2013 Turkey Red - going, going, gone live!

As I write this there's not a ton of stuff up on ebay yet, but I have seen a few posts on box break forums that people are getting their Turkey Red orders in.  Here are a few scans of what the cards look like and a few autos already up for sale.  I assume that in the next 48 hours ebay will be packed with this stuff.

Here's Yu.

And Bryce.

One of the autos I'll be chasing. Sadly I have a nicer TTM auto of this guy.

Here's what a back will look like, I'm assuming the auto and regular backs are similar with the autos haveing the Topps Disclaimer.  Looks like all autos are sticker autos as well.  Some of the subjects like Jose here are very low numbered.
There are also dark bordered parallel autos all numbered to just 10!

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.

Topps Prime Box Hobby Box Break.

I was at Bosco's for their monthly trade night last Wednesday.  I hadn't bought anything in awhile so I needed to pick something up to get some tickets for their drawing.  No one had won for over 4 months so they were giving away over a $1000 dollars worth of packs.  I was hoping that they would have Update in so I could spend my money on that, but alas they did not so I opted for a hobby box of Topps Prime.  And sadly someone won and it wasn't me.

I really like Topps Prime.  I've liked it since they started putting it out back in 2010. And I think the reason I like it so much is it reminds me of a quality Upper Deck release.

The one draw back is that Hobby and Retail cards aren't the same.  Well they have different card stock.  And I found there are a few photo differences as well.

There are also 4 different pack designs this year.

You can kinda see what I mean. The Hobby cards are almost twice as thick as what you get in retail.  I picked up a blaster earlier this week to check it out.  This is exactly the same as in 2010 and I'm assuming 2011, but I didn't buy any Prime in 2011 so I'm not sure.

Here we have the base cards.  The RGIII on the left is the one I pulled from my retail blaster, the one on the right came out of my hobby box.

The backs are the same.

I did notice that not all the players have these variations, but  I also haven't sorted through the base to see what I could find yet either.

There are a couple base inserts as well.

Prime Rookies. I'm sure that there are a number of parallels to these just like the base cards.  I only pulled one of these out of my hobby box.

The second insert set is the Prime Timers.  I got the two here out of my hobby box. I also pulled one from my blaster.

There are a number of different parallels to the base cards not counting the autographed versions.  Retail has a blue foil parallel, which I didn't scan and hobby has a gold foil, although I've seen the term copper foil thrown around too, but these really do look more Gold to me.  These come one per pack. I guess all the Rookie Gold/copper foil cards are numbered to just 399 And there is a numbered Gold foil parallel too.

MJD Gold/copper  Foil unnumbered.

The backs seem to be the same for all the parallels.

I just can't get away from B Weed. Here is one of the two gold #d parallels. I also got an Aaron Rodgers for my PC collection. I already had that squirreled away when I started scanning.

I also got one of these Copper Rainbow cards #d to 50.  You'll see a theme in the hits of Dolphins and Browns.

Now onto the hits..

See told you.  Each box boasts an auto, auto relic, and two more relics. Here we have the first of the relics. A Weedon/Tannehill combo relic numbered to 405.  Not a bad looking card. At least both of these rookie QBs are starting, but....

Next we have a quad relic of the rookie WR corps.  Again this just reminds me of Upper Deck, which really isn't a bad thing.  I think I like that fact that all 4 swatches are so different in texture.

What's this more Tannehill??!! yep. Nice looking card though even if it is a sticker auto.

And the nicest card out of the pack..

A beautiful quad relic auto of Rueben Randle.  Rueben's only seen action in Week 3, but with  a couple guys in the Giants line up injured he might see some more playing time and catches.

Overall another nice offering for a mid range product.  I wasn't overly thrilled with the hits I got, but then I'm not a Dolphins, Browns or Giants fan.  I still really like the quad relics.  I do really like the base design and it would be a great set to put together, unfortunately you'll have to decided on hobby or retail as the card stocks differ and if you're just interested in collating a set retail would be the way to go with hobby packs selling for over 10 bucks a pack.

2012 Topps Football Jumbo Box Break and Review

box label

I'm back. At least for a while.  So the first thing I did when I got back to town was head on over to Bosco's and picked up a jumbo box of 2012 Topps Football.  I needed some trade night tickets for this coming trade night.  No ones won the past 3 or 4 months so there is almost 800 dollars worth of packs up for grabs.

So lets take a look at the set and what I got.

First I just want to say how happy I am Topps has decided to go back to unique designs for it's football product instead of just using the baseball template.  And I like this years design.  I choose to feature Pouncey here because he was my only double out of the whole box!  That's pretty damn good collation.  As a matter of fact I'm only short about 21 cards for my set, so one jumbo box got me 95 percent of the set.  Not too shabby.

Let's take a look at the inserts.  A few I really like and a few I could have done without. First the bad.

First up we have the Paramount Pairs.  I really don't know what Topps fascination with having these duo cards is.  For the last 4 or 5 years Topps has included some kind of match up in it's baseball and football sets.  A lot of times the connections and pairings are pretty suspect.  I get the guys on the same team, but most of the cards take these player back to college when they were on the same college team. meh.  I don't think it's a bad looking card and the relic and auto versions aren't terrible either, but it's just not a set for me.

Here's what the back looks like.

Next we have these Rookie Reprint cards.  I pulled 9 out of the box, 2 Griese's.  Another trend Topps doesn't seem to be able to get away from.  Hey Topps I'm tired of stupid reprint cards! Tell the designers to put the bong down and come up with an all new original inserts for the next set! I also love that the Joe Namath card is regular size not Tall Boy, yet there is a Tall Boy insert this year.

The backs are replica as well and Topps makes sure you know it's a reprint.

Now on to the stuff I like.
There are quite a few parallels to the base cards this season. Camo, Pink, Black, Gold and 1/1 Platinum.  The odds of the Camo and Pink are about 1:11, so you're not guaranteed any in a Jumbo.  I didn't snag any of those, but I did come away with 5 golds.

The best of the pack is the MJD one there. Now if he would just sign a contract.

I also like the new numbering on the backs of the parallels this year.  Oh and here's what a base back looks like. Sorry forgot to scan one of Pouncey. Just imagine there is no serial number there.  The past few years Topps stopped doing is foil stamp numbering and started using a terrible looking printed serial number that was obviously put on at very high speed.  Here while the number is still in black. It's solid, not smudge and very legible.  +1 Topps!

Next insert I like is the Prolific Playmakers.  I love the design and when I first saw this I thought to myself, damn this would have made a nice base design. I ended up pulling a bonus one of these coming out of the break with 11 and two AJ Green's.

The back.

Next up we have QB Immortals. Another great looking design and another insert that I thought would have made a good base design.  I wasn't really paying attention to how these were coming out of the packs but in a 10 pack box where usually you get one of each insert in a jumbo pack I walked away with 13 of these and oddly enough no doubles.  Nice.

The back.

My favorite insert of the set is of course the Tall Boy Mini's.
If you read my blog regularly you know I love mini's and oddballs, so of course this insert set is right up my alley and of course I'll be going after it. All 141 of them.  10 down 131 more to go.

I have no idea how I'm going to store or display these. They're bigger than the tobacco size mini's and smaller than the original Tall Boy's.  I doubt UltraPro is going to make a special pocket page for these especially since no card storage company has come out with a book card holder yet. I'll probably end up using 9 pockets, sorry getting off topic here.

Can you tell I'm a Packer fan?  I love the cartoon on Raji card commemorating what will probably be is most memorable career moment. I still remember that game and the look on his face when he got the ball in the end zone, priceless.

There are also redemption cards for a free pack of Topps Kickoff.

I ended up snagging 3 of these and yes I plan on redeeming all three next week.  Hell there might be auto cards in there!! I'll let you know what I get.
And of course Topps is doing another giveaway.

And again since I live in Alaska I can't do it. Oh well these are going for a good price on the Bay right now so up they go. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this, but since Topps won't send me anything that I win I'm not even going to enter a code. I did manage to come out with 11 of these though.

Now onto the hits!
The whole reason for getting a Jumbo is the 3 hits.

First up we have the Rookie Patch card.  I got one of these last year of Torrey Smith. I have to say I know that this is only player worn at the rookie premiere, but damn that's a nice looking card and patch.  Jarius' cards aren't even being a 5 dollar bill right now, so hopefully he'll have a big rookie season.

Next up the auto's!

I'm pretty happy with my two autographs.  Both big names.

And there's nothing like opening a box of cards and one of the hits is a player you collect or on a team you collect.

I'm having a hard time keeping me from buying another jumbo of this.  I really like the product this year, but I know that if I buy another box I'll either have 400 extras laying around or have to put another set together. But the last two years I ended up pulling Rookie Premiere autographs so it's tempting.

Anyways, I'm going to keep the hits and the Tall Boys and probably the QB Immortals and the giveaway cards are up on ebay, but the rest is up for trade. I have my 21 card need list up as well, but I have a feeling I'm going to be buying another box of this come Wednesday at trade night or another box of Ginter.