Box Review: 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary (hobby)

Last week, I had the opportunity to rip a pair of hobby boxes of 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary as part of a group break that I hosted over on my Discord channel.  Today, I get to "double dip" on content and use one of those boxes for today's box review on my blog!

Each box of 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary contains 24 packs with 4 cards per pack.  In addition, each hobby box promises one chrome autograph, though as you'll see in a bit that promise isn't always quite accurate!

Many people collect the Chrome Platinum Anniversary brand for the wide variety of parallels, but I'd be remiss if I didn't first show off some of the regular base cards because I think this is a great looking set!

Base cards:

Our box produced a total of 81 different base cards.  The base design takes its inspiration from the classic 1954 Topps design and for my money, the chrome version looks great!  Of course, I might be a bit biased as the '54 Topps set design is one of my personal favorites.

Collecting the full base will be a big challenge when you consider that the set contains 500 cards and our hobby box only produced 81 base cards...perfect collation and you'd need 7 hobby boxes to build the full base set.  As for the set itself, you can see that there is a nice mix of retired stars, current players, and a bunch of different rookies. 

Parallels:

As you'd expect from the brand, our box produced a number of different parallels.  We'll start with the basic refractors, by far the most common parallel to pull.  In fact, our box produced six such parallels which is right on target given the stated print run of base refractors to be 1:4 packs.

The Tigers did particularly well here by landing two of the six refractors.  My personal favorite of the bunch, however, is the Catfish Hunter card which goes to the A's team slot.

Next, our lone X-fractor (seeded 1:24 packs, i.e. a box hit):

Nick Senzel is no longer a Red (remember this is technically a 2023 product despite it being released in May 2024).  

The rest of the base parallels in our box were all of the serially-numbered variety.  We'll go through those from highest print run to lowest beginning with this Blue Mini Diamond card of Jim Thome #/199.

The Blue Mini Diamond cards are seeded 1:35 packs.  This particular card is a nice one for the Phillies since the blue border goes well with the Phillies logo (plus how can you be mad about a nice Jim Thome card)?!

Next, a pair of green parallels each numbered out of 99.

The Stroman is a Platinum Toile White Green card while the Clemens is a Green Wave parallel.  Each of those parallels are seeded 1:70 packs, so we did quite well with green bordered cards!  However, our box isn't done yet.

Next, numbered out of only 75 is this great looking Willie Stargell Rose Gold Mini Diamond parallel.

The Rose Gold Mini Diamond parallels are seeded 1:93 packs, so another nice pull for us!  I think this particular parallel design looks great for a Pirates card, more or less matches the yellow theme of the Pirates' uniform.

Finally, our last two base parallels were both of the gold bordered variety and each was numbered out of only 50 copies:

The Dontrelle Willis is a Gold Refractor (seeded 1:140 packs) while the Hank Aaron is a Gold Wave Refractor (seeded 1:91 packs).  Both are awesome pulls and helped to cap a strong parallel showing from the box!

Autograph:

As I mentioned at the top of the post, each hobby box promises one autograph.  Here's our promised signature:

A nice Dennis Eckersley, certainly a fine card for the Athletics spot in the group break.  Frankly, I was happy with this auto pull (at least it wasn't a rookie pitcher auto like I was expecting we'd get).  However, this box wasn't quite done...that's right, we ended up with a bonus autograph!

That's a Blue Prism autograph parallel of Andruw Jones numbered 57/99.  A great bonus for the Braves!  The Blue Prism autos are tough pulls (seeded 1:179 packs).  

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I give the 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary (hobby) box the following ratings:

Set Design:  A

Collation:  A

Opening Thrill:  A

Overall:  A

For the second year in a row, the Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary set scores A's across the board.  There's absolutely nothing that I can find to criticize this box for...and that extra autograph is simply the icing on an already delicious cake.  I will also note that I opened two boxes of this product for the group break and while the second box didn't give us a bonus autograph, that box was also a fun one to rip (and we might have done even better with the base parallels in the that box since we pulled a card #/10 and another #/25.  All told, this set comes highly recommended by me...so much so that I'm still considering buying some personal boxes and building this year's set!