2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA is back and this year with a guaranteed auto per box. It is highlighted like most 2023-24 soccer card sets by Lamine Yamal rookie cards. See what else you can expect if you’re getting involved.
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2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA Breakdown
Checklist – HERE
Box Makeup – (Search On Ebay) – 8 cards per pack, 4 packs per box. 1 Auto, 3-4 numbered parallels
Print Run – ~10,500 boxes
Rookie Breakdown – Check out the 2023-24 Topps Rookie Breakdown for an in depth break down of the rookies.
Soccer Cards HQ Review – The thing that stands out to me the most in 2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA beside the guaranteed auto is the print run. You can see in the Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA print runs article that it is by far the lowest ever which is strange for soccer cards these days. With lower print runs come higher box prices. Lower print runs plus Lamine Yamal rookies (Search On eBay) mean much higher box prices. Those higher box prices have turned some people off so lets see if they are worth it compared to previous year Sapphire sets.
The addition of a guaranteed auto per box means that the auto checklist had to expand from just the 10 Sapphire Selection cards it was last year. If you hit an auto last year there was a good shot it was a player worth hitting. This year there is a base checklist of 85 subjects that won’t be the case this year. The 10 card Sapphire Selections autos are back and once again it has a very strong checklist highlighted by Lamine Yamal. Lamine Yamal also has a base auto. Topps also decided to put Lionel Messi, in a Barcelona kit, as well as all the legends they have been including in lots of new sets.
There are only 166 base numbered cards per player in 2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA which is much less than previous years. Topps came to their senses and added Gold base parallels /50. The highest numbered base parallel this year is the /75 Yellow instead of the /99 Yellow like in the past. I will note that 3 numbered parallels is what has been advertised, but based on the numbers most boxes should have 4 if you include colored inserts. This is not something that people considered when balking at the release price. There is once again a 10 card image variation checklist. There are ~1050 base variations and 265 numbered parallels total.
Sapphire Selections (Search on eBay) and Wonderkids (Search on eBay) are back as inserts in 2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA. There is a new insert, Infinite (Search on eBay), that we first saw in 2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire Bundesliga. They are great looking cards, but sadly there aren’t any colored parallels. There are ~105 of each. Every Infinite is of a very hobby relevant player depending how you feel about Pedri. The Sapphire Selections design is the same and the checklist increases from 15 last year to 25 this year. You would think with such small checklists they wouldn’t have to use the same players this year as last. Expecting some rarity with cool looking cards is clearly asking for too much. The Lamine Yamal 1/1 base Sapphire Selections Superfractor has already been hit as well. The Wonderkids checklist from 15 to 10 this year.
With the details out of the way let’s get to what a lot of you are probably concerned with. Boxes are selling in the $550 range which is 3-5 times as much as 2022-23 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA. That seems like a lot and it is. When you consider you are getting almost twice as many parallels and a guaranteed auto per box it doesn’t seem as ridiculous. Then you add in the Lamine Yamal premium and it’s about what I would expect. I don’t know exactly what the Yamal premium is on the box but I would say it’s $100+. That said at the current price point you can really, really whiff. That was always the case with Sapphire, but it’s extra bad this year. The only way I see these prices coming down is for the Yamal premium to wear off and by the time that happens there may not be enough still sealed for it to matter. That is what happens with these low print run products. In these times of severe overproduction I am fine with the change of pace on this one.
2023-24 Topps Chrome Sapphire UEFA Insert and Variation Print Runs
The one thing I would say is to pay attention to these base insert print runs when buying Lamine Yamal cards. I am including them again along with Yamal eBay links so you can tell which ones you should be paying up for and which ones are likely to fall with time.
Infinite ~105
Sapphire Selections (base) ~84 (Search on eBay)
Wonderkids (base) ~2100 (Search on eBay)
Image Variation (base) ~1050 (Search on eBay)
Regular Base ~1250
If you have any questions reach out via social media @SoccerCardsHQ on Twitter, IG and FB. Want to read more about print runs? Check out this Lionel Messi 2022-23 Case Hit print runs article.