A beginners guide to Topps F1 trading cards (Part 5/6) – F1 Lights Out
In addition to the Turbo Attax and Chrome collections, Topps also produce another annual F1 trading card collection set called F1 Lights Out.
Available online from Topps in boxes of 25 cards, F1 Lights Out is marketed as a neon night card version portrayal of the season’s F1 drivers, cars and teams.
2021 set
The complete 2021 set consists of 40 cards but they are not numbered. Each box contain 5 packs with 5 cards inside each pack (total of 25 cards with a numbered parallel card guaranteed). The 2021 set featured 20 driver cards, “History Maker” cards (Lewis, Kimi and Alpine), “Powertrain” cards (team car chassis), “Rookie race” cards (Mick, Yuki and Nikita) and “World Champion” cards (Seb, Fernando, Lewis and Kimi).
2021 F1 Lights Out cards for Lando and Yuki. Driver numbers are neon lighted in the background.
There are no inserts or autograph cards in the F1 Lights Out series.
The gold parallel cards (1/1) have a gold frame and the card weight is heavier. Similar to flagship cards, if you’re buying single pack online in the hope of a possible gold parallel, beware if the vendor is advertising this possibility as they can weigh the pack beforehand.
2021 F1 Lights Out World Champion cards (rear)
Parallels follow similar colours as other Topps collections and include:
- blue (#/99)
- green (#/75)
- aqua (#/50)
- purple (#/25)
- red (#/10)
- rainbow foil (#/5)
- gold frame foil (1/1).
Lewis World Champion gold frame foil card
2021 F1 Lights Out cards feel thinner and flex more that regular Topps Now or flagship cards. They can definitely bend more easily.
Unlike Chrome and Topps Now, the rear face of F1 Lights Out cards do not include any information or statistics content. It’s actually quite bland. I was hoping the World Champions cards would like more detail on the card rears but there’s nothing meaningful other than basic titles. F1 Lights Out cards are really just amped up graphics designed cards.
As F1 Lights Out are print to demand cards, Topps produced 1,674 boxes of the 2021 series.
2022 set
The 2022 set is made up of 62 cards, again not numbered. The 2022 boxes also come with 5 packs (25 cards) but 2 parallels cards are guaranteed instead of 1.
For the 2022 series, Topps added more parallels too and introduced a “Nero” theme cards. Again, Topps elected to produce more parallel colour variations for 2022 including:
- pink (#/150)
- teal (#/99)
- bronze (#/75)
- green (#/49)
- blue (#/25)
- purple (#/15)
- red (#/10)
- rainbow foil (#/5)
- gold frame foil (1/1)
The parallel population don’t follow the typical size associated with these colours in the previous 2021 collection (or Chrome either).
Max’s 2022 F1 Lights Out driver card (there are 2 other image variations though)
Max’s 2022 Chrome base card…photo look familiar?
F1 Lights Out cards snapshot:
Card size: standard 3.5″ x 2.5″
Thickness: feels thinner than flagship paper stock
Texture: Slippery gloss front and rear
Finishing/Detail: Full card dark neon coloured background for base cards. Parallel cards are serial numbered and have alternate coloured backgrounds.
Cost: 2021 box(25 cards) -original box price $USD45/£34.99; 2022 box – original box price $USD/£45
Like a lot of collectors, I was initially attracted to the attractive dark neon design of Lights Out cards however, like Topps Now cards their direct buy price from Topps is expensive and base cards don’t hold their value. They are definitely pretty to look at but collectors are basically buying Lights Out boxes to mine for numbered parallel cards.
The Powertrain cards are very nice if you like the cars rather than the drivers! this 2022 McLaren rainbow foil sold for $449USD via ebay recently
The other issue is that the driver portrait photos are similar to the Chrome set for the same year except with a different background (although there are variant driver images).
One thing that F1 Lights Out does do better than the other Topps cards are the car chassis “Powertrain” cards – have to admit if you like to fawn over the cars rather than the drivers, then these cards look great (especially the 2021 Powertrain cards).
Comments & Tips for Collecting:
Unless your absolute aim is to pull a parallel card (which is guaranteed in a box), it’s better to wait until mid-year and buy single cards online. You will probably find single F1 Lights Out base cards are generally priced even lower than Chrome base cards.
However, if you can pickup a discounted sealed F1 Lights out box (there are some that can be picked up for below £50 in the UK but the average list price in the US is in the much higher $75USD+ range) the lower dollar cost per card may be low enough for you to consider buying. Even assuming $90USD box price inclusive of delivery costs, the dollar cost per card is $3.60USD ($90/25). By comparison Topps Now F1 cards which Topps sell direct online are $USD9.99 per card unless you buy in bulk quantities of 5 cards or more.
In the next and final part of this beginners guide, we’ll look at Topps Now F1 cards.
To view previous instalments in this guide, click below:
