What Is Alan Narz's Rookie Card? The Rip Master's Cards, Checked

Short answer: Alan Narz’s earliest documented card is a 2007 Allen & Ginter-style mini that Topps handed out at a dealer trade conference in April 2007. Because it was a giveaway and never sold in packs, it’s his first card but not his rookie card in the usual hobby sense. His first card in packs was the 2008 Topps Finest Topps TV Autographs #FA-RM, “The Rip Master,” released April 1, 2008. That makes it his first pack-issued card, his first nationally distributed card, and our pick for his rookie card. If you require a card from a set’s main numbered checklist, the answer is the 2023 Topps Stadium Club #300 “Alan Narz – The Rip Master” short-print variation.

Who is Alan Narz?

Narz owns Big League Cards in Casselberry, Florida, outside Orlando. He opened it in 1992, after selling point-of-sale systems for NCR and AT&T (Florida Trend). BaseballCardPedia calls him a “Topps consultant” as early as 2001, when it credits him as the “brainchild” behind the 2001 Topps American Pie set (BaseballCardPedia). He has also hosted Topps fan events for years. A Collectors Universe thread places him at the Topps booth as “Rip Master” at the 2007 National in Cleveland. Other sources fill in the rest:

• Pack Wars. Blowout Buzz describes Pack Wars as “the game popularized by Big League Cards owner and Topps frontman Alan Narz.” It notes he has run it at hobby shops, card shows, Super Bowls, MLB All-Star Games, and Walt Disney World (Blowout Buzz). Topps’ own site calls him “a longtime hobby shop owner who has hosted over 100,000 people at Pack Wars over the last two decades” (Topps Ripped).
• The National. At the 2014 National Sports Collectors Convention, Topps listed its booth meet-and-greet, contests, and Pack Wars as “Hosted by Alan Narz” (Sports Collectors Digest). Beckett notes he has run Pack Wars at the Topps booth at the National (Beckett).
• “The Rip Master.” Around 2007–2008 he hosted Topps TV’s online pack-opening show, The Rip Party, under the name “The Rip Master” (The Chronicles of Fuji). He still uses the name.

His store bio makes further claims we couldn’t confirm independently, so treat them as his own account. The bio says he has been a consultant to Topps, the NFL, and MLB, and has written more than 100 industry articles for Krause Publications. It says he has run the Retailing for Success conference for card-shop owners since 1998. We can confirm the seminar existed by 2012, when Sports Collectors Digest reported Topps would host a “Topps Retailing for Success Seminar hosted by Alan Narz” at that year’s Industry Summit (SCD). It also says that in 2005 an industry trade conference named him one of the hobby’s “20 Most Influential People of the Past 20 Years” (store bio).

The Rip Card connection

Topps’ Rip Cards, designed to be torn open to reveal a mini card inside, debuted in 2006 Topps Allen & Ginter. There were 50 of them, seeded about one per hobby case, each serial-numbered between 10 and 99 (BaseballCardPedia). BaseballCardPedia notes the idea wasn’t entirely new; it points to 1998 Zenith as a precedent.

Topps’ patent application for the design, US 2008/0202947 A1 (“Collectible card with cavity for containing inner item”), names Alan Narzissenfeld as the inventor and is assigned to The Topps Company. Narzissenfeld is Narz’s legal surname. The application claims a February 22, 2007 provisional filing, was filed February 21, 2008, and was published August 28, 2008. Google Patents lists it as abandoned in 2014, so no patent appears to have been granted (Google Patents). Topps’ own glossary says Rip Cards are “the only type of trading card to date that has a U.S. patent” (Topps Ripped). The public record we found shows an abandoned application, not an issued patent. The SABR Baseball Cards blog also identifies the filing as the Allen & Ginter Rip Card patent (SABR).

Every Alan Narz card we can document

We only list cards we found in a checklist or a dated, published source.

Year	Set	Card	Card #	Type	Insertion odds	Known parallels	Distribution	Why it matters
2007 (Apr 13–20, 2007 conference)	Topps Allen & Ginter promos, Hawaii Trade Conference	Alan Narz	Unnumbered	Mini-size promo, 1 of 7 cards (a Beckett-graded copy exists)	Not pack-issued	None reported	Given to attendees of a dealer trade conference in Fort Lauderdale	Earliest documented card
2008 (released Apr 1, 2008)	Topps Finest Baseball, Topps TV Autographs	“The Rip Master”	FA-RM	Autograph insert (5-card subset)	1:11 mini boxes for the whole 5-card subset. Odds for his card alone aren’t published.	Refractor /25 (subset 1:392 mini boxes), Red Ink /10, Framed White X-Fractor 1/1	Hobby packs, nationally	First pack-issued and first nationally distributed card
2023 (released Jan 2024)	Topps Stadium Club Baseball	“Alan Narz – The Rip Master”	300 (SSP variation of Rafael Devers #300)	Base short-print image variation	1:5,639 hobby packs, 1:5,596 hobby compact packs. Not in blasters.	None reported	Hobby and hobby compact, nationally	First card in a main numbered base checklist.

Checklist sources: BaseballCardPedia, 2007 A&G promos, BaseballCardPedia, 2008 Finest, Beckett, Breaker Toolbox, Cardboard Connection.

The 2008 Topps Finest “Rip Master” autograph

2008 Finest was a 166-card baseball set released April 1, 2008. A hobby box held three six-pack “mini boxes,” with eight boxes to a case. Each mini box promised one autograph (BaseballCardPedia).

The Topps TV Autographs were an unannounced five-card subset, made “to promote Topps’s YouTube channel: Topps TV.” The cards are FA-RM The Rip Master, FA-RGF Felicia, FA-RGH Hollie, FA-RGR Rachael, and FA-RGLS Lindsey / Stephanie. After they started turning up, Topps “went to great lengths” to reassure collectors that the cards didn’t replace the guaranteed autograph in each mini box (BaseballCardPedia).

Odds. The published odds cover the whole subset: 1 in 11 mini boxes for the base autographs and 1 in 392 for the Refractors, numbered to 25. Topps didn’t publish odds for Narz’s card alone. His store bio says it fell in “1 out of every 5 cases,” but we couldn’t find that in any Topps or checklist source. A case held 24 mini boxes, so the published rate works out to roughly two Topps TV autographs per case across all five cards. If the five were seeded equally, that’s about one Rip Master every two to three cases, not five. But we don’t know that they were seeded equally, so we don’t treat either figure as his card’s odds.

On the card: the checklist credits it to “The Rip Master.” We haven’t confirmed whether “Alan Narz” also appears on the front or back. Some marketplace listings mislabel it with another person’s name, so check the card number (FA-RM) when shopping.

The 2023 Topps Stadium Club SSP

2023 Topps Stadium Club Baseball was released in January 2024 after a delay. Hobby boxes had 16 packs of 8 cards, with 16 boxes per case (Cardboard Connection, Breaker Toolbox). Topps slipped Narz in as a hidden variation of card #300, whose base version is Rafael Devers. Beckett’s explanation: Narz “has worked with Topps in a variety of roles over the years, including running Pack Wars at the Topps booth during the National Sports Collectors Convention” (Beckett).

How it differs from the regular image variations. Beckett says Narz’s card “is separate from the other… Variations as far as odds go”:

• Narz SSP: 1 in 5,639 hobby packs, 1 in 5,596 hobby compact packs. Not in blasters.
• Regular image variations: 1 in 216 hobby and hobby compact packs, and 1 in 460 blasters.

Breaker Toolbox lists his card as a one-card “Base Short Print Variation.” It reports 200 copies for each regular image variation but gives no print run for Narz. Topps hasn’t published one, and we won’t guess. Based on the published odds and 256 packs per hobby case, that’s roughly one per 22 hobby cases. Beckett notes the code at the end of the fine print on the back identifies it: base cards end in 163, image variations in 208, and the Narz card in 498.

The 2007 Allen & Ginter trade-conference mini

Narz’s store bio says he is “proud to have been featured on an Allen & Ginter Mini Card.” BaseballCardPedia lists that card among the 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter promos. Topps gave out seven mini-sized cards at the 2007 Hawaii Trade Conference, a hobby-dealer event that was “actually held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida that year.” Four of the cards showed subjects from the upcoming 2007 Allen & Ginter set: Ryan Howard, Mickey Mantle, Bruce Lee, and David Wright, each hand-numbered to 25. The other three showed people BaseballCardPedia calls “Topps employees”: Alan Narz, Clay Luraschi, and Linda Purgess. Every card carries the 2007 Hawaii Trade Show logo on the back (BaseballCardPedia).

The Greater Fort Lauderdale convention calendar for 2007 lists the “Hawaii Trade Conference-Mainland Edition,” run by F+W Publications, for April 13–20, 2007, with an expected attendance of 200 (Fort Lauderdale CVB). That puts the card almost a year ahead of the 2008 Finest autograph.

We’ve seen a photo of a graded copy. Beckett graded it a 9 (Mint), and its label reads “2007 Topps Allen & Ginter Hawaii Trade Conference Alan Narz.” The front is a mini in the standard 2007 Allen & Ginter design: a painted-style portrait of Narz, with “Alan Narz” and “Allen & Ginter’s, Brooklyn 2007 New York” printed under it. It’s his first card with his full name on the front.

What we still don’t know: the exact wording on the back, and how many copies were made. No print run has been published for the three Topps-staff cards; only the four player and celebrity cards are listed as numbered.

So which card is his rookie card?

It depends on which “first” you mean:

• First documented card: the 2007 Hawaii Trade Conference mini (April 2007).
• First pack-issued card: 2008 Finest FA-RM.
• First nationally distributed Topps card: 2008 Finest FA-RM.
• First card in a mainstream baseball product: 2008 Finest FA-RM.
• First card in a set’s main numbered checklist: 2023 Stadium Club #300.

Our take: The hobby doesn’t usually treat promos and event giveaways as rookie cards. The 2007 mini went to a small group of dealers at a trade conference, so it counts as his first card, not his rookie. By the standard most collectors use, the first card the public could pull from packs, the 2008 Finest Rip Master autograph is his rookie card. The 2023 Stadium Club SSP is the answer only if you insist on a base-set card. It’s also by far the rarer pull by published odds. We haven’t confirmed an official rookie designation on any of the three.

Why a card-shop owner got cards at all

All three of Narz’s cards are really about Topps. The 2007 mini put him alongside two other Topps staffers at a dealer conference. The 2008 autograph promoted Topps’ YouTube show, which he hosted. The 2023 short print, in Beckett’s account, recognized his years running Pack Wars and booth events for Topps. That’s the logic behind most hobby-personality cards: they mark someone’s role in the hobby itself, not on the field.

Open questions

• The back text of the 2007 trade-conference mini and how many were made.
• Whether the 2008 card’s front or back shows the name “Alan Narz” or only “The Rip Master.”
• The per-card seeding of the 2008 Topps TV subset, and the print run of the 2023 SSP.

If you have the 2007 trade-conference mini or official Topps documentation, we’d like to see it.