Giannis Ups the Bounty for Topps Now Triple Auto and Topps Now is in the Spotlight
In an unforeseen development, a Topps Now card has become the hottest card in the entire hobby and even NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo wants it offering a cool million-dollar bounty. Topps offered a Topps Now card of Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant celebrating their Olympic triumph. They announced they would insert a triple on-card auto into one fan’s order . Collectors pounced on the chance and bought a combined 588.030 copies. With the insertion of one card, Topps put the entire focus of the hobby world on Topps Now.
Topps Now, for the uninitiated, is Topps’ print-to-order program where cards highlighting games or events are offered for a brief time where anyone can order as many copies as they want. The program started in 2016 and, while it has its fans (myself included), is something of an afterthought in the hobby. Most cards sell only 1000 copies or so and until recently only a very small handful of cards had even eclipsed the 20,000 mark.
🚨 BOUNTY ALERT 🚨
— The Collectibles Guru (@ericwhiteback) September 2, 2024
Giannis appears to have increased the bounty on the Topps Now LeBron, Curry and Durant Triple Auto.
He allegedly commented on a post earlier today saying he’d pay “2x the highest bounty”, making it $1,000,000! 💰 pic.twitter.com/iAxPuYJriA
Fanatics has paid extra attention to Topps Now this year and made some changes to drive sales. First, they improved the bland parallels by adding in rainbow foil image variations for some cards. Where the parallels used to be tough sells, the foil variations have become must-haves for player collectors and are highly desirable. Second, they added a pack element to their autos and relics which has aided those sales.
These additions improved sales but nothing like the random autos. Topps first tried this with Bill Belichick autos in a TBT on-demand card and they tried Jackson Holliday autos before the triple-auto grail. Just this week Topps went back to the well with an Ohtani card with autos that sold 156,658 copies. It’s fairly impressive the amount of attention Topps Now has gotten with just a few tweaks.
