Topps leaves 23 Supernova players out of Cosmic Chrome packs

The outer-space-inspired 2026 Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball came out Nov. 4. Collectors are always excited for this release because you can chase some of the most sought-after short-printed inserts in the hobby. These include Planetary Pursuit, Starfractor, Mars Attacks MLB, Planetarium and Supernova, among many others.

Unfortunately, Topps discovered a production error: Supernova cards for 23 of the 25 players on the checklist were never put into packs. Topps' odds sheet put a Supernova at 1:1,214 hobby packs, a hard pull even with all 25 in the boxes. Topps now says the 23 were left out "despite being included in the published odds." Some of the missing players include Shohei Ohtani, Jacob Misiorowski, Paul Skenes, Bobby Witt Jr. and many other of the league's biggest stars. The only two that made it into packs were the first two cards on the checklist, Aaron Judge (#SN-1) and Juan Soto (#SN-2). Luckily, Topps caught the error and made an announcement on X on Nov. 8 with an apology and its solution.

The solution is the Supernova Card Program. If you own a base Interstellar Gold /50 of one of the 23 missing players, you email Topps the player's name, the card's serial number and clear photos of the front and back. Topps reviews it and sends a prepaid shipping label. Once your card is verified, you get your Gold /50 back along with that player's Supernova. Gold /50 autographs aren't eligible. Judge and Soto are excluded because their Supernovas were in packs.

Topps had already announced "The Black Hole Program" on Nov. 3, the day before release. It gives a one-of-one Black Hole Autograph to the first collector with 10 Supernova cards of one player. How do you prove this to Topps? Each Supernova card carries a code under a black peel. Like a regular redemption, you peel it and submit the code on Topps' Black Hole website. If you're the first to redeem ten Jac Caglianone Supernovas, for example, and you pass Topps' verification with the physical cards, his Black Hole Autograph goes to your Fanatics Collect Vault.

For transparency for collectors, Topps says the Black Hole website will show which Gold /50 serial numbers have already been used for a Supernova. Each Gold gets one Supernova, even after it's sold. Topps tells collectors to check the site before buying a Gold Interstellar on the secondary market in case they want to cash in on the Supernova.

Topps' own Black Hole rules count 1,250 Supernova cards across the 25 players, or 50 each if they're split evenly. The Gold Interstellar is numbered to 50 too. If that's the split, the program can't put out more of a missing player's Supernovas than Topps planned for packs. They just reach collectors through the Golds now instead of through the rip.

That makes an unused base Gold /50 of one of those 23 players the card to own right now. A Chase Burns rookie Gold was listed at $800 on Nov. 9 with "Supernova Black Hole" in the title. None of the 2026 Golds or Supernovas I checked has a recorded sale yet. I'd check the serial number on Topps' list before paying anything close to that.

It also changes the Black Hole race. For each of the 23 missing players, ten Supernovas now have to come from at most 50 Golds. Every one of those Golds has to be pulled, sent in and verified first. As of Nov. 9, Topps' leaderboard showed one code claimed for Judge and none for anyone else.

While this is an unfortunate mistake in production, it isn't the first time Topps has apologized to collectors this year. In January it apologized after dropping the Chrome cards it had advertised for 2025 Stadium Club pre-orders. Topps is showing collectors that it cares about transparency, something the hobby needs more of.

But the program only helps collectors who pull or buy a Gold. Plenty of collectors spent a lot of money on packs, boxes and breaks of Cosmic Chrome because they assumed every card on the checklist was inserted into the product. It will be interesting to see if Topps remedies this for those buyers, especially on a Fanatics platform like Topps' website or a break on Fanatics Live. Even FanCash would help. Owning your mistakes makes collectors more likely to forgive a company and keep buying from it. As of Nov. 9, Topps hadn't offered those buyers anything.