Was This Worth $187?!?! (A Box Review of 2021 Topps Chrome)

Earlier this week, I held a group break consisting of a box of 2021 Topps Chrome.  The box cost me $187 to buy from Dave & Adams (prices have come down a few dollars since I ordered but boxes are still right around the $180 mark).  Even before I bought the box, I thought to myself "there's no way this can actually be worth the cost" but I seemingly had quite a few people interested in a 2021 Chrome group break so I figured I'd try to make it happen!

In the end, I did manage to sell all the team slots and just barely break even (not counting time, shipping supplies, or penny sleeves).  Luckily, I do group breaks for fun and not for profit (any profit that I do make generally goes into my free player breaks that I like to do and/or into acquiring bonus packs for future breaks).  

With that said, let's take a look at the contents of our 2021 Topps Chrome hobby box and then you can tell me if it was worth the $187 I had to spend on it.  Our box promised two Chrome Autograph cards hidden somewhere among the 24 packs (4 cards per pack).

First up, the base cards:

The base cards look like slightly shinier (and worse scanning) versions of the regular Topps flagship cards.  No surprise there - so you'll either like 'em or hate 'em based on how you felt about this year's regular Topps set.  Our box produced a total of 71 base Chrome cards.

Next, the parallels:

We'll begin with the 1:3 pack Refractor parallel.  By far the most common parallel you can find - we pulled our expected eight cards.  Since this box was for a group break, I was happy to see plenty of different teams represented here!

Next, the 1:6 pack Prism Refractor (or as I erroneously referred to them in the video:  "x-fractors").

As expected, we pulled four such cards including a nice Bryce Harper.  I actually think I personally prefer the "regular" refractors but the Prism Refractors are certainly nice enough.  That being said, for me the highlight of Chrome (back when I bought it for myself) was always the colored parallels.  I was certainly hoping for a few cool ones out of our box - especially when you realize how many different colors are possible:

• Pink
• Sepia
• Black & White Mini Diamond 
• Negative Black & White
• Magenta
• Magenta Speckle
• Purple
• Aqua
• Aqua Wave
• Blue
• Green
• Green Wave
• Blue Wave
• Gold
• Gold Wave
• Orange
• Orange Wave
• Red
• Red Wave
• SuperFractor

Unfortunately, our box only had one such colored parallel but it least it was a fairly rare one featuring a great player (and matching colors with the team uniform):

Yeah, that's pretty sweet - and easily my personal favorite card out of the entire box (congrats to Josh D. who grabbed the Royals in this break).  The Blue Wave parallels are numbered out of 75 - this one being #18/75 and are seeded 1:234 packs!

Moving on to the inserts now...

The most common insert was the 1985 35th Anniversary Refractor cards.  We pulled four such cards in our box including a super nice Jacob DeGrom (though the Sixto Sanchez rookie card and/or the Joey Bart rookie card could actually be the "pull of the box" in a few years)!  

Next, we found three of the Future Stars inserts:

This was my favorite insert set (from the sets we pulled at least).  I remember the old Future Stars logo being on certain player's cards back in the day...and as a kid I always thought cards featuring that logo were cooler than the other cards!  I guess Topps hit a sentimental nerve for me since I like these Chrome Future Stars cards!

Next, a pair of Beisbol inserts:

Yeah, getting the Acuna was sweet - especially for Colbey who claimed Atlanta in the break.  I particularly like the inset country and flag on the bottom corner of the card as well as country-specific flag "bunting" at the top of the card.  Honestly, if there was one insert set from 2021 Topps Chrome that I'd consider collecting for myself it might be this set - I am, after all, a sucker for flag cards!

Our final insert of the box was this Prismic Power card:

At 1:24 packs, this is a true box hit.  Somehow, we ended up with an Angels insert of a guy not named Ohtani or Trout...not sure how I feel about that to be honest with you.

Finally, our two promised hits:

Both of the autographs are on card (which is great) but both are rookie autographs which means you have to wait awhile to know if either pull is actually going to be any good.  Topps Chrome does have a bunch of great autograph possibilities in the set...but from what I know of the set, you can more likely expect to pull exactly what we did, a pair of rookie autos.

In the end, I give the 2021 Topps Chrome (hobby) box the following ratings:

Set Design:  B

Collation:  A+

Opening Thrill:  B  

Overall:  C-

Ignoring the price, this was a fun box to open.  Sure, I would have preferred to see one or two more of the colored parallels but otherwise the box honestly delivered a fun rip experience.  The unfortunate thing though is the price - it's so astronomically high that I cannot in good conscience ignore it.  This box would have scored a "B+" overall had the price been in the more normal $90-$100 range.  Unfortunately, the box cost me nearly twice that and so I had to knock down the overall score quite a bit.  From my vantage point, as fun as the box rip was there's no way there's even close to $187 worth of product there...and while box breaking is always a bit of a gamble, I simply can't believe that there are many boxes of Topps Chrome anywhere that would justify the high price tag.