Topps Just Started an NFL Living Set. Card 1 Is Tom Brady and It Comes Off Sale Wednesday.

Topps has had a Living Set for baseball since 2018 and basketball since it regained the NBA license. Now, with the NFL license in hand for the first time, it has launched an NFL Living Set. Card number 1 is Tom Brady, it went on sale the day the regular season kicked off, and it comes off sale Wednesday, September 16 at 2 p.m. Eastern. If you have never bought a Living Set card, here is how the whole thing works and what to know before you buy.

What a Living Set is

A Living Set is a single continuous checklist that never ends. Every week, Topps releases one new card on Topps.com. Each card is available for a set window, usually about a week, and is printed to order: however many people buy it, that is the print run. When the window closes, the card is never printed again, and the next card in the sequence goes on sale. Because the checklist keeps counting up forever, the set is "living."

The NFL version uses the 1956 Topps Football design, a portrait card with a team logo top-right and the player's information in a rectangle across the middle, printed on vintage-style card stock. The baseball Living Set uses 1953 Topps; the basketball set uses 1957-58 Topps. The art is painted rather than photographic, which is the signature of the whole line.

How the NFL schedule works

New cards release only while the season and playoffs are ongoing. When the season ends, the set pauses, then resumes at the next card number when the following season starts. That is a meaningful difference from the baseball Living Set, which runs year-round. The subjects can be anyone with an NFL connection, past or present, so expect a mix of current stars, rookies coming off big weeks and retired legends.

Parallels and what drives value

Every order ships base cards, but parallels are randomly inserted. The NFL set includes a background variation with a solid color instead of the crowd, plus Chrome Refractor and Superfractor versions. Because parallels are seeded per order, a card with a huge print run has more total parallels in circulation but also lower odds per order of hitting one.

On the base cards, print run is everything. Living Set cards are sold with a print run that gets published after the sale window closes. Low print runs happen when a card features a player nobody is excited about, and those low-run cards frequently become the most valuable in the set years later because so few exist. High print runs, which a Tom Brady card 1 will almost certainly have, keep base copies cheap. The collector strategy that has worked in baseball for eight years is simple: buy the boring cards.

Topps NOW is running alongside it

Topps also launched a regular-season NFL Topps NOW program at the same time. NOW cards are also print-to-order but are tied to a specific moment, a game-winning drive, a rookie debut, a record. They typically stay on sale for a few days, not a week. Living Set cards commemorate a player; NOW cards commemorate an event. They are different products with different collecting logic, and both will be updated weekly all season.

Is the Brady card worth buying?

As card 1 of a new set, yes, if you want to be in from the start. Card 1 of the baseball Living Set (Ozzie Albies, 2018) carries a premium purely for being first, even with a large print run. Expect the same here. Just do not expect the base card to be a short-term flip. It will be one of the most-printed cards in the set.

• On sale through: Wednesday, September 16 at 2 p.m. Eastern on Topps.com
• Format: single card, printed to order, parallels randomly inserted
• Next card: goes on sale when the Brady window closes; Topps has not announced the subject

Living Set cards do not come through hobby distribution, so your local shop will not stock them new. Shops do, however, tend to carry back-issue Living Set singles in the showcase, and that is the place to hunt for the low-print-run cards once the set has some history.