Reselling

2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball: Worth $169.99?

· 6 min read · By the Friends & Family team

Last year's Topps Basketball hobby box cost $109.99 and now sells for about $350 on eBay. Topps noticed. The 2026-27 Flagship box is $169.99, and that changes the math on a quick flip more than it changes the long-term hold. Here's what's inside and how we'd play it.

The 2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball hobby box, a white and blue display box with a Washington Wizards rookie on the front and 20 packs of 12 cards
Image: Topps, via topps.com

2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball went up for pre-order on topps.com on October 6 at 1pm ET. The Hobby Box costs $169.99, up from $109.99 on last year's pre-order, and the Jumbo Box is $339.99. Boxes are scheduled to start shipping ahead of the November 5, 2026 release date. Short version: there's still a long-term case here, but at $169.99 a quick flip only works if this year's market opens well above where last year's did.

What's in a 2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball Hobby Box

From the topps.com listings and the product page:

  • Price: $169.99 per Hobby Box on topps.com
  • Contents: 20 packs per box, 12 cards per pack (240 cards)
  • Hits: 1 autograph or relic card per box (the box itself says "on average")
  • Jumbo Box: $339.99 for 10 packs of 28 cards, with 1 autograph and 1 relic per box
  • Release date: November 5, 2026
  • Other formats: Topps also lists Mega and Value boxes and Hobby and Mega cases
  • The set: a 300-card base set of 200 veterans, 40 rookies, 30 team combo cards and 30 retired players, plus short-printed Number, Team, Golden Mirror Image, Wood and (new this year) Clear Variations

What collectors will be chasing:

  • The 2026 rookie class: first official Topps rookie cards of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson and Keaton Wagler.
  • New-team firsts: the first LeBron James Sixers and Giannis Antetokounmpo Heat cards.
  • Autographs: Flagship Real One Autographs, Rookie Photo Shoot Autographs (including low-numbered red ink versions) and 1981-82 Topps Autographs.
  • Super Short Prints: the first Gold 1/1 All Kings cards in Topps Basketball, Quest for the Crown, and Bounce, a textured insert made to feel like a real basketball.
  • Inserts: Poster Factory, Drivers, Hardwood Stars, Levitation and the returning 1981-82 Topps design.

Topps hasn't published an odds sheet yet, so there are no official pull rates for any of these.

The 2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball jumbo box, with 10 packs of 28 cards and one autograph and one relic per box

Why collectors are paying attention

Last year's 2025-26 Topps Basketball was Topps' first licensed NBA flagship in 15 years, with Cooper Flagg leading the rookie class. It took off. The hobby box was $109.99 on pre-order and $119.99 on release day, and it now sells for around $350 on eBay, roughly three times what it cost.

ML, who runs sports cards in our Discord, put this year in context the night before. He doesn't think 2026-27 is "even close" to the same moment as last year's Flagg debut and Topps' return to basketball. But he likes the rookie class, the timing (boxes land in the first weeks of the NBA season) and the price compared with what 2025-26 products cost to open now.

Then there's the price. Topps raised the hobby box by $60. ML estimated $340 to $360 for the Jumbo the night before (last year's was $229.99, by his count), and Topps landed at $339.99. His read is that Topps is pushing prices up across this week's releases to counter botting. That's his take, not something Topps has said.

Retail vs. eBay: what it's selling for

Retail is $169.99 per Hobby Box and $339.99 per Jumbo Box. Here's what eBay showed on October 6:

  • 2026-27 Hobby and Jumbo: no sales yet. Twenty minutes after the pre-order opened, the only listings were a handful of overseas presales, mostly Mega and Value boxes. Presales usually fill in within hours of a Topps pre-order, so this will change fast.
  • 2025-26 Hobby Box, for comparison: 14 sales from September 23 to October 4 ran $306 to $400, with the middle sale around $350. Shipping was about $6 to $10. Three were Best Offer sales, which can close below the listed price.
  • 2025-26 Jumbo Box: only a couple of recent sales, at $535 and $560. Thin volume, so treat that as a rough guide.

Last year's boxes didn't start there, though. ML's recollection is that hobby opened around $200 a box and dipped to about $180 a month or two later before climbing, and that jumbo's early sales were in the $350 to $380 range. That early stretch is what matters for a quick flip.

Here's the math. eBay takes 13.25% plus $0.40 on a trading card sale, and the fee is charged on the sale price plus shipping and sales tax. Your cost is $169.99 plus tax (about $182 at 7%).

  • If 2026-27 opens like last year, around $200: a $200 box with about $8 of shipping costs roughly $28 in fees, leaving about $180. That's break-even before you pay to ship it.
  • If it ages like last year, around $350: about $48 in fees leaves around $310, or roughly $125 per box over your cost, again before shipping.

Jumbo is tighter. At $339.99 plus tax (about $364), a $370 sale like last year's early ones leaves about $327 after fees, a loss. It takes something like last year's current $550 to clear about $120.

Shipping a box safely isn't free, so plan for that on top. Last year, a $200 market was an easy flip on a $110 hobby box. This year it's not.

Flip, hold or pass? Our take

ML's call: decent short-term upside, good long-term. He expects about the same market as last year out of the gate, maybe better if a rookie gets off to a hot start. And he thinks this class can age well like last year's, just probably not to the same level. Here's how we'd think about it:

  1. Hobby is the better buy of the two formats. ML points out that last year's hobby grew more than jumbo (he puts it at roughly 4x vs. almost 3x), and at $339.99 the Jumbo needs a strong opening market just to break even.
  2. Don't count on a fast flip. At $169.99, a $200 opening market is break-even after fees. The quick profit only shows up if presales open well above last year's.
  3. The real case is a hold. You're betting on Dybantsa, Peterson, Boozer and Wilson. Strong early seasons from any of them would move these boxes, and boxes ship right as the season starts.

There's no odds sheet yet, so nobody knows how many boxes Topps is printing. That's a reason to keep the order size sensible.

What to watch

  • The first presale prices. Where 2026-27 hobby boxes land on eBay in the first day or two tells you whether the $60 price increase is already priced in.
  • Jumbo presales. At $339.99, the Jumbo has to open well above last year's early $350 to $380 sales to work as a flip.
  • The odds sheet. Print run and auto odds will decide how far this can climb.
  • Opening weeks of the NBA season. Rookie performance moves sealed prices more than anything else here.

Want more? Read how to flip sports cards, see our breakdown of 2026 Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball, or browse more sports card guides.

Get the sports card calls in our Discord

Every Topps drop gets a full breakdown in our sports card channel before it goes live: pricing, what's worth entering, what to skip, and the details you need on drop day. For Flagship Basketball, members had ML's take on the price, last year's market and both formats the night before, including a Jumbo price estimate that landed within a dollar.

And when it's time to sell, you don't have to rely on eBay. Our WTB and WTS channels are where big sellers, breakers and collectors in the community buy and sell with each other every day, and that's often the fastest way to move sealed boxes and cases.

Sources

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