2025-26 Topps Cosmic Chrome Basketball, by the numbers
October 10, 2026
Cosmic Chrome is the odd one out in this season's Topps basketball line: a hobby box with no guaranteed autograph, built around inserts and space-themed refractors. It came out on April 29, 2026. We ran Topps' odds, the pick-your-team breaks at two shops and about 8,400 card sales through the WaxMath model. Here's what the numbers say, as of October 10, 2026.
The short version
- A hobby box holds 80 cards and about 1 autograph in every 3 boxes. Most boxes have none.
- Boxes presold at $579. Sealed boxes have sold for about $950 lately.
- A typical box holds about $197 of cards. The average is $356.
- In a case break, a team spot's cards are worth about 30¢ for every $1 on average and about 14¢ in a typical break.
- No team has even a 1-in-10 good break that covers its spot price.
- No shop we track has a Cosmic Chrome break open right now. The spot prices here are the last ones listed, from May 2026.
The box
| Hobby | |
|---|---|
| Packs | 20 packs of 4 cards |
| Boxes per case | 8 |
| Presale price (March 31) | $579 |
| What sealed boxes sell for now | about $950 |
The current price is the middle of 11 sealed boxes sold on eBay in the last 45 days. There are also First Day Issue and Lunar boxes; Topps' odds sheet covers hobby only, so that's what this post covers.
What one hobby box gets you
These are expected counts, straight from Topps' odds:
| Per hobby box | Expected |
|---|---|
| Autographs | 0.37 |
| Numbered cards | 2.5 |
| Parallels | 4.7 |
| Inserts | 12.9 |
And your chances at the cards people chase:
| Chance of pulling | In 1 box | In a case (8) |
|---|---|---|
| Any autograph | 31% | 95% |
| Numbered auto /50 or rarer | 17% | 77% |
| Numbered auto /25 or rarer | 9% | 53% |
| Any 1/1 card | 0.8% | 6% |
For a specific player, an autograph of Kon Knueppel is about 1 in 124 boxes. Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey are each about 1 in 177, and Victor Wembanyama about 1 in 181. This is not the product to chase a rookie autograph in: Topps Chrome's jumbo box gives you a Flagg autograph about once every 19 boxes.
Planetary Pursuit
The chase insert is Planetary Pursuit: ten players, each with ten cards, one for each planet (the set counts the Sun and Pluto). The planets are not equally rare. A Sun card is roughly 1 in every 4 boxes across the ten players; a Pluto card is roughly 1 in every 1,500 boxes. With about 83,000 hobby boxes made, that is only five or six Pluto cards per player.
How many were made
Topps doesn't publish print runs, but the numbered parallels give it away: a /50 card exists in exactly 50 copies, so its odds tell you how many packs were opened to find them. Working back from the numbered versions, we estimate about 83,000 hobby boxes, or roughly 10,400 cases.
What a box is worth
We priced every card a box can hold: expected pulls from Topps' odds × what each card sells for, using real sales where they exist and a model of player demand and rarity where they don't. Then we opened simulated boxes.
| One hobby box | |
|---|---|
| Price | about $950 |
| Average card value | $356 |
| Typical box | $197 |
| 8 boxes in 10 land between | $93 and $660 |
A typical box gives back about 21¢ on the dollar. At the $579 presale price the same box would have given back about 34¢.
Breaks: what team spots cost
We found pick-your-team case breaks at Layton Sports Cards and The Clubhouse, six full-case listings in all. None is open now: every one has sold out, and the newest was listed in May 2026. So these are last-known prices, and a break listed today could be priced differently.
- A full case of team spots: about $9,610 at those prices.
- The case averages only 2.9 autographs in total, spread across 30 teams.
The most expensive spots:
| Team | Spot | Average card value | Typical break | Chance to break even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mavericks | $1,872 | $675 | $204 | 6% |
| Spurs | $1,472 | $519 | $283 | 7% |
| Hornets | $1,037 | $188 | $70 | 2% |
| Lakers | $884 | $287 | $164 | 4% |
| Warriors | $494 | $191 | $53 | 7% |
The two shops disagreed most on the Hornets: $799 at Layton and $1,275 at The Clubhouse.
Which spots were priced best?
None was good value. Our estimates are good to about ±30% per team, so read these as rough groups:
- Least bad (cards worth 36¢ to 51¢ per $1): the Knicks ($130), Rockets ($87), Suns ($80), Warriors ($494), Wizards ($90) and Mavericks ($1,872).
- Worst (19¢ or less per $1): the Kings ($150), Magic ($157), Hornets ($1,037) and Jazz ($350).
- The Hornets are the most overpriced of the big spots. The price is Kon Knueppel, and with so few autographs in the product a Hornets buyer is mostly paying for his base cards and inserts.
Our take
Cosmic Chrome is an insert product at an autograph-product price. The cards are fun and the refractors look great, but at about $950 a box you are paying well above the presale price for a box that usually has no autograph in it.
- If you like the product: buy one cheap team spot for the inserts and parallels of the players you collect, if a shop lists a break. Several teams cost under $100 the last time breaks were listed.
- Chasing a rookie autograph: look elsewhere. A case of Cosmic Chrome averages about three autographs in total.
- Sealed boxes: hard to justify at today's price unless you want the rip itself.
Box prices and card values above are as of October 10. The card values rest on sales from July and early August; the live guide updates as newer sales come in.
Prices change daily. The live guide has the full checklist and odds, what a box returns and the last listed spot prices. Odds are Topps', as published on Checklist Insider. Sold prices are eBay sales and public auction results. See our methodology for how every number is made.