Get Your Shohei Ohtani & Nick Kurtz Cards Ready

It’s award season for baseball, and this year, Topps has doubled the potential payouts for collectors.

That’s because in addition to their already hugely popular MVP Buyback program (offering store credits of $20 and up for cards of the AL and NL MVP winners from the Topps Chrome set), this year they introduced the “Red RC” program, offering FanCash (good for use on the Topps and Fanatics family of websites) of $100 and up for cards of the AL and NL Rookies of the Year with a red “rookie card” logo on their cards in Bowman and Bowman Chrome.

There’s no limit to how many cards you can trade in, so depending on how much you collect, there might be a whole lot of buyback funds in your future.

Here’s what you need to know this year for each of the programs.

Topps MVP Buyback

Participating Topps retailers will offer $20 in store credit for every base card you send in of the AL and NL MVP winners, along with incremental amounts for base parallels, from $40 all the way up to $200.

In the NL, the odds favor Shohei Ohtani winning his third-consecutive MVP award. So if you have this base chrome card (or any of its parallels), you might want to put them aside:

There were also incredibly rare MVP Buyback cards sent in from previous years that were stamped and inserted into packs of 2025 Topps Update. If Ohtani wins MVP for the third year in a row, you can also send in those cards for buyback credit of anywhere from $600 to $1,200.

Other NL MVP finalists include the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber and the Mets’ Juan Soto, so stash those cards for potential buybacks, too.

Now on to the AL race, in which most odds favor Aaron Judge winning his second-consecutive MVP award. Cal Raleigh is also a heavy favorite, but there’s a huge wrinkle here—Raleigh doesn’t have a base card in 2025 Topps Chrome.

So what happens if Raleigh wins MVP? According to Topps, it would be Raleigh’s base card in the upcoming 2025 Topps Chrome Update — not likely to be released until early December — that would be the buyback card.

But if Judge does come away with the award for the second year in a row, you’ll want to gather any chrome variation of this card:

Stamped versions of previous Judge buyback cards were also randomly inserted in 2025 Topps Chrome, so if Judge wins his second MVP award in a row, you can trade those in for buyback credit of anywhere from $400 to $1,000.

Aside from Judge and Raleigh, the other AL MVP finalist is Jose Ramirez of the Guardians.

Topps Red RC Buyback

Introduced just this year for Bowman and Bowman Chrome, the Red RC chase is a bit more difficult than the MVP Buyback, as not every card of the contenders carries the red version of the “RC” logo.

But the floor is also higher, as each Red RC buyback card carries a FanCash value of $100. That goes for the ceiling, too. If you’re a gambler, you can hold onto those Red RC cards and potentially earn even more FanCash if those players go on to win Cy Young Awards or MVP Awards ($300 to $700) or even enter the Hall of Fame ($1,000).

In the AL, Nick Kurtz is the overwhelming favorite to take home Rookie of the Year honors. That means this is the card that you’ll need to earn FanCash (notice the red “RC” at the top left):

Other AL finalists include Kurtz’s A’s teammate Jacob Wilson and Roman Anthony of the Red Sox.

The NL race is a bit closer. The favorites are the Braves’ Drake Baldwin and the Cubs’ Cade Horton, both of whom have Red RCs in 2025 Bowman Chrome. The third NL finalist is Caleb Durbin of the Brewers.

Another thing to keep in mind: According to Topps, Red RC cards are good in any year, not just the year they come out. So, if you pulled any 2025 Red RC cards of Tsung-Che Cheng, Logan Henderson, Zac Veen or Nick Yorke, you might want to set them aside for 2026, as those are the only names from the 60-player 2025 Bowman and Bowman Chrome checklists who will maintain their rookie status heading into next season, according to Baseball America research. If any of them win Rookie of the Year in 2026, their 2025 Red RC cards would still be eligible for the $100 credits.

How To Get Your Buyback Credit

It’s important to note that there are different forms of “buyback” and different redemption processes for each of the two programs.

For the MVP Buyback program, once you have your cards gathered, you’ll need to fill out a form from the Topps website. You can find the forms and more details on the Topps MVP Buyback program here, including a full list of participating retailers (both national companies and local card shops).

From there, you either mail in the form and the cards to the company of your choice or bring it in to your local card shop to receive the credit. That credit is the same no matter where you go, so the choice is yours.

As for the Red RC program, if you choose to take the FanCash this year (rather than waiting to see what other honors might be in those players’ futures for even more possible FanCash down the line), you’ll need to make sure you have an account on Fanatics Collect, which is the Topps and Fanatics sister site that mostly functions as a single-card marketplace.

From there, you’ll be able to fill in the proper forms to send in your Red RC redemption cards to get $100 per card in FanCash that can be used on any of the Fanatics family of sites, including Topps.

You can find more info on the Red RC redemption program here and the MVP Buyback program here.

Source link