Posted August 24, 2023 by f1nut in Trading Cards

A beginners guide to Topps F1 trading cards (Part 3/6) – Topps Chrome Formula 1

Without a doubt, Topps Chrome Formula 1 cards have been incredibly successful since their launch of the 2020 season cards and are the clear choice of trading cards for serious F1 fans and collectors/investors alike.

2020 Topps Chrome

Being the first edition season for Topps F1 trading cards, the 2020 Chrome cards (which were released in April 2021) have a simple classic Chrome card design with the best examples being the driver and team base cards.

All base and refractor cards have a high percentage of chromium laminate on the card surface (very easy to get fingerprint marks). Colours are restricted to the photo subject and the text borders. Compared to later seasons, this gives 2020 Chrome cards their distinctive clean look. I know some card collectors love the glitter and holo style parallel card designs in the later 2021 and 2022 series (and baseball and football cards) but I think the clean plain look of the 2020 series clearly distinguish it from the others.

2020 Chrome driver base cards have pure chromium backgrounds…gotta love Daniel’s pose

2020 Chrome cards come in the standard 4 card pack and packs were available individually or in hobby boxes (18 packs per box).

There are 200 cards in the 2020 base set with inserts cards for wall graffiti style “Track Tags” (15 cards, 1 per 6 packs), “1954 Topps Word on Wheels” (35 cards, 1 per every 3 packs) and short print image variations for 10 driver portrait cards (Lewis, Valttieri, Seb, Max, Alex, Charles, Lando, Esteban, Pierre and George). So from a hobby box you could expect to pull 6 refactors, 6 World on Wheels inserts and 3 Track Tags insert cards. Hobby boxes also included prized autograph cards (odds 1 card every 2 boxes, 1 every 64 packs) and 10 parallel or short print cards per box are guaranteed (which are very decent pull odds) which makes a 2020 Chrome hobby box quite appealing. Sealed 2020 Chrome hobby boxes are now selling for multiples of their original price and professional investors hold these unopened boxes for this very reason.

There are some additional uniqueness with the 2020 collection:

70th Anniversary refractor card variations: Topps celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2021, so to mark the occasion it included 70th Anniversary variation cards in many of its 2020 sports cards collections.

These cards can be easily spotted by the large “70” double stripe logo that appears on the card. In the 2020 Chrome set, there are gold, orange and red 70th anniversary refractor cards which are slightly rarer than the regular gold, orange and red refractors.

Lando 70th Anniversary Gold Refractor card. See the large “70” stripe logo.

Rookies: George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon were rookies. These 3 drivers have rookie driver cards (marked by “RC” checkered flag logo) that are highly valued especially for George and Lando.

Alex Albon has rookie cards for 2 different teams in 2020 Chrome set

Alex’s card values dived a bit with his absence from the grid in 2021 but Alex is also unique in that he was a rookie for both Toro Rosso and Red Bull during the 2020 season. So he has rookie driver cards in both team overalls (cards #156 and #198).

George, Lando and Alex will surely be leading drivers on the grid for at least the next 5 seasons, so while their rookie cards won’t be at Max or Lewis levels, they will still retain good values. If either of them achieves a world championship, then these values will increase accordingly.

F2 rookies: The 2020 set also had F2 Future star driver cards for Zhou, Yuki, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin. Yuki, Nikita and Mick would have official rookie cards in the 2021 set but F2 cards of popular drivers often end up more valuable than their official rookie F1 card (Zhou, Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton F2 cards are good examples).

Zhou GuanYu has a F2 Future Stars card in the 2020 Chrome set. His base and refractor driver portrait card are sought after by his Chinese fans

Drive to Survive 2020 themes: Sebastian Vettel’s final season with Ferrari. For tifosi, 2020 Topps Chrome cards are the only ones with Sebastian in the prancing horse (other than Driver of the Day card #165 in the 2021 set). 2020 was also the year of the Racing Point’s pink liveried Mercedes W09 clone – if you were a fan of the pink BWT overalls of Checo or Lance, then you should look at the 2020 cards. If you are a DTS or Danny Ric fan, then you will find 2020 Chrome cards with Daniel in the Renault kit.

Team logo cards in 2020 Chrome are like chromium mirrors with clean crisp layout.

Team logo cards for F1 and F2 teams: These are ultra clean and simple cards but the refractors of tops teams like Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari are still sought after. Williams fans can get a Claire Williams team principal card. The F1 Attax collection has always included team cards but Topps dropped them from Chrome after the 2020 collection.

Driver portrait variations (short prints): For the 2020 series, Topps produced 10 driver image variation cards (also commonly called “short prints”). Unlike later series, the 2020 short prints are the ten F1 drivers (Lewis, Valterri, Max, Alex, Seb, Charles, Pierre, Lando, George and Esteban) in an alternate sitting portrait pose. In 2021 and 2022, the image variations are of the drivers trackside or in their cockpits.

George’s pose is one of 10 driver image variations in the 2020 series

Refractors are labeled on the rear face of the card

Collectors prize 2020 Chrome refractor cards and this is still reflected in the resale values of 2020 refractors. The odds of a basic refractor card was 1 per 3 Chrome packs. The rainbow effect of the 2020 basic refractors is quite subtle compared to later years cards. Another easy way to identify refractor cards is that Topps includes a refractor label on the rear of the card.

The rarer refractors in the set are the gold, orange, red ones and of course the single superfractor and the negative image printing plates. The pack odds for 2020 Chrome refractor cards are:

Purple refractors – population 399 (1 every 9 packs)
Gold refractors – population 50 (1 per 68 packs)
Gold wave refractors – population 50 (1 per 68 packs)
70th Anniversary gold refractors – (1 per 30 packs)
Orange Refractors – population 25 (1 every 136 packs)
Orange wave refractors – population 25 (1 every 36 packs)
70th Anniversary orange refractors – (1 per 46 packs)
Red refractors – population 5 (1 every 680 packs)
Red wave refractors – population 5 (1 every 680 packs)
70th Anniversary red refractors (1 every 848 packs)
Printing plates – population 1 (1 every 838 packs with black, cyan, magenta and yellow plates)
70th Anniversary superFractors – (1 every 3,384 packs)
SuperFractors – population 1 (1 every 3,419 packs)
Base image variation (1 per 228 packs)
Track Tags base insert (1 per 6 packs)
Track Tags insert gold & gold wave (1 per 910 packs), orange (1 per 1,819 packs), red (1 per 9,116 packs) , superfractor (1 per 43,757 packs), printing plate (1 per 11,125 packs)
1954 Topps World on Wheels base insert (1 per 3 packs)
1954 Topps World on Wheels insert gold & gold wave (1 per 391 packs), orange (1 per 782 packs), red (1 per 3,907 packs) , superfractor (1 per 19,305 packs), printing plate (1 per 4,791 packs)
Autograph variation (1 per 64 packs)
Autograph parallel green (1 per 322 packs), gold (1 per 362 packs), gold wave (1 per 268 packs), orange (1 per 516 packs), red (1 per 2,2574 packs), superfractor 1/1 (1 per 12,870 packs), printing plate (1 per 3,234 packs).

I’ve previously posted about values of rare 2020 Chrome F1 cards where Lewis’ cards followed cards with Max then Charles clearly dominate trading card values in the collector resale market.

Of course, driver autograph cards are the most sought after cards by collectors and while I missed the boat on 2020 Chrome autograph cards, these cards and their decent pull odds are a major attraction with the 2020 Chrome series. There are 52 autograph cards in the 2020 series. Anyone who managed to pull or collect a 2020 series F1 driver autograph can safely hold onto these as they will always be highly prized.

Danny Ric 2020 autograph card

George’s #19 printing plate. There are 4 different colour printing plates (black, CMY)

There are only 5 red refractors. This is the red one for Charles’ driver portrait card #4

70th Anniversary Gold superfractor of Red Bull team logo card. You can see 2020 superfractors have gold circles in the background.

The other thing to note for 2020 Chrome cards is the known bubble edge issue with many of the parallel cards. Midway down the left edge of the rear face of the card (holding it in landscape), there tends to be some minor bubbling on the card edge.

2021 Topps Chrome

2021 and 2022 Topps F1 Chrome packs (4 cards per pack)

2021 Chrome driver base cards changed their design from plain chrome to a chrome border with decorative backdrop

The 2021 collection marked some new variations by Topps. Importantly, hobby boxes were made available in a cheaper Lite box version which didn’t contain any autograph cards (only available from regular hobby box).

The base cards for the 2021 collection while still having chromium laminate includes much more coloured backgrounds in the driver and car images than the plain chrome in the 2020 cards.

2021 Chrome Pack rear with printed card odds. Made in Italy!

For 2021, more parallels were introduced including both checkered flag and ray waves (only in Lite boxes), with the base card set reduced to 175 cards.

Again, there are 10 image variation cards for 10 different driver base cards (Lewis, Valterri, Max, Checo, Seb, Fernando, Yuki, Kimi, Mick and Nikita) in the 2021 set. Nikita’s image variation card is definitely full of attitude!

There are 3 insert sets in the 2021 collection: Path to the Podium (1 per 6 packs), Redliners (1 per 6 packs), Topps 1961 Sports (1 per 3 packs).

2021 Chrome Lewis base card #1 image variation

2021 ray waves also come in different colour variations:

black (population 1)
black & white (1 every 4 Lite packs)
red (population 5)
green (population 99)
gold (population 50)

Topps released a much larger card population for the 2021 Chrome series and these are reflected in secondary market values of 2021 Chrome cards. Each 2021 Chrome hobby box yields 6 refractor parallel cards and 1 checkered flag parallel card. In comparison, the cheaper 2021 Chrome Lite box offers 4 ray wave parallel cards and 1 checkered flag parallel card.

The pack odds for 2021 Chrome cards parallels are:

2021 series introduced checkered flag parallels (visually, I’m not a huge fan).

base refractor (1 per 3 packs)
base image variation (1 per 557 packs)
black & white raywave (1 every 4 lite packs)
checkered flag (1 per 16 packs; 1 per box)
purple/green (1 every 37 packs)
gold/purple (1 every 80 packs)
orange/red (1 every 100 packs)
gold & gold wave (1 per 192 packs)
red/green (1 per 191 packs)
purple (population 399; 1 per 24 packs)

Yuki is one of 3 drivers with a rookie card in 2021 Chrome. The 2021 black and white raywave cards should not to be confused with the ultra rare black raywave variation!
purple checkered flag (population 199; 1 per 48 packs)
green raywave (population 99 – Lite only; 1 per 29 packs)
orange, orange wave, orange checkered flag (population 25 each; 1 per 382 packs)
red raywave (population 5; 1 per 567 cards)
red, red wave (population 5 each; 1 per 901 packs)
red checkered flag; red raywave (population 5 each, Lite only)
black raywave 1/1 (Lite only; 1 per 2,829 packs)
superfractor 1/1 (1 per 9,427 packs)
printing plates 1/1 (1 per 2,290 packs)
Path to Podium insert (1 per 5 packs) – gold or gold wave (1 per 3,316 packs), orange (1 per 6,678 packs), red (1 per 32,051 packs), superfractor (1 per 60,251 packs), printing plate (1 per 40,063 packs)
Max Out insert (1 per 5 packs) – gold or gold wave (1 per 2,226 packs), orange (1 per 4,452 packs), red (1 per 20,903 packs), superfractor (1 per 96,151 packs), printing plate (1 per 26,709 packs)
1961 Topps Sports Cards insert (1 per 3 packs) – gold or gold wave (1 per 1,336 packs), orange (1 per 2,671 packs), red (1 per 12,994 packs), superfractor (1 per 68,679 packs), printing plate (1 per 16,026 packs)

The 2021 Chrome card odds are clearly much higher than for 2020 Chrome cards as Topps obviously manufactured more boxes and therefore packs are in circulation. On the flip side, there are many more refractor variants in 2021 Chrome that can pop up randomly in a pack.

Notables in the 2021 series:

Topps added wave, raywave and checkered flag parallel refractor cards with various different colour (including dual color) bases. The black ray wave variation adds a new single rare card alongside the coveted superfractor and printing plate cards.
Official rookie cards for Mick Schumacher, Nikita Mazepin and Yuki Tsunoda. Yuki was promoted a lot as the major rookie card for 2021 season as both Mick and Nikita in the underperforming Hass were permanently the last 2 cars on the grid in almost every race. However, these also appear in 2021 flagship as images are the same across both Chrome and flagship sets.
Oscar Piastri Future Stars F2 driver portrait card #59 is Oscar’s first proper Topps driver portrait card.

2021 set has F2 Future stars cards for Oscar and Zhou
Zhou also has a Future Stars F2 driver portrait card for the second consecutive year.
Printing of some 2021 Chrome cards are visibly off centre.
2021 refractor cards have more of a distinct rainbow hue than 2020 refractors.

2022 Topps Chrome

2022 Chrome refractors and inserts

The 2022 Chrome F1 collection moved back to a 200 card base set and introduced a new pink parallel and mini diamond refractor variation cards, with certain raywaves only able to be pulled from a hobby lite box.

Base refractor card odds are the same as previous seasons (1 every 3 packs). The odds of other 2022 refractor variants are (varying slightly between hobby box packs and hobby lite box packs):

2022 Chrome pack rear with even more parallel variants and odds (much smaller fonts!). Also made in Italy.

black & white raywave – (Lite only, 1 every 4 packs)
checkered flag – (1 every 18 packs)
purple/green – (1 every 36 packs)
gold/purple – (1 every 80 packs)
orange/red – (1 every 100 packs)
red/green – (1 every 190 packs)
purple (population 399)- (1 every 19 hobby packs; 1 every 22 lite packs)
mini diamonds – (population 299) – (1 every 25 hobby packs, 1 every 30 lite packs)
purple checkered flag – (population 199) – (1 per 38 hobby packs, 1 every 45 lite packs)
green – (population 99) – (1 every 76 packs)
green raywave – (population 99) – (Lite only, 1 every 45 packs)
pink – #/75 – (1 every 100 hobby packs, 1 every 118 lite packs)
pink raywave – #/75 (Lite only – 1 every 159 lite packs)
gold or goldwave- #/50 – (1 every 150 hobby packs; 1 every 177 lite packs)

Minidiamond refractors are new for 2022 Chrome
gold checkered flag – #/50 – 1:75 packs (Hobby)
orange, orange wave and orange checkered flag – population 25 each – (1 every 300 hobby packs; 1 every 353 lite packs)
red, red wave – population /5 each – 1 every 1,497 packs
red checkered flag – population /5 (hobby) – 1 every 747 packs
red raywave – population/5 (Lite only, 1 every 879 packs)
black raywave – population 1 (Lite only, 1 every 4,337 packs)
superfractor – population 1 – (1 every 7,454 hobby packs; 1 every 8,763 lite packs)
printing plates – population 1 – (1 every 1,874 hobby packs; 1 every 2,203 lite packs)

Notables in the 2022 series:

Base card numbering was changed so that the cards for each driver are grouped together. In 2020 and 2021 series, cards #1-#20 were the driver portrait cards but for 2022 set, cards #1-#20 are Max, Lewis, Seb, Fernando and George cards.
The 10 image variation cards belong to Max (x3), Lewis (x2), Sergio, Daniel, Esteban, Valterri and Oscar.
New diamond parallel cards. These cards have a similar look to the Turbo Attax limited edition cards.
Actual official rookie driver cards for Zhou Guanyu (finally!…)
F2 driver cards worth tracking – card #199 Oscar Piastri (official 2021 F2 champion), Filipe Drugovich (future 2022 F2 champion), F2 rookie card for Logan Sargeant and final F2 season for F1 hopeful Liam Lawson.
Art du Prix inserts – these are artwork cards for 5 historic grand prix circuits – Monza, Barcelona, Silverstone, Zandvoort and Circuit of the Americas. Not sure how appealing these cards have been with collectors, as their artwork is not at the level of classic F1 posters like the Monaco GP posters or paintings by famous F1 artists like Michael Turner.
Introduction of “Constructor Coalition” team drivers insert cards. Team driver cards have always been produced in the Turbo Attax series but this is the first time in Chrome.

2023 Topps Chrome

There are no Lite boxes for Chrome 2023 series – so that means no cloth relic cards and no black, green or pink ray wave refractors. Instead, there are new parallel variations including fuchsia, red-green and aqua wave refractors.

So all boxes are hobby boxes and there’s 1:2 chance of scoring an autograph card. 2023 hobby boxes now contain 20 packs instead of 18 packs in the 2022 Chrome hobby boxes.

New rarer inserts for 2023 set are the Futuro, F1 Armour, Turn Up the Lights and Hidden Gems cards.

Other observations:

Flexed cards fresh from the pack – I can’t speak for others but the cards that I have pulled from a recent hobby box appear to all have a noticeable bow (i.e. not 100% flat) which is likely to reduce their grading quality.

Card number positions – for the 2023 set, the card number now appears in the top right (reverse side of the card in landscape mode). If you stack your cards in a box upright in portrait, you now can’t see the card number when flicking through the deck.

Driver card number grouping – gone are the days when cards #1-20 were dedicated to driver portrait cards.

Liam Lawson doesn’t have a card in this collection despite 5 races in 2023 but Daniel Ricciardo is included.

Camber insert cards – there are multiple variant camber cards for the drivers but the differences are only the portrait pose of the driver’s face, which is really an unnecessary increase to the card checklist.
Faded photos on the Speed Demon insert cards – this years’ Speed Demon insert cards look quite amateurish compared to the design of the same insert cards in the 2022 set.

Many F2 card portrait photos are reused photos from 2023 Turbo Attax F1 driver cards – see Enzo Fittipaldi, Theo Pourchaire, Alex Albon, Senna short print, etc.

2023 Chrome Albon #61 v 2023 Turbo Attax #MEG8 – Photo look familar?

The Legends base cards (Senna, Mansell, Prost, Coulthard) are disappointing monochrome photos with sponsors removed (although the Camber insert cards and Legends autograph cards use colour photos).

Oscar Piastri features heavily in Topps’ marketing, so if you’re an Oscar fan you can expect his parallel cards to be very popular.

It will be interesting to see how Chrome 2023 card values track as hobby boxes are currently available via Topps website for USD$249.

Chrome Cards Snapshot:

Card Size: standard 3.5″ x 2.5″

Thickness: 16pt paper stock with gloss laminate front layer

Texture: Slippery gloss front, matt rear

Finishing/Detail: Base cards have chromium laminate front layer. Refractors and parallel cards have rainbow and coloured chrome effect.

Cost:

2020 Chrome hobby box original list price: US$500-$600, current average online price: US$1850 (sold on eBay)
2021 Chrome hobby box original list price: US$500-550 hobby box, current average online price: US$350
2022 Chrome hobby Lite box original list price: US$125/GBP £125
2022 Chrome hobby box original list price: US$250/GBP £299
2023 Chrome hobby box original list price: US$250/GBP £299

Comments & Tips for Collecting:

2020 Chrome card values – Being the maiden year for Topps F1 Chrome cards, the 2020 series compared to later seasons is kind of similar to bitcoin relative to alt-coins. The 2020 series base, refractor and parallel cards are always going to be more valuable than their 2021 and 2022 counterparts. The only exceptions of course are the cards for the new drivers like Oscar Piastri. If you are a late collector, it’s worthwhile having even a few favourite driver base cards from the 2020 collection as they will still retain good value relative to later season base cards. If you have or manage to pickup a 2020 F1 driver parallel card, even better – these will likely have good long term value as 2020 cards are the base year for Topps F1 cards.

Watch for potential price dips following a driver’s exit – Values of cards do track the career form of a driver, especially if that driver loses their seat in the following season. Witness Alex Albon’s form slump and temporary exit in 2021. The year Alex was out (2022) would have been a good year to pickup some cheap 2020 Topps Chrome Albon cards. With his better form on return with Williams, you can see his card values have slightly improved. Oscar Piastri is another great example. The 2021 F2 champion was without a drive during 2022 and his 2021 Topps Chrome rookie card values were flat with the chance he may not be promoted to a full time F1 seat. With Oscar’s uptick in results with McLaren, Oscar’s rarer parallel cards being bid up also. We’re seeing the same thing happen to a lesser degree with Daniel Riccardo’s return to the grid this year. So will this year, prove to be a good opportunity to grab some discounted Mick Schumacher cards?

High cost for fresh Chrome cards – Collecting Chrome cards is expensive, especially if you want to try to build up to full set from single packs which only have 4 cards. Both Chrome Lite and regular hobby boxes are expensive when first released by Topps but if you can wait a few months, you will find retailers offering discounted prices on current 2022 Chrome boxes (especially Lite boxes) to clear their stock. Professional card collectors seem to only place value on refractors and numbered parallel cards rather than keeping base cards, so you can pickup base cards on marketplace sites usually at a cheaper cost per single card than buying from a new pack.

Investing in sealed hobby boxes. Some retailers and collectors keep sealed Chrome boxes in storage to resell a few years later – this investment strategy worked for the 2020 series but it’s not so clear whether that will apply to resale prices of sealed 2021 or 2022 hobby boxes.

To view previous instalments in this guide, click below: