jumbo, 25 card CL)- ~4,185 ea Wrecking Crew (25 card CL)- ~85,965 ea Wrecking Crew Geometric- ~360 ea Rare Inserts Unnumbered: Radiating Rookies (20 card CL)- ~655 ea Helix (15 card CL)- ~95 ea Hobby Masters (Hobby SKUs only, 19 card CL)- ~290 ea Shadow Etch (Hobby SKUs only, 20 card CL)- ~655 ea Static Noise (Value/Mega, 15 card CL)- ~285 ea World Series at Night (10 card CL)- ~285 ea Ultraviolet (15 card CL)- ~215 ea Minions (4 card CL)- ~100 ea Unnumbered Autos: Base Chrome Rookie Autos (94 card CL)- ~1,725 ea Base Chrome Rookie Retail Autos (Retail SKUs only, 30 card CL)- ~1,845 ea Ink Strokes (71 card CL)- ~210 ea #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsChrome

@steflowkey @charlieINTEL Feels the exact same as before

@charlieINTEL Anyone noticing anything different with matchmaking? Them niggas said a lot but said nothing at all 🤣

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone Season 05 is live now on all platforms

@CallofDuty The “new” matchmaking literally feels the exact same

We've seen your questions about the difference between Open and the new system. The new system builds on what we've learned, with smarter team balancing, wide match variety, improvements that help keep matches full, and a better experience for mixed-level parties. We believe these changes will deliver a better overall experience for all players, with the variety players love from classic Call of Duty. Open playlists will continue to be available in BO7 and the MW4 Beta. We'll keep listening and learning from player feedback and match data to refine the system to make every match more fun.

Over the past year, we've continued to learn a lot about Multiplayer matchmaking through player data and community feedback. We’re also excited to see all the recent love for Black Ops and Black Ops II, which reinforced that there are many elements of those experiences that players appreciate. Starting this week with Season 05, we're updating Black Ops Classic, Quick Play, and Party Games in Black Ops 7 with a new matchmaking system inspired by those classic games. We'll continue to offer Open playlists in Black Ops 7, and we'll also include Open playlist options in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta. Thanks for your continued feedback as we stay focused on player experiences that go beyond expectations. Jump in and let us know what you think.

The “new” matchmaking in BO7 isn’t “classic” like they claim it to be it literally feels the exact same 😂😂😂😂😂😂 This is why I won’t be playing MW4

@charlieINTEL MW4 pre orders must be in the gutter if they are trying to do all this PR BS I’m not falling for it again

Activision attempts to clarify the difference of "Classic" and "Open" matchmaking for Black Ops 7 and MW4: "The new system builds on what we've learned, with smarter team balancing, wide match variety, improvements that help keep matches full, and a better experience for mixed-level parties."

Not enough players on Black Ops 7 for this to even matter so the real test will be during the Modern Warfare 4 Beta

@MaTtKs ^ oh I almost forgot BO3 movement once again too

@MaTtKs My BO8 wishlist Combine Man O War Shadows of Evil Please 🙏

This month marks 16 years at Treyarch. From playing Call of Duty as a fan in the early 2000s, to moderating the official forums, to joining the team for Black Ops 1. Never in a million years did I think I'd still get to wake up every day and work on my favorite franchise 16 years later. I appreciate you all. 🤝

@PrattyTweets Looks like he got a nose job

He deadass ruined his face bro he got no aura left…

Looks like retail is useless again Color me shocked

@charlieINTEL The rug pull is about to be insane

Black Ops 7 Quick Play matchmaking will be updated to a new system that 'inspired by the classic' games of Black Ops and Black Ops 2 Open Playlists will still remain, and Open will also be available in MW4 Beta

2026 Topps Chrome Diving headfirst into this madness. Much to figure and looks like some very interesting data to process. However, I will be tied up for several hours and will not be able to give this odds sheet the full treatment until this evening. Here are a few cursory production numbers to ease your minds just a bit until I'm back with the rest. Total cards produced: 2026 Topps Chrome 72,956,768 2025 Chrome: 67,711,008 YOY +7.75% Total production by format: Hobby- 142,440 boxes (11,870 cases) YOY +4.7% Jumbo- 66,704 boxes (8,338 cases) YOY +2.9% Value- 1,175,600 boxes (29,390 cases) YOY +3% Mega- 423,420 boxes (21,171 cases) YOY +21.4% Delight- 37,200 boxes (3,720 cases) YOY +4.8% Fanatics Mega- 40,100 boxes (2,005 cases) YOY +33.3% #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsChrome