2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Basketball Sapphire: The Complete Odds, Parallel, and Print Run Breakdown

2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Basketball Sapphire released September 3. Topps posted its checklist, marked final, on August 28 and the odds sheet on September 1. The sheet is short: 34 lines in a single Sapphire column, odds per pack, no print runs. The Padparadscha one-of-ones on the base set and on Sapphire Selections pin the run at about 83,500 packs, and from there the base and Sapphire Selections ladders check out almost card for card. The four autograph sets are another story. Every one of them puts more one-of-ones in packs than Topps' checklist has signers.

The box

Topps' product page lists no price and no box or pack configuration. It names the four autograph sets and says they run in Sapphire colors from Gold down to the Padparadscha 1 of 1, so the figures here stay per pack.

What a pack holds, adding up the sheet's lines:

An autograph of any kind falls about once every 7.2 packs. Counting one base card, the sheet's lines add up to about 1.63 cards a pack, so if every pack holds the same number of cards, a pack holds at least two. The base line only says at least one per pack, so the rest of each pack is more base cards, and without a pack size from Topps there's no saying how many.

The checklist

Topps' checklist runs 397 cards across seven sets, a cut-down version of the regular Chrome Update release.

The base set is the regular release's 200 cards, from #1 LeBron James to #200 Tyrese Proctor. Numbers 141 to 150 are retired greats (Bill Russell, Shaquille O'Neal, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Allen Iverson, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Carmelo Anthony, Magic Johnson and Rick Barry), and Topps tags #151 to #200 as rookies, starting with Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, VJ Edgecombe, Kon Knueppel and Ace Bailey.

The two inserts:

• Sapphire Selections, 20 rookies, from Cooper Flagg at SS-1 to Walter Clayton Jr. at SS-20.
• Infinite Sapphire, 20 cards: 15 stars from LeBron James and Luka Dončić to Kyrie Irving, then Flagg, Harper, Edgecombe, Knueppel and Bailey.

Topps lists four sets under its autograph heading. Each is a Sapphire version of a set from the regular release, with fewer signers:

• Topps Chrome Autographs, 78 signers (the regular release has 98), 36 of them rookies. The veterans include 11 retired greats: Iverson, Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Hakeem Olajuwon, Isiah Thomas, Abdul-Jabbar, Garnett, Karl Malone, Bird, Magic Johnson and O'Neal. Topps' list files Andrew Wiggins under the code TCA-RH.
• 1980-81 Topps Basketball Autographs, 43 signers (the regular release has 50), 10 of them rookies.
• Havoc Marks, 21 (the regular release has 91), six of them rookies, with Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, Robert Horry, Derek Fisher and Karl Malone among the veterans.
• Future Stars Autographs, 15 rookies (the regular release has 50).

That's 88 signers, 40 of them rookies. Cedric Coward, Derik Queen and Yang Hansen sign in all four sets. Counting the base set and the inserts, seven players are in six of the seven sets: Flagg, Harper, Knueppel, Bailey, Coward, Queen and Hansen.

The base Sapphire ladder

Odds per pack. Topps prints no runs on the sheet, and its product page gives none for the base set, so the runs below are working figures, and the last column tests them:

Every tier is spread over the same 200 cards, so if the runs are right and every copy is in a pack, each tier's run times its odds times 200 is the pack count. The long lines agree closely, and the short ones drift up because 1:6 and 1:9 are coarse. At 83,500 packs (worked out below), 15,000 Purples would fall one every 5.57 packs and 10,000 Golds one every 8.35, which print as 1:6 and 1:9 if Topps rounds up. Purple and Gold agree with each other exactly (6 times 75 and 9 times 50 are both 450), and nothing on the sheet argues against a /75 Purple, which Topps' product page doesn't mention.

A numbered base parallel of any color falls about once every 2.7 packs, and the odds put about 31,300 of the 33,200 numbered base parallels in packs.

Sapphire Selections and Infinite Sapphire

Odds per pack:

This is the cleanest ladder on the sheet. Three lines come to exactly 83,500, and the other two are off only by rounding: 83,500 packs over 1,000 Golds is one every 83.5, printed 1:84, and over 200 Blacks one every 417.5, printed 1:418. Every Selections tier is in packs in full, 1,814 of the 1,820 numbered cards at face value.

Infinite Sapphire has a single line, 1:160, and no colors. That's about 520 cards, about 26 of each. Topps doesn't say whether Infinite Sapphire carries a serial number, but at about 26 copies a card it's about as scarce as an Orange /25.

The autographs

Odds per pack:

There is no autograph without a color. The sheet lists only the five Sapphire tiers for each set, so every autograph in the product is numbered to 50 or less. Topps' sheet doesn't give the runs (its product page names only the Padparadscha 1 of 1), but the cards pictured here fit the Gold, Orange and Padparadscha runs in the table: a Wembanyama Topps Chrome Autographs Padparadscha numbered 1/1, an Anthony Edwards 1980-81 Gold numbered 50/50, a Dennis Rodman Havoc Marks Gold numbered to 50 and a Cooper Flagg Future Stars Orange numbered 02/25.

At 83,500 packs, the odds put about 11,500 autographs in packs: about 5,800 Topps Chrome Autographs, 2,600 1980-81s, 2,000 Havoc Marks and 1,100 Future Stars.

How many packs the sheet covers

The one-of-ones and the Sapphire Selections ladder settle it:

The sheet doesn't show whether Topps rounds up or to the nearest pack, and the two readings give slightly different ranges. Rounded up, the Selections Padparadscha allows 83,481 to 83,500 packs and every line above agrees. Rounded to the nearest pack, the base Padparadscha needs at least 83,500 (83,500 divided by 200 is 417.5, which rounds to 418) and the Selections Padparadscha allows at most 83,509. So the run is 83,481 to 83,509 packs whichever way Topps rounds, and 83,500, a round number, is the one figure both readings share.

So the sheet covers about 83,500 packs. The cards the sheet's lines account for come to about 136,000 (1.63 a pack), and if every pack holds the same number of cards, a pack holds at least two, so the run is at least about 167,000 cards. Topps gives no box configuration, so there's no box count. For scale, Topps' sheet for the regular Chrome Update release works out to about 1.94 million hobby packs, about 23 for every Sapphire pack.

The base Gold hints at how Topps rounds. At 83,500 packs, all 10,000 Golds would fall one every 8.35 packs. The printed 1:9 only fits that if Topps rounds up; read as rounded to the nearest pack, it puts at most about 9,820 Golds in packs. Either way, the counts in this piece are "about" figures, and on short lines like 1:11, 1:9 and 1:6 they could run 10 to 20 percent higher.

The autographs don't fit their checklist

At 83,500 packs, the long autograph lines put more cards in packs than Topps' checklist can make:

Rounding can't cover it. If Topps rounds up, the real counts are a little higher still. If it rounds to the nearest pack, the counts could be half a step lower, and every one that's over the checklist stays over. The Topps Chrome Autographs Black, the shortest of these lines, would only drop to about 807. On the Padparadscha lines, one step in the odds moves the count by less than a tenth of a card. With 78 Padparadschas, the Topps Chrome Autographs line would read about 1:1,071, not 1:1,046. With 21, the Havoc Marks line would read about 1:3,977, not 1:3,661. The 1980-81 Padparadscha would read about 1:1,942 and the Future Stars Padparadscha about 1:5,567.

A different pack count doesn't fix it either. The Sapphire Selections Padparadscha caps the run at 83,509 packs if all 20 are in packs. Going the other way, fitting 15 Future Stars Padparadschas would take a run of about 75,525 packs, which leaves only about 181 of the 200 base Padparadschas and 18 of the 20 Selections ones in packs, and nothing else on those two ladders points that way.

Havoc Marks runs over by the same amount on every tier from Orange to Padparadscha, 8 to 9 percent, which is what a wrong card count usually looks like: the sheet's Havoc Marks lines fit about 23 cards, two more than Topps' checklist. The Topps Chrome Autographs Black, Red and Padparadscha lines fit about 80 to 82 signers, and the 1980-81 lines about 43.5 to 44.6, against 43. Future Stars is different. Its Orange and Black fit 15 signers (363 of 375 and 145 of 150 in packs), and only the Red and the Padparadscha run over, the Padparadscha by more than a card and a half.

Those signer figures are rough, though, not counts. None of the four autograph Padparadscha lines comes out to a whole number of cards at about 83,500 packs, however Topps rounds (79.8, 44.6, 22.8 and 16.6), while the base and Selections one-of-ones come out to exactly 200 and 20.

Topps' note at the top of the sheet allows for a player missing from a parallel, which means fewer cards than the checklist, not more. The same 34 Sapphire lines, at the same odds, were already in a Sapphire column on Topps' odds sheet for the regular release, posted August 6, more than three weeks before the checklist marked final. Either the autograph odds were set before the signer lists were final, or some autograph lines are off. Across the four sets, the sheet puts about 164 Padparadscha autographs in packs, against 157 signers.

Not every numbered card is in a pack

On the base ladder, the odds put 199.8 of the 200 Padparadschas in packs, 994 of the 1,000 Reds, 1,988 of the 2,000 Blacks and 4,912 of the 5,000 Oranges (98 percent). The Gold (9,278 of 10,000) and the Purple (13,917 of 15,000) come to 93 percent each at face value, and both can be full if Topps rounds up. Sapphire Selections is full on every tier.

The autographs run the other way at the top of their ladders. Even with the Black, Red and Padparadscha lines over, the Golds and most of the Oranges come up short:

The Topps Chrome Autographs Gold line is about 54 signers' worth at /50, and the Future Stars Gold about 10. Topps' note allows for signers who skip a tier, which could explain it.

The 1980-81 Gold is the odd one. At 1:86 it's almost the same as the 1980-81 Orange at 1:88, so the odds put about as many Golds as Oranges in packs, 971 against 949, about 19 signers' worth at /50. The Anthony Edwards below is a Gold numbered 50/50, so the tier is a /50 for at least some signers. Either more than half the 1980-81 signers have no Gold, or the Gold line is off. Havoc Marks is the exception the other way, over on the Gold and Orange too, in line with the rest of that set.

The cards with no print run

The base set can only be pinned as a floor, because Topps doesn't list cards per pack. The 1:1 line says at least one base card in every pack, and the sheet's other lines add about 0.63 cards a pack, so if every pack holds the same number of cards, a pack holds at least two. That leaves at least about 1.37 base cards a pack at the printed odds (about 1.33 if Topps rounds the short lines up), or about 560 to 570 copies of each base card (83,500 x 1.37 / 200 is about 571). Every card a pack holds beyond two adds about 418 more copies of each base card (83,500 / 200).

The Sapphire Selections base version is about 380 copies of each card at the printed odds, anywhere from about 360 to 420 depending on how Topps rounds 1:11, and about 7.6 times as common as the Selections Gold /50. Infinite Sapphire comes to about 26 of each card.

That's the whole list. The autographs have no version without a serial number, and every base and Selections color has a run the odds fit, from Purple /75 to the Padparadscha 1/1, so there are no unnumbered parallels to count.

The rarest pulls

The longest line on the sheet is the Future Stars Autographs Padparadscha at 1:5,035 packs, one each of 15 rookies on Topps' checklist. Next are the Sapphire Selections Padparadscha at 1:4,175 (all 20 in packs) and the Havoc Marks Padparadscha at 1:3,661. Wembanyama signs in three of the four autograph sets (Topps Chrome Autographs, 1980-81 and Havoc Marks), so the checklist has room for three Wembanyama Padparadscha autographs.

Topps' checklist allows 377 one-of-ones: 200 base Padparadschas, 20 Selections and 157 autographs. The sheet puts about 384 in packs, about one every 218 packs. A Padparadscha autograph of any kind is about one every 510 packs on the sheet's numbers.

What to watch

The things we're watching: whether Topps revises the autograph lines or adds signers to the checklist, since the sheet counts more autographs than the checklist allows; serial numbers on more 1980-81 Gold Sapphires; whether Infinite Sapphire carries a serial number; and a box configuration from Topps. We'll update this piece if any of that changes.

The full checklist and every parallel with its print run and odds are on the 2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Series Basketball Sapphire release page, and you can track what you pull in HobbyMonitor Collections.

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This is not financial advice. These are cards. The data and analysis are here to inform. You make your own calls.

This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed before publishing. Always verify latest market data, stats, or news.

Published: September 2026