2013 BC Kris Bryant Wave autos

[cubfanbudman79]

Just curious if anyone here knows anything as to why the blue and black waves have never popped up. Looking at Becketts pop report you see there is 16 Black Waves all graded in succession. I've seen 1 black wave and 0 blue waves. Just curious if anyone here knows what the deal is with these cards

[wmelchior628]

Backdoored like the Correa Red Autos?

Speaking of that - I haven't been paying as much attention to the forum lately - was there any information about that ever released?

[wmelchior628]

One of them was a black label as well... wow!

[wmelchior628]

The more I think about this, the more pissed off I am becoming. With the item id numbers showing back to back to back, that would lead my to believe that they were all graded together. Them all being graded together would suggest a single person submitting.

There should be 50 black waves and 50 blue waves.

WTF

[cubfanbudman79]

Originally Posted by wmelchior628

The more I think about this, the more pissed off I am becoming. With the item id numbers showing back to back to back, that would lead my to believe that they were all graded together. Them all being graded together would suggest a single person submitting.

There should be 50 black waves and 50 blue waves.

WTF

The ones primarily in question are the blue wave and black wave. Also, 10 blacks and 25 greens were part of this bulk submission graded by BGS.

[wmelchior628]

I understand that. The 2013 wave autos were numbered to 50. As far as I knew the Bryant's were never packed out in any product - thus none ever showing up on ebay.

Not sure how someone could have 16 of them to submit.

I can only think of 3 possible scenarios:

1. Backdoored
2. Bryant himself never sent back to Topps and gave to friends?
3. Topps used them as redemption replacements and someone had a ton of high end stuff and they used those to replace what the person was waiting for.

Not sure how else they would have gotten out.

[bubba300]

I could have bought a raw Black Wave Auto at a show 3 months ago and passed on it (kicking myself). The dealer did sell it on eBay in raw form two weeks later.

That's the only one I have seen live.

[texmcpherson]

Could Topps have sent them for grading to increase the value for redemption replacements?

[bear0555]

I expected a lot of these in 2014 Sterling, since there weren't many to come out of 2014 Bowman Chrome. Looks like a lot of them never got packed out instead.

[mfisher27]

This is my guess since they've offered graded cards as replacements before. Plus, it's pretty suspicious for no one to see them and they were all graded sequentially.

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

Could Topps have sent them for grading to increase the value for redemption replacements?

[hhliving1101]

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

Could Topps have sent them for grading to increase the value for redemption replacements?

This...

Topps HAS been offering graded cards as replacements recently....

[SaveMeTheGum]

"Issued in various 2014 Topps Products" -- I really hate this trend. First Bryant Bowman Draft, then Correa Topps Chrome. Really don't like it...

[wmelchior628]

There have been at least 5 time they have done it, and bit doesn't bother me. (Bryant, Dillon Overton, Conforto, Williams, and Correa).

If this was Topps and it is strictly for redemption replacement, I get it and I am OK with that too (although it's disturbing that this many weren't packed out on purpose).

What scares me is the prospect of them selling them on their web page like other art. Seems like printing money.

Why do I feel like there will be a new high end repack product a la prospect rush from Topps direct. A Topps graded classics type product.

[Koontz87]

Hey guys...I actually posted this topic of discussion in a Facebook group and it looks like one of my fellow group members finds it suspicious too. Essentially, I've been working on Bryant's 2013 Bowman Chrome rainbow and I saw a Black Wave list on eBay yesterday in raw form (turned out to be a guy scamming). Regardless, I dug into the Pop Report and noticed that the first 15 Black Wave submissions had sequential serial numbers and were all submitted on September 3, 2014. The colored refractors, however, didn't appear in any product until the 2014 Bowman Chrome release at the end of September in 2014. I found this highly suspicious. I decided to analyze all the other 2013 Kris Bryant autos and fount that serial numbers 8297424 through 8297548 were all submitted by the same person. That's 125 cards...60 Base, 10 Black /35, 15 Black Wave /50, 15 Blue Wave /50, and 25 Green /75.

Besides the fact that they were graded BEFORE they were technically released, I figured out a couple other discrepancies. As we know, these autos were disseminated across 3 products...2014 Bowman Chrome, 2014 Bowman Inception, and 2014 Bowman Platinum. I find it highly unlikely that a person bought thousands of cases to get these cards. But let's assume for a second that he had...there are no Refractor /500, Blue /99, Gold /50, Orange /25, Purple /10, or Red /5 included in this submission. Odds would state that he would find a few of those as well. Furthermore, I find it odd that the numbers of cards were perfectly round (60, 25, 15, 15, 10).

Also, the chances of him buying all these cards raw are highly improbable as it would likely take months to do that and these were graded before they were technically released. Additionally, we know that Kris Bryant was the hottest prospect in baseball by this point as his 2014 Bowman Chrome Base autos were selling for $1,000 on eBay. Knowing this, the 2013 autos were the type of card to go straight from pack to top loader to grading company.

So two theories exist as we've established:
1. There was a backdoor job at Topps and some employee is sitting on $300,000 of graded 2013 Kris Bryants
2. Topps graded them and is issuing them as redemption replacements

Being interested, I reached out to two people. The first was Jeff Hwang who wrote the book The Modern Baseball Card Investor and has written quite a few articles regarding the release of the 2013 autos and their impact on the 2014 autos and the dangerous precedent it sets. I also reached out to Ryan Cracknell who is now the editor at Beckett News and has covered Kris Bryant cards pretty extensively. He's also the guy that wrote the article in Beckett regarding the stolen Carlos Correa 2015 Topps Chrome autos. I called Topps today, but only got a customer service rep who couldn't answer any of my questions.

I will definitely keep you guys updated as the situation unfolds and we get a definitive answer from Topps.

[PackRipper]

All the ones I've seen were horribly off center...

[Archangel1775]

Who the heck in Topps is jacking up our hobby? It's one thing to use non-game used jerseys and not pack out cards. It's another to have 0 accountability on the stock of signed autographs that are held at their facility. Does anyone do weekly/monthly inventories over there? Is someone fudging paperwork to look like they are being sent out(i.e. embezzlement)?

[THE(NEXT)LEVEL]

Originally Posted by Koontz87

Hey guys...I actually posted this topic of discussion in a Facebook group and it looks like one of my fellow group members finds it suspicious too. Essentially, I've been working on Bryant's 2013 Bowman Chrome rainbow and I saw a Black Wave list on eBay yesterday in raw form (turned out to be a guy scamming). Regardless, I dug into the Pop Report and noticed that the first 15 Black Wave submissions had sequential serial numbers and were all submitted on September 3, 2014. The colored refractors, however, didn't appear in any product until the 2014 Bowman Chrome release at the end of September in 2014. I found this highly suspicious. I decided to analyze all the other 2013 Kris Bryant autos and fount that serial numbers 8297424 through 8297548 were all submitted by the same person. That's 125 cards...60 Base, 10 Black /35, 15 Black Wave /50, 15 Blue Wave /50, and 25 Green /75.

Besides the fact that they were graded BEFORE they were technically released, I figured out a couple other discrepancies. As we know, these autos were disseminated across 3 products...2014 Bowman Chrome, 2014 Bowman Inception, and 2014 Bowman Platinum. I find it highly unlikely that a person bought thousands of cases to get these cards. But let's assume for a second that he had...there are no Refractor /500, Blue /99, Gold /50, Orange /25, Purple /10, or Red /5 included in this submission. Odds would state that he would find a few of those as well. Furthermore, I find it odd that the numbers of cards were perfectly round (60, 25, 15, 15, 10).

Also, the chances of him buying all these cards raw are highly improbable as it would likely take months to do that and these were graded before they were technically released. Additionally, we know that Kris Bryant was the hottest prospect in baseball by this point as his 2014 Bowman Chrome Base autos were selling for $1,000 on eBay. Knowing this, the 2013 autos were the type of card to go straight from pack to top loader to grading company.

So two theories exist as we've established:
1. There was a backdoor job at Topps and some employee is sitting on $300,000 of graded 2013 Kris Bryants
2. Topps graded them and is issuing them as redemption replacements

Being interested, I reached out to two people. The first was Jeff Hwang who wrote the book The Modern Baseball Card Investor and has written quite a few articles regarding the release of the 2013 autos and their impact on the 2014 autos and the dangerous precedent it sets. I also reached out to Ryan Cracknell who is now the editor at Beckett News and has covered Kris Bryant cards pretty extensively. He's also the guy that wrote the article in Beckett regarding the stolen Carlos Correa 2015 Topps Chrome autos. Ryan responded to my email almost immediately this morning (which I've attached) and will be looking into it. I called Topps today, but only got a customer service rep who couldn't answer any of my questions.

I will definitely keep you guys updated as the situation unfolds and we get a definitive answer from Topps.

I can tell you this, I have a friend who worked at Topps, and I can tell you that it wouldn't surprise me if these were backdoored. As a matter of fact, they most likely were. Eventually the greed is going to blow the door open(no pun intended) on what goes on at Topps. No way in hell Topps graded these.

[blackbears86]

Great detective work!

We will see how this ultimately plays out---but I totally expect this is all on topps. They lost basketball years ago, they just lost football. The revenue stream is declining. All they have left is baseball (plus mma, non-sports)---they know they are essentially printing money when a hot prospect arrives. I see no plausible explanation contrary to the evidence presented here regarding the Bryant auto's.

First Bryant, now Correa....These shenanigans make me so angry with this company........


Topps really needs to get their Sh$t together..............

[batottu]

I highly doubt these were backdoored. It's too many and too obvious.

Topps grading these themselves doesn't look much better though.

[NeedChapmans]

That string of Gem's you see on the Pop report ... when is the last time you noticed so few 9 sub-grades?

I believe they call that "uncirculated"

[THE(NEXT)LEVEL]

Originally Posted by batottu

I highly doubt these were backdoored. It's too many and too obvious.

Topps grading these themselves doesn't look much better though.

There is no other explanation. It is only obvious bc the person probably didn't realize someone would put it all together using the grading numbers. That's how crooks get caught, they don't think it through. Especially when you get greedy.

[patchgenie]

Originally Posted by Archangel1775

Who the heck in Topps is jacking up our hobby? It's one thing to use non-game used jerseys and not pack out cards. It's another to have 0 accountability on the stock of signed autographs that are held at their facility. Does anyone do weekly/monthly inventories over there? Is someone fudging paperwork to look like they are being sent out(i.e. embezzlement)?

embezzlement would be my guess. i doubt any breaker would have 16 graded in a row. it has to be someone there.

[batottu]

Originally Posted by THE(NEXT)LEVEL

There is no other explanation. It is only obvious bc the person probably didn't realize someone would put it all together using the grading numbers. That's how crooks get caught, they don't think it through. Especially when you get greedy.

What about Topps grading them to inflate value and use as redemptions? We have seen that before. We haven't see $300K backdoored before.

Either the employee took all the black waves and is VERY VERY slowly selling them (implying they aren't stupid) or Topps is using them as redemption replacements and graded the nicest 25.

EDIT: I'm not arguing with you, I just see it differently. Either way I'm not thrilled with Topps.

[THE(NEXT)LEVEL]

Originally Posted by batottu

What about Topps grading them to inflate value and use as redemptions? We have seen that before. We haven't see $300K backdoored before.

Either the employee took all the black waves and is VERY VERY slowly selling them (implying they aren't stupid) or Topps is using them as redemption replacements and graded the nicest 25.

Topps doesn't hold back that much of the print run to use as redemption replacements. Topps is a manufacturer and only cares about selling product, they don't care about inflating value of individual cards, they hold back to help drive interest to other products by inserting later. No way they grade these.

[seabass97166]

Beckett never saw a Bryant they didn't like. They should call 10s in general a Bryant-Pristine