2015 Topps Five Star Baseball Cards

Topps really didn’t hit it out of the park with the configuration or the price of these this year, I totally get what they are trying to do offering a cheaper high end box but some of these guys on the checklist have no business being in a high end product. At all.

Same with all the “mid-high end” Topps products this year really, I got lucky with a few decent hits but for the most part I picked up the singles I wanted on the secondary market because the odds are just so brutal and chances are you are going to pull more junk than gems.

There used to be a time when if you hit one of the best cards in the product, it was worth it if you didn’t collect the player to get rid of it. Nowadays a Rainbow Kris Bryant Auto RC /25 from this product can be had for around $300. Instead of buying almost 3 boxes, I just chose to buy the cards I want in the newer products so that I don’t have to take that gamble myself. Tier One taught me better than to gamble with my money this year, I do have a few nice cards but it cost a lot too.

The cards look great though, and I really like the font on the front it looks like the US dollar font its pretty cool so I just had to pick up a few of the better cards for my PC this year. If they improve the checklist I may even buy a few boxes next year myself.

As a collector, I am going to make a comment on a product that is meant for the speculators. Far too many speculators come onto product pages meant for collectors and bash those products, thinking it is all about the investment for themselves, rather than the enjoyment of collecting something and seeing what you get. And enjoying the artwork, and feeling the texture of the stock.

See? All those people who want to make a profit off of a private business’s (in this case, Topps) product, are the reason why this product exists in the configuration it does. Topps is not stupid. It is also a for-profit business. A lot of people seem to forget this. What Topps is doing, is looking at how much their cards are ACTUALLY worth on the secondary market through the years. Of course they want to have the price point to as close, if not higher, than the actual value of the cards.

It’s like casinos. Casinos make more money than they ever pay out. Topps is making sure they are getting the full cost for their product, and then some. When they see they are selling a box of rookie autographs for, say, $100, and people turn around and sell a hot rookie auto on ebay, demanding $5,000 for that one card; then yes, they will raise their prices per card! Only difference between trading cards and casinos, trading cards are not forced, by law, to be “fair.” Casinos must payout large sums of cash periodically. Trading card companies are not forced to make products that yield a profit for their customers seeking profit.

Having said that, it is fine for people to periodically turn a profit selling cards. Fine. That does help keep the industry going. But so many people who do this become whiny little !@#$$%^ if they lose money just one time, and decry the entire hobby, and “WHOA IS MEEEE!!!!” Yeah. When you buy cards to speculate, you should know the risks involved. Just like gamblers at casinos. Just like stock brokers. Just like those starting small business. You never have reward without risk when making an investment. Don’t blame the company producing the cards. Blame yourself for opening your wallets and making the decision to purchase a high-risk, high-reward product like this. As long as you keep opening your wallet for these products, of course Topps will continue to meet your demand for them.

Not even one card from the current best hitter in baseball? (best hitter for a few years now) seriously?

This used to be as high end as it gets, Topps really messed up. If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The cards look good but they only made a lot of old players that we don’t even care, they didn’t made booklets and special cards. TTT took al the Baseball hype this year.

I hate to pile-on…. but I am SOOOO going to do so!

I thought Tier-One was a watered-down money-grab of a product, but I was wrong. Tier-One was merely ill-conceived compared to ’15 5-Star. The formerly brilliant 5-Star, a product that provided some of my most enjoyable and lucrative breaks, is now a shameless, transparent pick-pocketing of collector’s wallets with an abysmal return on investment.
This is NOT a personal grievance relative to what I pulled… which, admittedly, is crap (Brandon Belt/Bryce Brentz, Al Leiter, Shawn Green… Bargain Bin autos). Rather, taking into account all of the breaks I watched prior to picking-up my pre-ordered trio of boxes in conjunction with my results, the result is a terribly disappointing product. This was, upon release through last year’s incarnation, a beautifully executed and well-distributed product.
The diminished hit count, down to 2 from 5, renders Topps able to inundate the market with product AND recoup a staggering profit when taking the $135 MSRP : $30-$70 ROI (a rough average).

Shame on Topps; This will only drive more collectors into Panini’s open arms. Panini can’t use team uni’s… yet. But products such as this, Tier-One, the equally discouraging Museum Collection, et. al, will force MLB to reconsider their trading card partner.

Some pretty accurate reviews there. Watched a lot of boxes being broken and saw one or two memorable cards.

I bought a box myself and hit a 1/1 silver auto of Edgar martinez. The sad thing is that was one of the more exciting cards I’ve seen come from that case

I’ve seen several cases of this product, and generally agree with other reviews:
With a $65/card list price, there is no excuse for some of the guys in this checklist, and not surprisingly, most the chaseable names are SP or SSP, while the $10 autos make up a significant percentage of the press run.
It is also true that reducing box size (5 to 2) helped reduce the price, but it also resulted in a huge volume of dud boxes. As a result, a brave soul that throws $150 on the counter @ their local shop and pulls two cards he’ll be lucky to sell for $12 each will probably not buy the second box- At least the majority of 5 card boxes held something memorable, even if they didnt return full value.
On the plus side though…
If you put the $’s aside, the product is beautiful. The White base should limit the appearance of chips, and the relatively high number of inserts means even some of the mediocre names end up looking like artwork worthy of framing. It is only a matter of time until this stock reaches a full 1/2″ thick!
All things considered, not a bad product, but not measurably better than some of the lower priced products in the line. As a guy who collects a lot of mid-tier names, I’ll hold off and snag ’em on Ebay for $10-20 each in a week or two.

I have collected Five Star since it first came out in 2012, and I have never seen such a mistake on a Topps product as I am seeing in this years 2015 Five star.

Reducing the amount of Autographs from 5 down to 2 and lowering the cost per box from around 300 to 125 with the mindset that it will encourage more buyers who avoided the product and its high cost I get. But who in there right mind is going to buy a box with 2 Autographs for 125$ after seeing what is coming out the last day or so.

Too many 125$ boxes pumping out Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, Bryce Brentz, Michael Taylor, James Shields, Kevin Plawecki, Steven Souza…..you get the idea.

For the buyer even pulling a #’d auto is not likely to bring back the cash spent….. This was a huge mistake on Topps part…..they should drop the cost down to 75$ just to be fair to the buyer.

Watched several case breaks today and was incredibly disappointed with the results. The design is nice but it seems like Topps takes a design theme and propagates it across several lines all in the same year. However, the worst is the minimal value provided for the high price point. At roughly $65 per card, do we really want veterans such as Doug Fister, Al Leiter, YanvGomes, or Ender Inciarte. All good players but $65 per card? The rookie set is weak as well – yet another Michael Taylor, Roberto Osuna, or Brandon Finnegan? Topps Five Star 2013 was a great set, but it has sadly morphed into something far too similar to Museum , Tier One or Supreme. The worst part of it is in an effort to chase higher gross revenue through multiple lines, they have drastically diluted the value of all 4. I pray Dynasty doesn’t follow the same path but collectors will not buy these for long if the value of the product is soooo disproportionately below the price point.