Topps, Panini and Upper Deck: the manufacturers and their series

Three companies have dominated the sports card world, and the licences have shifted between them. Topps is the oldest and is associated with baseball, Panini with the sticker albums and Upper Deck with hockey. Each company has a number of recurring series released every year, and it is the series rather than the sport that determines what a box contains.

Quick facts

Topps	Chrome, Bowman, Finest and Match Attax
Panini	Prizm, Donruss, Adrenalyn XL and the sticker albums
Upper Deck	Young Guns, Artifacts and The Cup
Licences	Exclusive rights to one manufacturer at a time
Tiers	Base series, chrome series, premium, high end

Licences decide who can make what

Leagues and associations sell exclusive rights to one manufacturer at a time. This means that a league's official cards come from only one company during a licence period, and that the whole league switches manufacturer the day the licence changes hands. Cards from the previous holder then become historical, and are sometimes sought after precisely because no one can make more of them.

For you as a buyer the conclusion is simple: the league decides the company, not the other way around. Which company holds a given league has shifted over the years and is stated on the packaging.

The companies

Topps	Founded 1938. Baseball cards since 1951, entertainment licences and the trading card games Match Attax and Turbo Attax.
Panini	Italian, founded 1961. The sticker albums, football and the trading card game Adrenalyn XL.
Upper Deck	Founded 1988. Hockey cards since 1990, plus entertainment series.

Topps series

Flagship is the year's base series for each sport, with the most cards and the lowest entry point. Chrome is the same series with a chrome finish and home to the whole refractor family. Finest is the premium series with fewer but more lavish cards per box, and Sapphire has its own chrome surface in limited quantities and its own price level. Bowman is the baseball series for future names, meaning players before they have even debuted, which makes it one of the hobby's most speculative series. Dynasty sits at the top with a single card per box where almost everything is signed or carries material. Topps Now is something else entirely: single cards printed to order after an event, often within a day.

Panini's series

Prizm is Panini's best-known chrome series, with extensive colour parallels, and Mosaic does the same on a patterned surface with its own parallel ladder. Select is split into tiers within the same box, with a different design per tier. Donruss is the base series and Donruss Optic its chrome counterpart. Immaculate sits at the top with thick patch cards and autographs. Outside sports cards in the strict sense there is Adrenalyn XL, the playable football card game, and the sticker albums for tournaments and leagues, the branch Panini was built on.

Upper Deck's series

Series 1 and 2 are the season's base series in hockey, and inside them sits Young Guns, hockey collecting's best-known subset and its rookie cards. Artifacts is the dedicated series for memorabilia and autograph cards, and The Cup sits at the top with a handful of cards per box. In addition, the company makes entertainment series with sketch cards and autographs.

How the series relate to each other

The pattern is the same at all three, in four steps up:

Base series	Most cards, lowest price. Best for anyone who wants to build a complete set.
Chrome series	The same players on a different surface. This is where the colour parallels that drive value are found.
Premium series	Fewer cards, a higher share of autographs and memorabilia.
High end	A handful of cards per box where almost every card is a hit.

As a result, the same player appears in several series in the same year, in versions that can differ a hundredfold in price. That is why the series must always be stated when a card is described: "a rookie card of the player" says almost nothing about what something is worth. The channel matters in the same way: the base series in retail gives the most cards for the money, while the same series in the hobby channel has guaranteed contents per box.

Same thing, different names

Refractor	Topps' name for chrome cards with a refracting shimmer.
Prizm	Panini's equivalent of a refractor.
Parallel	Umbrella term at both for the same card in a different colour.
Insert	Subset with its own theme, found at all three.
Short print	Card printed in smaller numbers than the rest of the series.

More terms are in the glossary, and how parallels and numbering work is in the guide to parallels, refractors and numbered cards.

Which series should you choose

If you want to build a set cheaply, the base series in retail format is right, and the same answer applies if you just want to open a lot for little money. If you want a chance at autographed cards, premium series or high end in the hobby channel is the way to go. If you are chasing a particular parallel, you first need to check which series and which channel it is found in, since the same parallel is rarely found in both. And if you collect a single player, the series' rookie card is almost always the most expensive and the first you should secure.

Frequently asked questions

• Why is the same player in ten series? The manufacturer makes several series per year under the same licence.
• Which series is the finest? High end has the highest price level, but the base series has the most collectors.
• Are Topps and Panini competitors? Yes, for licences and for collectors' money.
• What is the difference between Chrome and Flagship? Same players, different card stock and different parallels.
• Why is Young Guns so well known? It is hockey collecting's rookie series, inside Upper Deck's base series.

Read more about hobby or retail, how to read the odds and the most expensive cards.

Shop: sports cards at Bangerpack.

Written by those of us who run Bangerpack. Range and prices change continuously. What applies when you read this is shown in the category.