2013 Topps MLB Chipz and History of Coins

Before ducking out of collecting for about five months I had read around the collecting world about Topps coming out with MLB Chipz.  Before I go on about the new Topps Chipz I want to take a look back.  As a collector who has been collecting since the early 80s I've seen coin sets come a go.  Topps has had a long history dating back to the early 60s developing a round baseball collectible.  Over the next few decades Topps experimented with many different insert sets from scratch offs in 1981, rub on tattoos, deckle edge, but every now and then they would produce another coin set.  Through the years there was always disk like sets produced like 3D 7-11 disks of the mid 80s.

1964 Topps Coin

7-11 1991 Disk

1990 Topps Coins

In the late 1980s the baseball card companies did all they could to add more product into the stream of already saturated market.  Every department store, fast food restaurant, cereal box, and gas station had some form of baseball card type of product.  I love the concept of coins as a collectible, but what happened in the late 80s and 90s gave these round collectibles a bad name.  Still today I go into card shops that have boxes of 1990 Topps Baseball Coins sitting around, and even selling at 50 cents a pack they still can't move 23 years later.  In the mid 90s Pinnacle came out with cards with coins.  Pinnacle overestimated the market for these coins and began demise of the Pinnacle brand in the late 90s.

In 1998 Pinnacle Brands had advertising everywhere stating that these coins were the future of collecting.  Today you can buy a dozen on Ebay for about $5.  Pinnacle Brand hoped to lure both card and coin collectors with these coins, but was a true flop because coin collectors realized that the metal used was worthless.  Many write ups on these coins state that the metal used is worth about a penny to a nickle in scrap.  If you truly want to make a collectible coin, try a metal that has a little staying power.

Today we see coins more on cards, but done differently then previous years.  Now we see actual vintage coins on cards, or larger/more attractive coins that are not intended to be removed, so the coin stays with the card.

2013 Topps card with coin done much better than the 1997 Pinnacle Mint below.

One of the flaws with the Pinnacle Brands coins and cards is, if you lost the coin you are left with a card with a huge (HUGE) ugly (UGLY) hole.  Take a look at that hole below!

Now to get to the real reason of this post, 2013 Topps MLB Chipz.  I feel to truly look at the Chipz set we have to take a look backwards and look at the past, most of which failed.  In 1990 Topps made millions of sets of coins which over saturated the market.  If Topps learned anything from the 90s, sometimes they will have to limit profits to help the hobby stay alive.  Topps Chipz has two HUGE advantages over the past overproduced coins, very limited autographs and relic Chipz.  As long as there is a chance for a collector to score a very limited autograph or relic chip, there will be collectors buying the product.  For example if Topps had an autographed Griffey Jr. coin put in their 1990 Topps Coin product, you would never find an unopened coin box.  Topps today can better mask over production by making their signature parallel sets, and Chipz even has parallels.  Almost every Wal-Mart and Target I've been too recently have almost a full gravity fed box at $1.98 for a 4 Chipz pack.  

Glow-in-the-Dark (1:2 packs), Gold (1:3 packs), Magnetic (1:4 packs), Silver (1:4 packs)

I bought my first Chipz packs of the year maybe a lot later than most of you, but I wanted to share what I got today.

My Chipz so far

I may buy a few more packs over time, but not too impressed even with the variations.  I have not seen an autographed Chipz in person, but looking at the size of them, I would rather have a full sized autograph on a card.  Again, that is just my point of view.