Hey I'm back! And what better way to celebrate than with a box break. It's been a long summer and I'm really glad it's over. I can count the weekends I've got to spend at home on one hand this summer. I've still got lots of stuff to do around the house and of course just because I'm done with field work doesn't mean I'm done. I've at a mountain of paper work that needs to be put into our database, ect, ect. Enough excuses. Lets just say I'm back. I've got lots to say and post about, most of it way past timely or relevant, but you don't come here for breaking news.
So Topps flagship football hit late last month. I ended up picking up a jumbo box at trade night last night, I didn't win the drawing, but it was nice to finally make a trade night. First off there's not really anything super spectacular in this years set. This year doesn't feature the insane rookie class of last year, but Topps does put out a nice set. Lets have a look at the set in general and what I pulled shall we?
I really like this years base design. And I'm really glad Topps has decided to keep using unique designs for it's baseball and football flagship products instead of using the same design like they have in years past.
I like the overall design. The foil adds a nice accent to the card this year. Here we have Defensive Rookie of the Year Luke Kuechly.
I like the backs as well with the card number top center it makes for easy box collating. There's lots of room for information and stats. If I have to nitpick I would have liked to see the card number and player name a little larger on the back, but over all a nice design.
I also really like the landscape cards. Topps could put a full set out like this and I wouldn't complain.
Alright lets look at this years inserts. This year Topps' theme is Legendary. So most of the inserts are centered around the word Legend.
First we have the Gridiron Legends.
Out of all the Legendary inserts this is the one I like best and might even try to put together.
Unfortunately most of these inserts had some kind of edge damage right out of the pack.
Next up we have Legends in the Making. Sorry for all the Packer scans, but they are my team after all.
And lastly we have Future Legends.
I'm also guessing that Topps subliminal theme is shields. Lots of shields.
And Topps keeping true to formula has a mini insert in this years set as well. This year we get 59 mini's.
Not my favorite mini offering, but I'm a sucker for mini cards so yes I'll be attempting this set too.
A while back I can remember Topps asking collectors to email them ideas of what they would like to see in Topps products. It might have been specifically to Football I can't remember and I can't remember if it was a post on Facebook or their defunct blog, but I remember sending in a list of things I would like to see return and one of those was the 1000 yard club cards of old. Well look what we got this year. Not only 1000 yard club cards, but 4000 yard club cards as well. Which oddly enough was another one of my suggestions. Actually I suggested different levels to the Yardage club.
Yep another scan of Rodgers. While I'm glad to see these card back in the set I'm a little disappointed in the actual results. I think these cards would have been great if they had been chromed out or lenticular or something other than plain glossy cards, and they would have looked so much better die-cut. The border is really, well for lack of a better word, bad. And the corners just kind of throw the whole card off. I applaud Topps for the attempt, just wish it had been better executed.
The 1000 yard club cards off a little better and if these get carried over to Chrome Football, I'll bet they look really awesome.
Alright lets get onto the hits.
I haven't combed through my rookies to see if I have any variations, but there are quite a few in the set. As a matter of fact Topps has a whole contest centered around them. I'll pass.
First we have the parallels and lets start with the Golds. You'll notice a theme in the hits that it was a very 49er and Cardinals centered. I got 3 gold Niner cards.
I also pulled my first ever Pink parallel.
At least it's a rookie.
I also snagged one black parallel as well.
Another defensive rookie. The foil on the black cards is holofoil and looks really good with the black border.
I like the jumbo boxes because you are guaranteed two autos and a rookie patch card.
Or at least a auto redemption.
Ah a Cardinals hit. Yep I already redeemed it. I wanted to see what it looked like in person. I just hope it takes slightly less time than my last auto redemption, which was my 2011 John McEnroe Allen and Ginter card that look well over a year to get to me.
Here's my Rookie Patch card. It's a sweet looking card of a 6th round pick from the Cardinals. Sigh. I'll probably end up holding on to it for awhile to see if Andre does anything this year.
And wait here is my last hit.
Mike Glennon, rookie quarterback for the Bucs. Maybe if Freeman gets hurt Mike will get a chance, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I think we can all agree my box kind of sucked hit wise. But they were all there and there are some nice hits possible in the set. Overall I like the design of the base set. I think Topps might want to think about moving away from a theme for the issue, but the inserts are ok and I do like the mini's. I also like the fact that the Yard Club cards are back even if they weren't executed all that well. Out of my Jumbo box and a random rack pack I got about 95% of the set. I'm missing all but 20.
I'm only going after the 59 mini's so I'm open to trading any of the inserts I got and the hits.
I'd also like to apologize to the couple of people that expressed interest in a trade from my Series 2 Baseball box break I posted month and months ago. I can't find your emails anywhere so if you see this and are still interested let me know.
And with that I'm done. Good to be back.
cb out
