In sports cards, SSP stands for super short print: a card printed in even smaller numbers than a regular short print (SP), which makes it one of the hardest cards to pull from a set.
Card makers rarely publish how many SSPs they print. Most SSPs aren’t serial-numbered, so collectors judge their rarity from pack odds, checklists and how often they turn up for sale.
How rare does a card need to be to be an SSP?
There’s no official cutoff, and collectors argue about it. In my opinion, SSP should be reserved for cards with print runs under 20. That would include numbered cards lower than /20, as well as non-numbered short prints with print runs of fewer than 20.
Card makers use the label more loosely. Topps puts the SSP label on a whole tier of its flagship image variations without saying how many it printed, so there’s no way to check them against a cutoff like mine.
SSP examples
In 2023 Topps Baseball, Topps introduced the Golden Mirror image variation, which was actually labeled with “SSP” in gold foil on the back of the card to help identify this particular super short print. There’s a Golden Mirror version of every card in the 330-card Series 1 base set.
Usually, though, no such labeling is provided. Some more common examples of cards collectors call SSPs:
- Red Refractors /5 and Superfractors 1/1 in Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome.
- Gold Prizm /10 parallels from Panini Prizm football and basketball (Panini no longer holds the NBA or NFL license, so these come from its licensed years).
- Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani in their new uniforms (Yankees and Dodgers, respectively) in 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball. Neither was on the official checklist, and they look just like base cards at a glance.
How to tell if a card is an SSP
- Compare the photo with the base card. Image variation SPs and SSPs share a card number with the base card but use a different photo, often the player off the field or in a different uniform.
- Check the code on the back. Modern Topps cards print a small code starting with “CMP” along the bottom of the back. In Topps flagship baseball, base cards, SPs and SSPs have usually had different endings. Our Topps CMP code lookup tells you which part of the set a code belongs to.
- Look at the checklist. Checklist sites like Beckett and Cardboard Connection list the SP and SSP variations for each set once they’re known.
FAQ
Are SSP cards rare?
Yes, by design. They’re rarer than SPs, and you can open a lot of packs without seeing one. How much that matters for value depends on the player. An SSP of a star can sell for many times the base card, while an SSP of a bench player may not be worth much more.
What’s the difference between SP and SSP?
Only the print run. Both are cards printed in smaller numbers than the rest of the set, and SSPs are the scarcer of the two. In Topps flagship, for example, a card can have a base version, an SP image variation and an SSP image variation, each with a different photo. The short print definition covers SPs in more detail.
Not sure which version you have? Look up the CMP code on the back of your Topps card.
