No, Topps didn’t turn the NBA superstar into a GPK character, nor are they planning on any NBA products soon. However, one GPK collector got quite the surprise when he broke a Hobby case of the new 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Chrome OS 6 cards. Thanks to Ryan Preston for sending along pictures and video of the cards. Ryan was quite shocked to find a number of base cards in the case had Panini NBA Prizm cards backs. The fronts had the normal GPK cards, but backs featured Prizm backs of Steph Curry, Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Lowery, and more! In all his case yielded 16 GPK base cards with Panini NBA Prizm backs.
This isn’t the first time GPK cards were found mixed with sports cards. There are a few examples from 1986 Topps baseball with cards that contained GPK backs. This is the first time card backs from a different company has been found on Topps GPK cards. It’s unknown how this error occurred. GPKNews reached out to Topps for comment, but has not heard back. A few weeks ago Panini filed an Antitrust lawsuit against Fanatics. In part of the complaint, Panini alleges Fanatics purchased the printer that Panini primarily uses to print their cards. So it’s feasible that GPK Chrome cards and Panini NBA Prizm were being printed in the same facility and somehow the wrong fronts were glued to the wrong backs during the Chrome production process. It will be interesting to see if more of these cards surface as collectors bust more packs.
