That’s easy: the hottest card released since the 2006 Topps Alex Gordon.
Thanks to a last-minute Photoshop enhancement, the 2007 Topps Derek Jeter card has become the talk of the town, not to mention the hobby itself.
With seemingly never-ending front-page news coverage from coast-to-coast, including The New York Daily News, which was the first newspaper to "expose" this phenomenon with a headline, this card went from $2 to $250 literally overnight.
Never mind the fact that this card was printed in abundance, people were climbing out of the hobby woodwork to secure a mint copy. And with that, came more price fluctuation that the New York Stock Exchange.
If you are a collector, and regularly embark on the challenge of assembling your own 2007 Topps set, you probably had already purchased a box or two from your local hobby shop.
This year, Topps stepped up to the plate and included a bevy of certified autographs not present in previous base Topps offerings. The checklist is star-studded with the likes of top rookie Andrew Miller, Ryan Zimmerman, Chien-Ming Wang and Ryan Howard, there’s a little bit of something for everyone.
In addition, there’s a nice collection of relic cards and full-letter patches from actual game-used All-Star jerseys. There’s also the gold parallel set and a copper parallel set, which replaces the ultra-popular black parallel set.
Topps also continued with its Mantle HR series and also included a new running-series memorializing the long-ball history of Josh Gibson.
From Jeter to autographs to relics to Mantle to Gibson, the 2007 Topps baseball brand is still the most popular thing Topps, and the hobby in general, has going. Kudos to Topps for putting out a stellar base product, yet again.
