How The Man came back

August 17, 20269 min readINDEPENDENT COLLECTOR RESEARCH

The 1998 cards were numbered to 500 and 75.

The Man debuted in 1998 Finest Baseball Series Two as a 20-card set of leading stars. Standard cards were serial-numbered to 500 and Refractors to 75, with published historical odds of 1:119 and 1:793 wax packs respectively. The modern revival retains the name and much of the look, but its scarcity must be checked against the newer release.

Rainbow foil suited the late-90s stars.

The 1998 design used chromium stock, a metallic rainbow field and an oversized ‘The Man’ title. Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Cal Ripken Jr. and Mike Piazza were among the 20 subjects. The star billing and bright finish gave the original a recognizable look for Topps to return to decades later.

The Man returned in four Finest sports.

Topps revived The Man as a tribute to the 1990s insert and expanded it across licensed Finest releases. This study covers 2026 Baseball, 2025/26 Basketball, 2025 Football and 2025/26 UEFA Club Competitions. TM codes recur across the releases, while checklists, parallels and pack formats vary by product.

Baseball owns the top card in this group.

Shohei Ohtani TM-2 carries a $1,483 raw guide snapshot, with four recent exact raw sales from $1,219.42 to $1,530.01. Aaron Judge TM-1 is much lower at a $420 guide, and his four most recent sales step down from $407 to $284. Both come from a ten-card checklist, but the player premium is doing more work than the shared 1:327 Hobby odds.

Wembanyama’s $2,400 result stands apart.

Victor Wembanyama TM-12 has a $1,112 raw guide and a recent $2,400 sale, well above the other results around $1,100 to $1,499. LeBron James TM-11 has a tighter recorded range: an $837 guide and four tracked raw sales between $837 and $1,000. The Wembanyama outlier deserves a closer look before it is used to value another copy.

Dart’s rookie sells above Allen, with a wider range.

Josh Allen TM-1 has a $500 raw guide and exact sales at $449, $520 and $623. Jaxson Dart TM-5 has a higher $559.21 guide, with four tracked sales from $490.96 to $775. Dart’s results suggest a rookie premium, though his recorded prices also vary more. Football Hobby odds are 1:422 packs; Breaker Delight odds are 1:71.

Soccer is the affordable end of the eight-card study.

Max Dowman TM-10 leads the two UEFA rookies here at a $281.60 raw guide, with three exact sales from $210 to $430. Estêvão Willian TM-1 sits at $250, supported by three sales between $200 and $300. UEFA has the longest Hobby odds of the four mapped releases at 1:483 packs, yet its tracked prices are the lowest. Scarcity never prices a card by itself.

TM-1 belongs to three different players.

TM-1 identifies Aaron Judge in Baseball, Josh Allen in Football and Estêvão in UEFA. Each needs its own record of release, sport, player, condition and sales. All eight cards in this report have an exact reference photo, a raw guide, at least three exact raw sales and a sale within 90 days of the review. That provides a basis for comparing individual cards; the shared insert name alone is no reason to buy.

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