2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase #25 Christian Pulisic

​​​

The 2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase soccer product was issued in hobby boxes and blaster boxes with a release date of May 17, 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2016-17 UEFA Champions League Final was played on June 3, 2017 (and three days before the final games of the 2016-17 Bundesliga season were played on May 20, 2017).  The copyright year on the reverse of the cards is 2017 and authentication companies have labeled some of these as 2017 cards (as opposed to 2016-17 cards or 2016 cards, which labels authentication companies also have used).  Those graded cards using a 2017 label have led to confusion on the part of some about whether this is a rookie set for Christian Pulisic, but we believe the fact the set was released prior to the final game of the 2016-17 UEFA Champions League tournament means this is a 2016-17 card and thus a Christian Pulisic rookie card.  Topps did not begin producing Topps Chrome UEFA Champions League cards until the 2017-18 season, making the 2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase set Topps’ premium 2016-17 UEFA Champions League product.

​

The hobby product of 2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase came in an eight-box case with each box containing twelve packs of six cards, and contained the base cards along with parallels of Gold /99, Red /25, Black /5 and Champions 1/1.   There also were unnumbered Orange parallels, which were exclusive to retail blaster boxes.  To determine the number of base and Orange Pulisic rookie cards requires an estimate on the blaster production.  Using the stated pull rate odds for all the serial numbered base cards and insert cards (note the number of cards per pack and pull rates are different in each product), we made some assumptions based on the stated pull rates to generate the matching amount of product for the Gold, Red, Black and Champions cards and determined 1,525 cases of hobby and 375 cases of retail would get us very close based on those stated pull rates (we acknowledge the product mix could be different than that used in our assumptions, but we do not believe the difference would be significant). 

​

Assuming the above 375 retail blaster cases of 16 boxes each, we get 6,000 retail blaster boxes.  There are five Orange parallels in each box for a total of 30,000 cards, and with a 200-card set we get 150 copies of each unnumbered Orange parallel of the 2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase #25 Christian Pulisic.  Concluding that the Orange parallel has a slightly higher print run than the Gold /99 serially numbered parallel also is supported by the ratio of the graded populations of both cards.  As of January 2026, 17 Gold parallels and 18 Orange parallels were graded, respectively, across all platforms (as detailed further below).

 

For the base card, assuming 6,000 retail blaster boxes with four packs per box we have 24,000 total packs from retail blaster boxes. Utilizing a base card pull rate of 4.1 per pack, this gives us 24,600 total base cards from the retail blaster boxes.  With 200 cards per set, that gives us 123 copies of each base card in the retail blaster product.  With the hobby product having 1,525 cases of eight boxes each, meanwhile, this means 12,200 total hobby boxes.  These are twelve-box cases with a base card pull rate per pack of 5.05, which yields 739,320 total base cards in the hobby product, or 3,670 per player in the hobby product.  Coupled with the 123 copies per player in the retail blaster product, this means we believe the total number of the Christian Pulisic 2016-17 Topps UEFA Champions League Showcase #25 base card to be only 3,793 copies. 

​

As of January 2026, PSA has graded only 218 copies of the base card, with 115 being graded a PSA 10.  Three base cards have been graded at BGS, two of which are 9.5 grades.  Five base cards have been graded at SGC, including one graded 10 and two graded 9.5.  Five base cards have been graded at CGC, with one gem mint 10 grade and no others above 9. 

 

Like the base card, the parallel versions of the card also have been relatively lightly graded relative to some other Pulisic rookie cards.  As of January 2026, CGC has graded no parallels, while BGS has graded only three across all Pulisic parallels (one Black /10, a 9.5; one Red /25, a 9.5; and one Gold /99, a 9.5) and SGC also has only graded three total Pulisic parallels (two Golds /99, one graded 10 and one graded 9, and one Orange, graded a 9).  The overwhelming majority of Pulisic Showcase parallels have been graded by PSA, but PSA still has only graded three of the Black /10 (all graded 9), two of the Red /25 (one graded 10 and one graded 9), 14 of the Gold /99 (nine of which are graded as a PSA 10) and 17 of the Orange unnumbered parallel (only six of which are graded as a PSA 10).  PSA also has graded the Champions 1/1 parallel.