DIGITAL DABBLINGS #21 – November Review & SDL Champions Top Cards

SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

November was yet another huge month in Topps Slam, maybe the biggest number of new cards issued thus far. It including two full waves of the huge digital exclusive set “Excellence”, a tent-pole PPV set in Survivor Series, a smaller special set for Starrcade, two full waves of Boom Comic covers, plus various daily releases, one-offs, and way more than any collector can really handle.

New Sets:

Excellence – 2 Waves (40 base, 5 sigs, 5 undertaker, 1 superstar insert per wave)
Topps Picks
Triumph Wave 1
Women’s Division Finishers and Signature Moves (17 cards + Award)
Boom Comics Wave 5
Heritage 2017 Wave 2
Survivor Series 2017 (Base, signatures, NXT poster, Teams, Posters, NOW)
Boom Survivor Series What If
Jeff Hardy Artwork (9 cards + Award)
Boom Comics Wave 6
Infinite Wave 3
Thanksgiving Bundle Cards
Starrcade (Base, Signatures)
Black Friday Bundle Cards
Steel Base (48 cards)
Signature/Kiss Cards
Cyber Monday Bundle Cards
Apps Tuesday Bundle Cards

Live Signatures

Stephanie McMahon/Triple H

VIP Signatures

Kairi Sane

Inserts

Kurt Angle Special Signature (500cc)

Base Variants

Purple Kurt Angle, Becky Lynch, Bayley
Gold Rush – Iron Sheik, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar

Marathons

PPV Logos #15 – Backlash, Award #3 – Royal Rumble 96. Overall Award TBD (Set Compete)
Taglines #6 – 9, Award #3, Overall Award – John Cena, Bray Wyatt, Neville, Ted DiBiase, Kurt Angle (Award #3), Ric Flair (Overall Award) (Set Complete)
Headlines #3 – 7 – Kairi Sane, Rusev, John Cena, Elias, Pete Dunne
Fuel #3 – 6, Award #1 – Mark Henry, Corey Graves, Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, Jake “The Snake” Roberts (Award #1)
NXT Series 2 #1 – 5, Award #1, Montez Ford, Sonya Deville, Tino Sabatelli, Liv Morgan, Adam Cole (Award #1), Alexander Wolfe

New Insert Set Checklists

Topps Picks

Naomi
Shinsuke Nakamura
Seth Rollins
Finn Balor

Award – Asuka (1052cc)

Triumph Wave 1 (5000cc)

Bobby Roode
Aiden English
Bob Backlund
Drew Gulak
Jimmy Uso
Tyler Breeze
Samir Singh
Sin Cara

Award – Trish Stratus (2344)

Boom Wave 5 “WWE #3”

Seth Rollins
Edge
Bayley
Ric Flair
Royal Rumble
Dude Love Action Figure
Raw Women’s’ Championship Title Belt

Boom Survivor Series “What If” (500cc)

What if Bret Screwed Shawn?
Brock/Goldberg

Boom Wave 6 “WWE #11”

Roman Reigns
Ricky the Dragon Steamboat
Ted DiBiase
Royal Rumble

Signature/Kiss Cards (250cc)

Becky Lynch
Liv Morgan

Infinite Wave 3 (2 variations)

Dash Wilder
Nikki Cross
Triple H
Becky Lynch
Zach Ryder
Jack Gallagher
Mandy Rose
Velveteen Dream

Award – Undertaker

Thanksgiving Bundle Set

Roman Reigns (650 Diamonds)
Bayley (2200 Diamonds)
Jeff Hardy (4400 Diamonds)
Alexa Bliss (11000 Diamonds)
Seth Rollins (22000 Diamonds)

Award – Ultimate Warrior Signature

Black Friday Bundle Set

The Miz
Drew McIntyre
Trish Stratus
Dean Ambrose
Charlotte Flair

Award – Sasha Banks Signature (36)

Cyber Monday Bundle Set

Naomi
Asuka
Bobby Roode
Braun Strowman
Brock Lesnar

Award – AJ Styles Signature (22)

Static

Naomi
Rhyno
Andre the Giant
Dana Brooke
Shawn Michaels
Andrade “Cien” Almas
TJP

Award – Samoa Joe

Apps Tuesday Bundle Set

Adam Colea
Ric Flair
Becky Lynch
Lita
Macho Man Randy Savage

Award – Shawn Michaels Signature (22cc)

The major releases of the month were clearly “Excellence” and Survivor Series. Excellence, as aforementioned, is a “digital exclusive”, it even says so on the back of the cards. Each wave had a base set of 20, signature set of 5, an Undertaker tribute set of 5, and a single poster type release (Finn Balor in Wave 1, Bobby Roode in Wave 2). There were FIVE variations of the base set, with the most common black and green being available for coins, and orange, purple (500cc) and gold (100cc) being behind the paywall. Signatures were available in three variations, black at 1250, green at 750 and purple at 150. Some Wave 1 signatures did not sell out prior to the entire wave’s deadline, so they were inserted into Wave 2 packs, and in fact as of this writing purple sigs are still available. Wave 1’s sigs offered nothing new, while Wave 2 held first single sigs of Ruby Riot(t), Ember Moon and the “legend” Junk Yard Dog. Single purple sigs topped out at $25, but can be had for much less, while Greens never made it higher than $8 apiece.

Survivor Series is the second set for this annual major show, and just like last year, it was huge. Over 80 base cards split between the NXT and Main rosters, were issued in four variants, black and blue being available in coin packs, with red and purple (500cc) behind the paywall. The same four colors were used for the signature sets with black uncapped, blue at 1250, red at 750 and purple at 250. The signature set of five cards included two dual sigs from the main roster (Alexa/Charlotte and The Miz/Baron Corbin) and three from NXT (Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas single, Undisputed Era & Sanity Triples). The award was a dual sig of Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles. The purple dual of the two women champions almost made it to $25, while the NXT triples and the male purples didn’t go much higher than $15. Reds topped out at $10, but were on average much lower.

The two hottest cards of the month weren’t even in a major release, they were the first ever “Kiss” cards in the game. Single cards of Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan were issued a couple weeks ago and sold out their 250cc print run in minutes. Lots of both cards have gone as high as $45, with Becky alone selling for $20 to $35 while Liv goes for $20 to $25.

Gold Rush always send the player base into a whirlwind of activity, until those 50 cards have actually traded hands a couple of times and then they settle down into obscurity and become “grails” for player collectors. Brock topped out at $15 and is currently available for $12. Chris Jericho also topped out at $15 and is available for $12 right now, but has sold for slightly less in the past. The legendary tweeter The Iron Sheik maxed at $10 and was as cheap as $5.

Over 40 of the standard base set was released as a “steel” variant on Black Friday with a 250cc limit. They sold out in minutes as usual. Singles for superstars like Alexa and Finn went for as much as $8 apiece, despite there no award being offered.

The Topps cash grab went berserk over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend with bundle cards being offered for different diamond bundles each day for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Apps Tuesday. Each six card set had a signature award card, and none of them ended up more than 36cc total. Cards for the $50 and $100 bundles are in extremely short supply.

Heritage returned for a second wave of more of the same, the most exciting part of which was the first sigs of Tomasso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano, who used to make up the DIY Tag Team in NXT.

Boom Comics accounted for two and a half sets this month, including their first all-paywall set, the two card Survivor Series “What If?” set which is still available for 900 diamonds for 1 or 1500 diamonds for both cards. Boom cards continue to be popular with traders who overvalue them upon release, they don’t realize that almost immediately upon release full sets are available for under $3.

The December VIP Signature care was actually worth chasing this month, as it was the first sig of NXT newcomer and the winner of the Mae Young Classic Kairi Sane. Of course, it sold out in a few minutes unlike previous months’ chase cards. Singles are selling for between $7 and $10.

Smackdown Live Top Stars Top Cards

So I meant to write this up over a month ago, but as I really didn’t want to write about Jinder Mahal and Natalya, I decided to wait, and of course we were all rewarded with new champions right before Survivor Series. This frankly saved the show in my humble opinion. Despite losing to Brock, AJ really showed that he is the top guy over on Smackdown.

A.J. Styles Top 10 Slam Cards as of December 5, 2017

Card	CC	HI	Lo
2017 Off the Panels NYCC Variant	50	65	20
2017 Cyber Monday Award Signature	22	60	50
2017 Undisputed Triple Sig w/Dean Ambrose & John Cena	250	41	20
2017 Live Signature Green	250	30	10
2016 Undisputed Silver Signature	50	30	25
2016 Survivor Series Gold Signature	50	22	15
2017 Royal Rumble Black Dual Award w/John Cena	30	20	15
2017 Battleground Gold Award	59	18	13
2016 NOW No Mercy	291	16	5
2016 Summerslam Orange Dual Signature w/John Cena	50	17	12

So far Topps has given AJ as the award for completing a set a massive 31 times, many of them being PPV award due to his sheer amount of time as WWE Champion. He has 5 different award cards under 100cc, four of them being sigs. He has 13 sub 100cc PPV cards. Also he personally inscripted 10 1/1 Live Signature cards. I haven’t done a full analysis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if AJ still holds the record for most sigs in the game and most individual cards in the game.

Clearly AJ is popular with fans and in game. Fully 7 of the top 10 are 59cc or less, and only 3 cards have him featured with another performer. Dollar amount wise he’s amongst the top men in the game in terms of value, but his cards don’t really make fans salivate with a “must own” type mentality. He’s certainly no “Demon King”.

Charlotte Flair Top 10 Slam Cards as of December 5, 2017

Card	CC	HI	Lo
2017 NOW Roadblock Relic	25	135	125
2017 Undisputed Triple Sig w/Becky Lynch & Sasha Banks	250	80	20
2016 Live Signature Relic	50	60	50
2016 Summerslam Orange Award Dual Signature w/Sasha Banks	55	40	30
2017 Black Friday Bundle	43	30	20
2017 Survivor Series Purple Dual Signature w/Alexa Bliss	250	24	10
2016 Live Signature Purple	250	19	14
2017 Excellence Purple Signature	250	19	14
2017 Hell In a Cell Gold Award Signature	141	19	14
2016 NOW Team Raw	153	19	14

So you thought that AJ Styles had a lot of awards? Charlotte has more with 33 different award cards. Of course she had her very own dedicated set and was champion for a longer period of time than AJ. She also got her very own Live signature set early on, and it was the first one to have a relic added to the mix. Speaking of relics, the Queen’s top card is her 25cc Roadblock NOW Relic which broke the $100 mark more than once already. If you look at who owns copies of that card it’s a veritable who’s who of the whales in the game.

There’s a big difference in quality between the top 5 on the list and the bottom 5 on the list. Other than Undisputed Triple with Sasha and Becky, the top 5 cards are all 55cc and under, while the bottom five range from 141 to 250cc. There’s a big drop off in quality too. That said, Charlotte has more “money” cards in the game than most women due to her being on top of the Women’s division for over a year and then there was that dedicated set. The set had a card-exchange mechanic where you could trade in multiple copies of the low end cards to get a card exchange exclusive. The award for that variant sits at just 89cc and doesn’t sell very often.

As with AJ, most of Charlotte’s high value cards feature her by herself, though the Undisputed Triple Sigs show up yet again proving those cards can hold their own in the market. She’s nowhere near as popular as Alexa Bliss, or arguably even Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch or the recently returned Paige.

Don’t forget you can find me in game at GRENDELSEN, and I’m always happy to trade or answer any questions you might have. Leave questions or concerns here and I’ll see you next time.

My Collecting Blog – The Budget Collector

The Daily WiLL – http://willaday.blogspot.com/

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE: DIGITAL DABBLINGS #20 – October Review: Yet another huge month in Topps WWE, including not one but two new PPV sets