Box Break 2012 Topps US Olympic Team and Hopefuls

I haven't broken a box in a while.  A long while actually. I ended up at Don's Sportcards the other day to see if I'd won his monthly drawing.  He was giving away a box of 2012 Chrome Football.  I obviously didn't win, because I would be featuring that break instead of this one.

I was perusing the wares and drop boards and noticed he had a bunch of boxes for super cheap.  There was a lot of hockey, but also a couple boxes of Topps Olympic cards from last year.  I had resisted buying any because to be honest hobby boxes were really expensive.  Talking to Don he said he wasn't going to get any of it, but had a few people interested in it so he bought a couple of boxes, the ones now marked down to a reasonable price.  So I snagged one of the boxes and when I go back if the other one is still there and cheaper I might snag that one too.

In my honest opinion this was one of Topps best releases last year.

You've all seen the cards I'm sure.  They make for great TTM fodder, plus you get 3 hits per box, at least!!

Let's go through the motions of it though.

Here is the base card.  A nice clean design that takes a Sharpe very well, I've had a few successes TTM from of the extras from a blaster.

There are also three tiers of parallels, bronze, silver and gold.

The golds are 1:4, Silvers 1:3 and the Bronze 1:2, but is seemed like you got at least one if not two of these per pack.

There is also the Games of the XXX Olympiad insert.

These too would look great auto'd..

The other base insert is the Heritage of the Games.

You get one commemorative (ie Manupatch) card per box.

Henry here won gold in 2008, but failed to make the Olympic team in 2012 and after losing his 2012 Olympic Trials removed his shoes and threw them into the crowd officially retiring.  Nice patch card though.

Tony was the captain of the 2012 US Men's Water Polo Olympic team.  Sadly they didn't medal in London.

Natalie only got a Bronze in London last year as part of the 4x100 freestyle relay and didn't actually swim the final, but she has earned 12 medals, tying two others for the most medals won by a female US athlete and she won 6 medals in Beijing in 2008.  And I have to say this is a terrible picture of her, because she is quite good looking woman.

But wait what's this I beat the odds!! Yeah the packaging says you get at least 1 relic, 1 auto and one commemorative card.  But ain't it sweet when you get more than that?!!

Juan is origianlly from Columbia, but now plays for Chivas USA in Los Angeles.  Sadly the US Men's Soccer team didn't qualify for the Olympics, but his is a sweet silver parallel auto numbered to just 30 and a great bonus auto.  Not as good as a Michael Phelps would have been.

Over all not a bad box for under 40 bucks.  I haven't collated the set yet, but from just leafing through the stack I know that I should have most of a set and quite a few doubles.