Rorypicks

A Little Housekeeping- I have 5 products to clean up: 2026 Museum Collection MLB 2026 Museum Collection UEFA 2026 Inception NFL 2026 Five Star MLB 2026 Royalty UFC The thing about these premium(ish) or at least more limited products: when nearly every card is numbered, there aren't a whole lot of mysteries left for me to solve. Topps already tells us the hit rates. Nearly all the print runs are stamped right on the cards. And if you're spending this kind of money on wax, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you're getting yourself into. You really don't need the Squatch squawking about lousy value investments. I can still dig into overall production, make a few relevant comparisons to similar releases, and maybe uncover a nugget or two worth discussing. But honestly, that's about it. There's not need to do a deep dive on these when a few basic facts will do the trick. So I'll be knocking all these out with one post. Let's do it. 2026 Museum Collection MLB Drop date: Tomorrow, Wednesday November 11th @ 12pm CT Box pricing: $420 Last year's launch pricing: $400 Surprisingly, from a drop price perspective, these haven't spiked in price much, having been right around that $400 price point for a few years now. However, secondary market certainly has with last year's boxes currently listed at ~$750/box at online resellers. And as expected, pre-orders of 2026 Museum are already at ~$750 as well on the same sites. Total cards in product- 355,360 2025 Museum- 327,200 YOY +8.6% Total Hobby boxes produced- 44,420 (5,553 cases) Configuration: 1 pack of 8 cards Boxes calculate to 2.2 Autos/box (1.2 Autos, 1 Relic Auto). Topps states 2, so I would expect to see an extra auto in some boxes. 1 Relic/box. The rest will be a combo of base & base parallels. Price Metrics (at $420 drop price): $/Card- $52.50 $/Parallel- $240.34 $/Auto- $190.26 $/Quality Hit- $135.73 Base card print run: ~1,280 ea I believe everything else is numbered. Takeaways: •At drop price, I don't hate this as a rip. $420 seems fair enough for 2-ish autos and a relic, with some nice top-end name potential. •I'd call it a safe stash. Just know that simply because online donks have it priced at $750 doesn't mean it will sell for that. If you're flipping or stashing to resell later, you will likely have to come in well lower in order to actually unload them. •~$136 per Quality Hit is actually solid. I would rip this at $420/box over most other premium MLB products. Museum has a nice higher-end look and feel without a bonkers price. There really are some fantastic cards in the product. Atelier Auto Book Cards are awesome. But be aware there are also plenty of autos that would be a bummer to pull from any box, much less a $420 one. • If you can't land it on drop, take the lump and move on. It's definitely not a $750/box product. 2026 Museum Collection UEFA Drop date: September 18th. Release day price- $400 Current market price- $650 There's also a Hat Trick SKU with 6 Autos/3 Relics per box, but they're tough to find and $2200/box seems pretty ludicrous. Total cards in product: 249,864 (This is 30% smaller than Museum MLB.) Total Boxes produced: Hobby- 28,200 boxes (3,525 cases) Hat Trick- 2,696 boxes (337 cases) Configuration: 1 pack of 8 cards Hit Rates in UEFA should be very similar to the MLB version, except it's not showing extra autos with any regularity. There is not as broad of a checklist, so there are higher numbered variants than you'll find in MLB. Hit Rates: 2 Total Autos (1 Relic Auto), 1 Relic per box. Price Metrics (at current market price of $650/Hobby): $/card- $81.25 $/Parallel- $325.00 $/Auto- $325.00 $/Quality Hit- $291.57 Unlike Museum MLB, there are 2 Insert subsets in UEFA, Museum Roll of Honor & The Grail, an ongoing one-card insert set featuring Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Base Card Print Run: ~865 copies ea Takeaways: •Tons of star power potential. Again, some fantastic looking cards. Legacy Laces Auto Relics are amazing. •Since I wasn't able to analyze before launch, the window has closed on getting it for a reasonable price. •~$292 per quality hit is rough for a soccer product, regardless of the density of huge names. 2026 Inception NFL Drop date: Last Friday, November 6th. Release day price: $380/box Current Market: $465/box Total cards in product: 390,600 Total boxes produced: Hobby- 54,000 (6,750 cases) First Day Issue- 1,800 (225 cases) Configuration: 1 pack of 7 cards Hit Rates: 1.5 Autos/Box (Topps states 1 Auto/Box), 2 Parallels, 1.5 Numbered Cards There are two Inserts subsets, which are both rare and should combine to fall ~1 per case: Launch & Rookie Short Prints. Price Metrics: $/Card- $54.29 $/Parallel- $190.00 $/Auto- $259.84 $/# Card- $254.67 $/Rare Insert- $3,040.00 $/Quality Hit- $255.42 Print Runs: Base cards- ~900 ea Base Green- ~125 ea Rookie Green- ~125 ea Launch (25 card CL)- ~140 ea Rookie Short Prints (25 card CL)- ~140 ea Rookie Auto Variations (20 card CL)- ~275 ea Rookie Auto Variations Green- ~200 ea Rookie Autos (46 card CL)- ~300 ea Rookie Autos Green- ~200 ea Takeaways: •Looks like an acid trip on cardboard. Honestly, I don't hate it. •From a production standpoint, this is not far off of Museum MLB, showing that it is a very limited product. •One stated auto per box with a checklist of almost entirely rookies makes for an awfully low floor. Hopefully for rippers, the odds stand true because they're showing extra Autos. •I don't believe there's ever been a single Inception SKU that I would call a good value. Inception is priced like a premium product, with an appropriate production run. But for some reason singles values have never done much in baseball. I suspect the same will be true for football. 2026 Five Star MLB Drop date: October 28th Release day price: $1,200/box 🤢 Current market: $2,275/box 🤮 Total cards in product: 54,512 Total Boxes produced: 9,085 (3,028 cases) Configuration: 6 packs of 1 card per box Hit Rates: 5 autos, 1 parallel or base /50, 0.7 Relic Autos/box Price Metrics (based on market price of $2,275/box): $/Card- $379.17 $/Auto- $455.00 $/Quality Hit- $454.76 Everything should be numbered: Takeaways: •Despite the abysmal price tag, I suppose there was an argument to be made at drop price that, with 5 autos, it wasn't a terrible value. At $1200, it's $240/Auto and ~$240/Quality Hit. Not for me, but ok. I'm hip. But at $2k+, that ship has sailed. •Cool cards & big names, but singles value is not commensurate with box pricing. This is the perfect "Buy Singles" product. 2026 Topps Royalty UFC Drop date: Friday, November 13 at 12pm CT via EQL Release day price- $800 Last year's release price- $500 This is excessive. Total Cards in product: 107,000 Boxes produced: 10,700 (2,675 cases) This represents a 36% increase over Royalty WWE. This is also excessive. Configuration: 1 pack of 10 cards Hit Rates: 5 Autos, 3 Relics, 1 Base /99 & 1 Base Parallel Price Metrics: $/Card- $80.00 $/Auto- $160.00 $/Quality Hit- $88.89 (Every single card in the product aside from base /99 qualifies as a Quality Hit.) Everything should be numbered. Takeaways: •Royalty UFC contains one of the coolest inserts in all of sports cards, Liquid Silver, and its 1/1 parallel Liquid Gold. They are, however, incredibly rare, falling at a combined rate of 1 per ~102 boxes. There are only 105 copies (100 Silver, 5 Gold) throughout the entire product. • This would be an exciting rip, but $800 for a UFC product makes that rough. ~$89 per Quality Hit is actually pretty solid. But keep in mind the UFC singles market is soft, so that figure needs to be enticing to rip. I would not discourage anyone from ripping this at $800. I would love to myself. But it's a little out of my comfort zone. If I land any, I'll likely stash for future ROI. • I love Royalty as a premium product. It gives off strong National Treasures vibes. But I have some beefs: 1) Apparently, the packaging needs some work. When the big scandal happened over the WWE Royalty/Cena Wrestlemania Patch fiasco, many were saying it's pretty easy to crack and reseal the boxes. I haven't had one in hand, so I'm going off other's testimonies. But in a premium product like Royalty, that's a problem. This is one I would heavily avoid buying from ebay. 2) Royalty WWE was $750/box at launch. It also contained one more Auto and one less Relic than it's UFC counterpart. UFC should not be priced higher than WWE. Similar, yes. Higher, no. Especially for less substance. It won't matter for long because the nature of the product will certainly have it spiking shortly after drop, but keep in mind it was only $500 last year. Topps is letting its greed show a bit with this one. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics