Inside the Pack: 2020 Topps Chrome Update Review
It feels odd to do a review of a 2020 product after having already reviewed 2021 Topps Series 1, but that’s the way things worked out this year. A late arrival for the annual end-of-year Target exclusive put this product out on January 15, less than a month before Series 1 was released. However, as has been the case for a year, product is difficult if not impossible to find. A few weeks ago, Target offered the product for sale on its website, with a nice caveat: a maximum of 3 boxes per person. This system worked really well; product stayed in stock for much longer than usual and in my testing (trying to purchase another 3 with a different card), the limits worked as my order was immediately canceled.
Boxes of Topps Chrome Update come with 7 packs, each with 4 cards. At 100 cards in the set, and multiple inserts and/or parallels per box, you’d need 5 boxes with great collation in order to complete a set. With Target’s website and most physical locations limiting purchases to 3 per person, you do the math — putting a set together is tough.
I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to buy any Chrome products in 2020, so these cards were a welcome addition to my collection. The product, being Update, is fairly rookie-heavy, and I got all the right guys in my box: Luis Robert, Gavin Lux, Bo Bichette, and Randy Arozarena, to name a few.
Inserts come one or two a box in the form of Decades Next and Numbers Game. The Decades Next cards were a design I was familiar with from 2020 Series 1, but Numbers Game was new to me as it appeared in 2020 Update, a product I didn’t open. Though I got better players in the Decades Next set, with RCs of Bo Bichette and Kyle Lewis as well as a Fernando Tatis card, the Numbers Game cards were my favorite, as the Chrome refractor treatment on them really made the cards pop and feel like a high-end insert.
Refractors and colors are difficult to hit in this product, with a standard refractor landing 1 in every 102 packs. Amazingly, autographs are more than twice as likely to be pulled, at a rate of 1:41 packs. True to form, I didn’t get any refractors, but I did pull an autograph of Ramon Laureano.
All in all, at 20 bucks a box, this was an incredibly fun rip. It was a bit odd to go back to the 2020 design after having opened 2021 just a few days earlier, but the Chrome twist made this exciting and different. Top rookies to stick away for the future and autographs every 4 or 5 boxes are a great touch too. It’s hard to beat this product at the suggested retail price.
