Couple packs of Small Pros Series 1

 Put out by McFarlane Toys, you know the comic artist who created Spawn and puts out super realistic action and sports figures?

 Anyways I was at the store and saw that these had been marked down to a price I figure I'd like to try a couple.

The checklist consists of
Peyton Manning and a variation
Calvin Johnson
Aaron Rodgers and a variation
Andrew Luck and a variation
Trent Richardson
Jason Witten
Robert Griffen III and a varaiation
Troy Polamalu
and a Mystery figure which is SPOILER.....Adrian Peterson.

You can see a full figure gallery here

I opened my two packs and was a little disappointed that both were RG3 until I realized that I had gotten both the regular and variation. Lets have a look..

 The packaging says the age for these is 5+ but man putting these together was tough. I don't mean figuring out what goes where, just getting the body, head, and arms all in the sockets was hard.

Not too shabby. I would have been really happy had I opend both Aaron Rodgers figures, but what can you do. I also would have been happier if RG3 had had a better year.  Both are for trade if anyone wants them.

And while doing a little research online I found that there is a Series 2 due out December 18th. Just in time for stocking stuffers
Here is the Series 2 Checklist
COLIN KAEPERNICK with variation
ELI MANNING
DREW BREES
LARRY FITZGERALD
CLAY MATTHEWS
ROB GRONKOWSKI with variation
CAM NEWTON with variation
RUSSELL WILSON with variation
and one mystery figure - Stevie Johnson (Thanks to Corky for letting me know)

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.