Test Your Trading Card Knowledge!
In this month’s Topps RIPPED Hobby Trivia, we take a trip to the North Pole, dig into some 1950s train-themed cards, pay our respect to National Bouillabaisse Day, and more.
As always, your answers are at the bottom, but no peeking!
Score:
0-3: You are probably in the 99th percentile of Topps Triviaphiles; these are not meant to be easy!
4-6: You’ve been collecting Topps Holiday for years.
7-8: Are you, perhaps, a writer for the backs of Topps cards?
9-10: You definitely cheated — Coal in your stocking!
1. The 2023 Topps Holiday Baseball Santa Claus Archives subset features a 1983-style card (#SA-1983). Which later-satirized-by-Topps toy (satirized many times over!) is featured in the blurb on the back?
2. Which Reddit co-founder and noted card collector appears in the 2025 Allen & Ginter set, with a series of signatures and doodles he deemed “1/1,” including turning his own photo into the Reddit logo?
3. In the 2019 Topps Holiday Baseball set, a variation of Mike Trout’s base card — which normally shows him jumping against a wall to make a catch — has him instead doing what popular holiday activity?
4. Also in the 2019 Topps Holiday Baseball set, a variation of Vladimir Guerrero’s rookie card saw his bat replaced with what seasonal treat?
5. Of all the baseball players born on Christmas Day, one holds the lead in both career home runs and steals. Who is it?
6. Card No. 34 in the 1955 Topps “Rails and Sails” set features this rarely seen snow removal feature.
7. Card No. 43 in Topps’ The Empire Strikes Back set describes these as “instrumental in the major offensive launched by the Empire.”
8. While the “TacoFractor” got most of the attention in 2023 Topps Chrome Baseball, this limited variation flipped numbering on its head, using negative numbers, like -2/0.
9. December 14 is National Bouillabaisse Day. Which 1987 set featured a subset of “Bouillabaseball” cards, with players like Ron Oyster, a “leg hugger” who plays for Dave’s Brown Sox?
10. The 1971 Topps Brady Brunch “Christmas Celebration” card (No. 25 in the set) has an unrelated episode description on the back about which kid getting braces?
Answers
1. The card mentions the popular-in-1983 Cabbage Patch Kids.
2. Alexis Ohanian.
3. Mike Trout is putting a star on the tree.
4. Vlad was holding candy canes.
5. Rickey Henderson leads all Christmas birthday MLBers, with 297 HRs and 1,406 steals.
6. The rotary snowplow
7. That would be the “Snow Walkers,” better known as AT-ATs.
8. The Sub-Zero Frozenfractors, which were numbered to -5.
9. Topps Alf Series 1 featured the Bouillabaseball stars.
10. Marcia.
