An unexpected hobby box of Topps Prime Football

I stopped in to Don's Sportcards the other day after having lunch with the wife in the restaurant next door.  I love picking up cheap cards off his drop board and was surprised to see a great stack of boxes all marked down to great prices.  I knew I was walking out of there with a box, but I had to decide which one.  I could have picked up a cheap box of Stadium Club, Bowman Chrome, Panini Rookies and Stars.  In the end I grabbed a hobby box of Topps Prime.  I think Topps Prime is one of my favorite football sets.  It's just a well done set that reminds me of the glory days of great Stadium Club and Upper Deck football sets.

This year was the first year that both retail and hobby were printed on the same card stock.  Before hobby has printed on a thicker card stock than the retail version.  That meant if you wanted to put a set together you had to choose which product you wanted to buy other wise you had a mismash of thick and thin cards in your set.

Over the years I've pulled some great cards from Prime and I figured the price was right and I did want to build this years set.

The first thing I noticed was how few parallels and inserts are in this set.  I only pulled 3 gold foil parallels, one numbered rookie.  And there were only two inserts Prime Time and Prime Rookies.

I won't bore you with all the fluff or the inserts, I'll just give you the hits, because really that's why you're here.  Each hobby box comes with 4 hits.  With at least 2 autos.

First up is the Allen Robinson quad prime relic numbered to #75.  Allen isn't having too bad of a rookie year with 2 TD's and about 550 yards so far.  Plus I love the lover right patch with the threads sticking out.

But over all this was a Giants box for sure.  Next up we have a quad relic auto of Andre Williams. Not a bad designed card, but the relics are kind of boring.  This rookie from Boston College isn't having a bad year either with over 370 yards and 5 TD's.

Of course I bought this box before Odell's insane catch last week that's been a little ridiculous in the marketing that's followed, but hey good for the kid.  It's a nice relic card, it just seems like the relic is really small for this card.

And if one Odell Beckham card wasn't enough I also pulled this lovely relic, which has been redeemed.

Over all not a bad box, especially with all the attention that Odell's been getting have to see if he can keep it up.  I would have preferred a veteran player auto or relic or at least a Packer in my box, but what can you do.

I got primed!

I was at Bosco's for their monthly trade night and drawing. Every month the shop puts a pack of everything new that's come out in sports cards that month. If the person who has the drawn ticket isn't there the packs roll over to the next month.  Unfortunately I didn't win and someone else did. But since I won a couple years ago with 4 tickets I bought the night of I always try to buy a few packs before the big drawing. I ended  up picking up a few supplies I needed and two packs of 2013 Topps Prime.  I really like Prime it's always had a great looking design, very reminiscent of Upper Deck. I would love to put the set together, but packs are pricey at about 11 to 12 dollars a pack. And hobby cards are always on thick stock while the retail version of Prime is printed on a thinner stock.  

Anyway, my first pack only had a low numbered rookie in it. But I noticed that the second pack was a little thinker than the first and after opening it only had one card in it.

A pretty sweet Landry Jones book card.  This is the second book card I've pulled from Prime, HERE was my first one Prime's first year in 2010.

Landry had a pretty good college career at Oklahoma.  Time will tell if he ever gets to come out of the shadow of Big Ben, but it's still a pretty sweet card. 

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.

My Top 5 Sets of last year. (Yours may differ)

Alright this is going to be a subjective list with no exacting criteria other than I liked it.  This is going to be an all sport top 5 as well.

Here.....we.......go

Coming in at #5 it's a tie and the only Panini products to make the list

Score Football and Hockey.   Why you ask is a $1.00 a pack products on the list? Because you could get hits like this....

I'm numbered to 10!!!

I also pulled a Timmons auto and a Hockey rookie redemption auto.  Plus Score football had lots of fun inserts and numbered parallels that made it fun to open.  The one draw back from hockey was the lack of numbered parallels and the few inserts.  Sorry rookies aren't inserts but still a fun set to put together and cheap.  And it didn't look half bad. Still need a  few Score hockey cards if you have them I sure we can work out a trade.

#4  My other Hockey obsession.  UD Champs Hockey.

I know this was from the 2009-2010 season but it came out around mid April last year.  Just gorgeous cards and on card autos.  The bad about his set was how few cards you got per pack and this is a set builders worst nightmare.  All cards in this set were part of the set.  Mini's, autos, relics all numbered into the set.  There was at least one guy I know from around here that was close to completing a master set but way too expensive for me.  But a great retro design and who doesn't love a set with dinosaurs.  Again looking to complete this set, check out the need list.

And speaking of dinosaurs that leads us into #3

Allen and Ginter.  Always a fan favorite it was highly anticipated and I pulled some nice stuff from it. Which I didn't scan but I got my first rip card from it and I can't believe I didn't rip it.  It was a Hanley Ramierez card and I think I ended up getting about 60 bucks for it so I was happy.  Never did find out what was inside.  Plus I think Monsters of the Mesozoic is my favorite insert set this year.  Plus the cards looked great as always.  I guess the only draw back is that they look very similar to the last 2 years but I love the card stock and these cards are great for getting autographed.  And I do love mini's.

#2 I'm not sure if I can count this as this year or not or if it came out just after New Years but since I won't remember it for next years top 5 I'm going to put it here.

Topps Magic football.  And it's even better this year.  With UD grabbing the NCAA license Topps couldn't use college uni's this year.  So we get our favorite stars in their pro uniforms.  Plus the art work for the cards is great.  I don't care how they did it, photoshop or whatever.  They look great, plus mini's!! I got insanely lucky and pulled an auto out of the first pack I picked up and ripped.  I promised myself I was going to be good and not buy anymore boxes till Series 1 comes out next month but it's so freaking tempting and I'd love to put this set together.  Maybe if box prices fall a few more bucks I might have to take the plunge.

And my #1 favorite set is....

Yep the product that probably should have just been called Stadium Club.
I mean come on these cards are beautiful, the design great, and the hits can be awesome.

A great full bleed photo the name, team logo, and topps logo don't interfere at all.  And the photos are kick ass.

One of my first packs I pulled this..

And then I ended up picking up a pack for a redemption card and pulled this...

Best hit of the year, except maybe for my Score Manning auto. 
I would love put a set of this together but it's way too pricey for me to try.  There is the option of putting a retail set together as it considerably cheaper, but retail cards are printed on thinner card stock.

I was thinking of doing a worst card sets of the year but I think that would be dominated by Panini. 
Lets hear what your top 5 or 1 favorite card products of the year were.

Some Monday morning musing...before the work truely beings.

Sorry, I had to post this one again in the #1 position so it would show up as the preview picture on the blogroll.  I really want to collect this set now, but I might have to buy retail to do that so long as the base cards are the same.  I guess I need to go buy a rack pack of Prime.  The only thing that would have made this card better would be a on card auto, as the Big Kahuna pointed out last post. So while I gazed at my new favoritest card two things occurred to me.

First how to display this bad boy.  It's been a few years since the first Book cards have come out I figured BCW or UltraPro would have come out with something by now.  But a quick look at both websites shows nothing.  I had read somewhere about a guy who makes custom screwdown holders for these but there expensive and I was truly hoping that my LCS might have something.  I'll have to inquire this week.

The second thought was trying to image the chain of events that leads a major sports card company to own a player used football, wristband, glove and jersey.  I realize that some stuff is provided to the players at events, like the Rookie Preview and such, but for game-used and game-worn, not the same thing by the way, who sells the stuff?  The team?  The player?  Is there a person on each team that collects all the gear used by a player and packages is up and sends it to Topps, UD, or Panini?  Does Topps have a big box with the players name on it and all the gear they have acquired in it and they just take something out when they want to produce a relic card?  Who does the certifying? 

Anyways I love the fact that there's more than jersey in this card.  I think there isn't enough variation in the marketplace.  One color pieces of jersey are a dime a dozen now a days.  Literally.  You can find jersey cards in the quarter card bin.  I remember pulling a Favre ball card out of some Donruss product years ago and thinking how nice it is not to get a jersey card, although I'd have taken any relic of the Favre back then.  I also remember pulling a Ricky Phoehl Super Bowl used endzone pylon years ago from Stadium Club, though I don't remember the year.  That one I thought was really cool.  It sat in my collection for years and then I decided to sell a bunch of stuff on ebay and figured I'd see if anyone wanted it.  It was my highest selling card that round, though I can't remember the exact amount I know it was higher than 40 bucks so I was stoked.  The point is what to card companies do next?  It use to be the auto or relic was pretty rare in a set and if you got one you were damn lucky, now we expect it, and now we expect more than one and one of those hits better be an auto, so that now autographed cards, sticker or hard signed are almost a dime a dozen and card companies go out of there way to get "future stars"" to sign thousands of sticker autos to be included in a set.  I probably could find most of this years Topps Peak Performance autos in the dollar bin.

One thing I would like to see is the return of rare inserts.  Not parallels or relics but really nice inserts that have a print run of less than 100 or fewer cards.  This is also why I like the Topps logoman program.  If you haven't seen one here's what they look like.

This program is actually spread out through all of Topps sets.  This Yount was in Triple Threads this year but I ended up pulling a Mauer from Finest and it was pretty sweet.  And there all numbered to 50 and you can't get them in any other product.  So you have a card numbered to 50 only available in high end product of current stars and HOFer's nice.  I also like the Manufactured Hat Patch cards and Bats from this years Baseball products.  Again super rare although Topps produced a ton of different cards all the Hat cards were numbered to 99 and so where the base bats, with the bats having a black /50 and super rare 1/1 pink parallels.  Next year there are going to be manufactured glove cards and I suspect that there will be manufactured ball cards next year as well.  Wow this post is getting out of control.  OK enough.

On a side note and if you've read this far down congratulations, you can see by the counter over there that I'm nearing 10,000 views.  Although when I installed that counter it was also linked to my Robin Yount and Rollie Fingers blogs so that's not all for the Crack, I'm sure there's 2 or 3 that are for the others.  And I'm nearing my 200th post.  I missed my 1 year anniversary of the blog that was in October.  Anyway, for the milestone of 10,000 views, regardless of where they came from and/or my 200th post I'll be holding a little contest, or probably card giveaway.  It should work out well with me being situated in my new home, hopefully.

cb out

Some packs to drown my sorrows in....and a really nice hit.

I headed over to the LCS after watching my Packers take one up the butt to help ease the pain.  I bought 2 packs of Prime and 2 packs of Gridiron Gear.

For those of you who haven't seen any of the Gridiron gear this year here's what the bases looks like.

Through the years GridIron Gear was always one of my favorites from Donruss.  I always really like the super nice multi relic cards and autos.

I didn't pull anything out of my 2 packs other than a numbered rookie and an unnumbered rookie.

The McClain is numbered to 100, the LeFevour is not numbered.

My first pack of Prime yielded a nice numbered rookie and a Prime Rookie

I've said it before and I'll say it again I really love the look of these cards, the base I mean.  Just a nice clean classic design with great photos.

Out of my second pack I've gotten my first book ever.

Only one card in this pack and it's a doosie.

Toby Gerhart sextuple relic auto numbered to 10!

Not that GridIron Gear ever had anything like this in it but it's the combination of different stuff on the card that I use to like Gridiron Gear for.  Not just jersey relics but a ball, wristband, glove and nice patch to boot.  I might hate the Vikings but I sure don't hate this card.  Wow.

cb out

Some Topps Prime

I have been making it my Sunday ritual after watching football at the bar to make a pit stop at Don's Sports Cards on my way home.  I like to peruse the drop board and look though anything new he has laying about.

Well if you didn't already know Topps Prime is out and I like it.  It reminds me of Stadium Club.  As a matter of fact I'm wondering why this isn't Stadium Club?  Why no Stadium Club Topps?  This of course is a mid level product with boxes going for about 100 bucks for 10 packs and packs going for about 10 to 11 bucks, although you can get a box of this off of Blowout for $76.  They come in a nice tube like Absolute. 

I picked up 2 packs to try it out.

Here are 3 of the base cards. Mr. Stafford, Wallace and Smith.  Nice full bleed design with great photos, the name and team logo don't detract from the card at all.  I meant to scan the backs too but forgot there nice as well.

Each pack comes with 5 cards and at least 1 insert.  I got this quad Rookie running back card.  This card also has a relic versions where the team logos would be replaced by a piece of jersey. Oddly enough if you look at the sell sheet this is the quad 4th quarter example on the sheet.

Another DMC card.  This card is called a Prime Rookie and has the PR prefix. I've been pulling lots of McCluster rookies this year.  Get healthy!!

I'm not sure but this might also have a relic or auto version.

A nice Colt McCoy gold parallel.  I like this kid and I think if he can stay healthy and if the Browns can get a few more people to catch the ball and maybe shore up there line, and if Hillis doesn't pound himself into the ground, they might have a good season next year.

Another Eagle auto.  At least this kid made the team.  Although he's been hurt a lot too.  Sticker auto though.

If you were to buy a box you would be 4 hits.  2 Relics, 1 relic auto and 1 auto.  So I got the one Auto outta the box.  The book auto relics look pretty sweet too.

All in all I like the cards, I like the set, but way too expensive to try and complete from pack buying.  Although I stopped by Target to pick some stuff up after I left Don's and saw that they have rack packs of Prime for 4.99.  That could be a way to go.  With 150 base cards and getting 4 or 3 per pack (base cards) in a hobby pack that's just not going to do it, but 14 cards per rack pack or 28 for the same cost as a hobby pack.  I didn't pick any rack packs up but I might have to buy a few and see if I can pull a nice hit out of retail.  Oddly enough there seems to be some nice hits in the retail packs coming from Topps and Panini this year. 

cb out