All Chrome'd Up and Ready to Go

A #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax features the premium version of the Topps flagship set. 

Topps Chrome had a bit of a price hike this year, but I still took a bit of a dip into it and bought a slot in a half-case break over at Crackin' Wax. I also ended up with a free slot in an additional Chrome box break where I was assigned the entire NL Central division thanks to a bit of fantasy baseball success, but I'm going to focus on just my Cardinals acquisitions here. (I did end up with a Pirates autograph and a numbered card of a certain former Reds pitcher whose cards I don't want to display here... I'm tired of pulling his stuff in 2021. The Pirates auto is being set aside for Bob Walk the Plank.)

As you would expect, the cards look like a metallic version of the flagship set. More so this year than in the past, I believe nearly all of the photos are the same. (There are a few short printed photo variations as usual.) We get KK's weirdly floating rookie cup here again as well.

Here's your requisite Yadi card.

There aren't tons of inserts in the Chrome set, which is mostly focused on refractor parallels and autographs. We do get the '86 Topps tribute treatment, however. At least I ended up with another new Nolan card (complete with fake uniform.)

 

There were some... choices made when coming up with the rookie autographs checklist. Because Topps has fallen further and further behind with deadlines and such, you're not going to see a lot of (any?) rookies in 2021 that actually made their debut in 2021. Since the abbreviated 2020 season was absolutely lousy with pitchers and lower tier roster filler making their debuts due to the huge volume of games missed (due to the pandemic, of course), well... let's just say that there are a lot of relief/minor league pitcher autos. I'm not going to complain about any Cardinals card that's new to my collection, of course, but Roel Ramirez has had an interesting path to his appearance in a Topps set.

Last season, in his MLB debut and lone 2020 appearance, he gave up back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs to the Chicago White Sox. You may have seen the highlights. He was called up a second time, this season, where he gave up another three earned runs while recording just one out. He's not with the organization any longer.

With Chrome, though, we're really all here for the refractors. This Jack Flaherty prism refractor (aka fishfractor) scans pretty well and will look pretty nice in the binders.

Next up, we'll take a look at the competitor's shiny cards for a change. And there might be a football thing. Possibly not in that order.