We see the arrival of the second wave for 2022 Topps 206 Star Wars. There doesn’t seem to be as much variation as the baseball releases have. This release has the same border and back variations as wave one, but does add an insert set featuring ten different planets, as well as including the chance at a few autographs this time.
This wave boasts a print run of 14,009 boxes, down more than ten thousand from wave one. There are once again fifty cards in this wave. A box is advertised to contain ten cards, eight of which are base, along with two parallels. It seems that special variation inserts are including as an additional card.
This box contained:
8 Base 1 Base Blue Starfield Parallel 1 Base Star Wars Back Parallel
This release sort of came out of nowhere. After a few years of successful 206 Baseball releases, Topps has expanded this branding to include Star Wars. At a time when the enthusiasm for 206 Baseball seems to be dropping, this wave of Star Wars sold 25,102 packs. That notable in part because the first wave of baseball this year saw roughly half that print run, but also contained twice as many cards in the wave (100 Baseball to 50 Star Wars). It will be interesting to see if that enthusiasm continues with a set that doesn’t seem to have a clear public plan, yet.
This release also sees a major departure from what the original T206 set was. In the original, the main parallels for the set are tobacco advertisements on the backs of the cards, with the fronts not changing. Topps replicated these parallels for Baseball, but has avoided them for Star Wars. Instead, we see the familiar “star field” parallels return once again. Perhaps Disney did not want their property associated with tobacco? There is one parallel with the back changed, to a plain Star Wars logo.
A box advertises ten cards, including two parallels. This box contained:
With the NXT release, we see the first Panini release that didn’t initially sell for a vastly increased price. This one seems much more in line with the previous Topps releases, although it does not include chrome cards, so that may explain part of it. This release features many of the newer NXT talents, including some fairly recent name changes, as well. The base set also contains a subset highlighting Main Roster wrestlers who got their starts in NXT.
Compared to some of the other recent releases, this one contains a fairly modest number. A complete base set is 125 cards, while a box contains 24 packs with 8 cards per pack. There are also a few insert sets, along with an assortment of possible parallels. Each box also advertises one autograph and one memorabilia card.
As the second Panini WWE release arrives, we see the market from the first one dropping quite a bit. Even these first appeared for preorder at a greatly inflated price, only to drop very quickly. As the economy worsens, it seems obvious the card market is likely to follow.
On the surface, this seems like a fairly straight forward release. You have a 150 card base set, but this comes along with nine parallels related to the background images. Luckily, the back of the card lists the type of parallel to make it easier to identify each type. There are only a handful of inserts sets possible, but each of those also comes in five different parallel designs. There are possible also possible autographs, but unlike the Topps releases, these hobby boxes do not guarantee any hits.
This is the premier release with Panini taking over the WWE property. The hobby release prices were much higher than similar Topps WWE products from recent months, sometimes even ten times as much. Is the product really worth it? Even this retail product was found at a much higher price than normal retail products.
It will be interesting to see how this product does over the long term. It seems pretty unlikely that collectors are building sets from $1k hobby boxes, but I guess anything is possible. This release features a 200 card base set, along with many parallels and inserts. This blaster box features six packs with four cards per pack, and no guaranteed hits.
