Category Archives: Football Breaks

Review: 2011 Upper Deck University of Oklahoma Football

  By Sports Card Blog | January 14, 2012 - 6:56 pm | ,
9 Comments

Boomer Sooner! Are you a fan of one of college football’s annual powerhouses? Do you live and breathe Oklahoma football? Do you talk in an Okie accent? This product is perfect for the Oklahoma football fan, the college football fan, or just a fan of the history of this program.

We were graciously provided with a box of this product to review courtesy of Upper Deck. What’s inside is quite a bit of the storied history of the University of Oklahoma football program. Remember, at the end of this group of Upper Deck reviews I will be giving away a ton of the stuff I have pulled, so stay tuned for that. Here’s what we pulled:

Design:

The design is neither great nor terrible. It feels kind of redundant with everything having the Oklahoma colors, but then again, it is an all Oklahoma product. I really love the OU Icons insert cards that are the hardest to pull in a box as you only get two of them. Those inserts alone bumped it up a little bit from a completely average 3 stars. I’m not a fan of the dual and triple cards that they feature, but the singles all look pretty good. I understand trying to fill out a product based on only one school and it must have been quite the task. I just think it could of looked a little better. Upper Deck has very talented designers, this isn’t one of their best.

Checklist:

The checklist is what frustrates me the most in this product. Okay, there are a ton of legendary Oklahoma players that were great for the Sooners and some great in the NFL. I don’t mind the players that were chosen. However, seeing those players pop up over and over and over and over again in different subsets is what frustrates me. Not only will you receive doubles of one card, you will find several of the same player repeatedly in a box. I can’t count how many Brian Bosworth cards I pulled from this box. I could, I just don’t want to. It would depress me. Bosworth was great, but seeing his name repeatedly isn’t.

Value:

This one I was actually debating between 3 and a half and 4. The product currently sits at $40. Not a bad price at all. But if you’re buying a full box, you will find at least one autograph. Got my autograph and apparently it’s not bad either. Not bad. Almost a full complete set minus the autos? Nice too. 21 doubles in a box? Bad. Why not just cut down a card each pack and not have to worry about all the doubles in a box? Save yourself some money, pass that on to the customer, or improve the product a bit. That was too many doubles for a hobby product. I could complain about the player selection again with a billion different cards of one player, but you saw that in the checklist. Otherwise, the value isn’t really terrible.

Overall:

Overall, this product scores as pretty average of a product. The design isn’t one of Upper Deck’s best, but it does have it’s highlights. The checklist could drive me up a wall with the same players over and over and over again, but that will be an issue with creating a product based on one team. It’s just the way it is. While the value could be a little better, it’s actually not that bad. Just too many doubles which could easily be remedied. I like the addition of an autograph too so that makes it that much better for those going hobby.

So card collecting fans, what are your thoughts on a product like this?

Thanks to Upper Deck for providing this product for review. You can visit them on their official website, official blog, Facebook or Twitter pages.

 

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Review: 2011 Panini Gridiron Gear Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 13, 2011 - 1:56 pm | ,
2 Comments

Gridiron Gear is back for another season under Panini’s wing and we have some of the major components returning for another season. Most notably, the pull out autographed jerseys make a return and are now found in one out of every two boxes or so. Also, one of my favorites, Gridiron Signatures returns as well with an autograph on what looks like the player’s home football field.

Every box should contain about 2 autographs and 2 memorabilia cards along with a bevy of inserts, rookies, and paralleled cards. I think just about every card is paralleled in this set so there are a lot of cards for player collectors to search for. Let’s see what we got:

Not pictured: Demarco Murray Rookie Orientation Auto/Jersey Redemption

Design:

I must say I’m not huge on this year’s design. I really liked last year’s design and it just looks like they put in a little too much with this. Like the last product reviewed by Panini, I feel that there is just too much going on at the bottom. I know I mention that it also sort of reminds of the Elite design as well in the break video. Maybe if they designed the whole product like their rookies I would really like it. I do like the fading of the picture towards the bottom of the card. Why can’t they do that in autograph subsets instead of a big white box? I think that Schaub auto would look find without the white box personally. But I like that the white box doesn’t take up the whole card this time. Baby steps.

Checklist:

What is it with Panini and a rookie per pack? Another product with a ton of rookies that just waters down the base rookie cards. Not even a top rookie has a base rookie card which I find kind of strange. They can be found in the other rookie subsets with the material autographs though and they are all there. As always, you can find a ton of different legends or veteran autographs as well in this Panini product which always makes it a good day in my opinion. I just want to see a cut down of the rookie base cards.

Value:

You can find boxes for around $100. Do I feel it’s worth that much? No. But since Panini has instituted it’s MAPP policy, a lot of products start out at a high price only to go down in price after the end of the policy. It will be a good break in a month or two, but the collector wants to open this product now and may overpay a bit for it. If it were me, I would wait until it drops in price a bit.

Overall:

Overall, Gridiron Gear is an okay product, about average. The design is too much for me, but it does have some highlights like the rookie cards and a couple of the insert sets. Otherwise, it’s nothing to write home about as there is too much going on. The checklist is always solid, but I’m getting way too many rookies at one per pack. I don’t need rookies of everyone who got drafted. But they make up for it with great veterans and legends autographs and memorabilia cards which I always see as a positive. That also keeps the value up a little, but I feel the product is a bit overpriced. I would wait until it drops before grabbing a box, so it should be a good break in a month or two.

Again, a big thanks goes out to Panini America for providing this box to review.

Video coming soon. Lots of uploading going on today.

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Review: 2011 Panini Certified Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 12, 2011 - 5:03 pm | ,
3 Comments

Okay, I lied in the video. Just making that clear to start. This is not the Certified product with the HRX video cards. I got too excited and ahead of myself for the possibility of an autographed video card from Panini. It’s not this one. That is Totally Certified. Oops. I’m sure I’m not the only one who made that mistake already.

Anyways, this is a break and review of 2011 Panini Certified football, the regular Certified football. The product of choice for a lot of football collectors who collect Panini products. You get 4 hits per box with some mirrored parallels as well. Want to know what we got? Me too. Check it out. More slideshow goodness.

Design:

I give the design this score for a few reasons. There is a lot to like about the design of the cards and a lot that I couldn’t care for. Let’s start with the negatives just to get those out of the way. I think the label at the bottom of the base cards is just big. I think it would look great slimmed down a notch which would give more room for the full bleed photos which are good. FOTG and Certified Potential are meh. But I love the Hometown Heroes insert set. The design is kind of an enigma to me. Maybe it’s just me.

Checklist:

Okay, so you have a ton of rookies like every other Panini product this season. I’m still not a huge fan of the 100 rookies in the base set. There are a ton of no name rookie autographs as well which isn’t that good either. But you can find veterans, rookies, and legend players in this checklist which I think is a definite plus. There are some sweet veteran and legends cards that you can pull and Panini always does a great job including enough of those into a product so I always give them kudos for that.

Value:

The current price being just south of $100 might be a little much for me with this product. Sure, you get 4 hits in a box and some mirrored cards but as I stated above, there is just too much filler in terms of the base rookie autographs. You may get lucky and hit one of the Freshmen Fabrics or something along those lines and pull a nice autograph from there, but I’m not sure how often those are falling. After checking other box breaks, it appears that I just got a “meh” box compared to others. There are a ton of nice on-card autographs to be found with some nice subsets, so don’t let this particular box break scare you away. The low numbered mirror parallels always sell decent too so don’t forget about those.

Overall:

While I’m not a huge fan of some of the designs this year, I am a huge fan of a some of the other designs this year. Take that for what it is and see what you like about it. The checklist is solid but again, the over abundance of rookies is something I’m not a huge fan of. But you can always find some nice veterans and legends in Panini products and they are always included in just about every set. So if you’re lucky, you’ll hit one of those. You may even pull some of the nicer rookies in autographed form as well. I seemed to have hit just a bad box as I’ve seen a lot more breaks nicer than this then on par or worse then this so don’t let this particular box scare you away. As always, do your research.

And as always, a big thank you goes out to Panini America for providing this product to review!

Video coming soon. I’ll be uploading a ton of stuff over the next couple days as I have the time off from work.

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Review: 2011 Panini Gold Standard Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 11, 2011 - 7:46 pm | ,
3 Comments

Panini’s Gold Standard line is moving to football from the basketball arena and it looks just as good, if not better, then it’s basketball counterpart. While I kind of liked the entrapped autographs, when they weren’t cutting off the signatures, they seemed to have done away with those types of autographs in football and changed things up a bit.

Our box is in for review and here are some images of what we pulled. Remember, we have just started to try out this little slideshow feature, so if you don’t like it please let me know so I can try something else. If you love it, well tell me that too. Just trying to get less clutter on the review posts.

ajgreengs
danielthomasgs
darelscottgs
dionlewisgs
flaccogs
jakelockergs

Patch Auto #/325

namathgs
peytongs
rahimmooregs
riversgs
44half3half4

Design:

As Beckett’s Chris Olds said in a Twitter post, this is probably the best use of foil board to date. And it rings true. I really like the design of this product with the gold foil board and the designs put forth on the cardboard. It really has an elegant and gold feel from opening up the gold bar shaped box to shuffling through the gold colored cards to see what you pulled. A couple of things I didn’t like though starts with the big white boxes for rookie autograph stickers. Okay, I get that these might stay around for awhile until something is figured out so here is a new idea. A white rectangle the size and shape of a sticker where you just place the sticker on top of it. It wouldn’t take away from the entire bottom part of the card. I’m also still not huge on the layout of the non-memorabilia inserts with the team logo. Sometimes it looks okay, but it just doesn’t look incorporated well in inserts like the Rivers.

Checklist:

For $200 you better have the checklist to back it up and Panini provides a great checklist for you to chase after. From the great looking rookie autographs in the silver pen to even some cards embedded with diamonds from super bowl winners, you can pull the hottest rookies and the greatest to ever take the field. You can really just pull about anyone in this product which I really like. I do think there may be too many rookies in this product however and that would be really my only complaint.

Value:

$200 for a box is a tough sell when you have plain jersey cards of rookies in the product. There is a huge potential for hit or miss in this product and having the plain rookie jerseys in it really puts a damper on the value. At least patch these bad boys up in your second highest priced product of the year. I got a total of one patch, on the Locker, and it’s not only numbered to 325, it’s a single color patch. Oy vey. It’s a little rough, but at least it’s of a top rookie. I can’t imagine if I pulled a Jerrel Jernigan or Bilal Powell as my rookie patch autograph and the rest of the cards I pulled. Discounting maybe some bad luck for some, there is the potential for huge hits as well with diamond embedded Super Bowl autographed cards and NFL Shields that could bring in quite a bit of money, as well as autographs from the top rookies of the year. Products like this are always hit or miss so you’ll have a lot of complaints.

Overall:

Overall, this product has a solid design with a great use of foil board and the gold shines beautifully on these cards. With a few tweaks here and there I think it could look even better. But what would look better then some of the diamond embedded Super Bowl ring cards this product delivers featuring a great checklist of Super Bowl legends. Or maybe even a nice silver inked rookie autographed patch from a hot rookie. But you better hope you get lucky and pull a popular name as the other hits with plain jerseys and high numbered hits may drag down the value a little bit. $200 is a bit rough of a price to start out with, but if you wait it out a month or two, prices should drop a bit and you might find some better value. But if you’re up for a gamble, this is a very fun product to rip open.

As always, a big thank you goes out to Panini America for providing this product for review.

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Review: 2011 Topps Finest Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 7, 2011 - 5:04 pm | ,
10 Comments

Yes, I’m a little late with this one too but I really wanted to try the product. The one patch autograph and one patch jersey card per master box really caught my eyes. Plus with the addition of a ton of different refractors and the possibility for some veteran autographs was right up my alley along with the solid rookie checklist. I put down a little bit of cash on this and here is what I pulled.

Base:

Parallels:

Inserts:

Autographs:

Design:

There is really only one reason I dinged this down a little bit and that is the autographs. I’m not a huge fan of entrapped autographs that are embedded into the card. Sure it makes it look less stickery, but if you end up cutting off part of the persons signature, as seen with the Stevan Ridley…though only partially, it just takes away from the autograph. Maybe it’s just me. But also, why no on-card autographs here? You were able to get on-cards for Inception, why not here? I know it’s probably part of your process, but Panini was able to get a ton of rookies done on card. That Cam would of looked so much better on-card then it already does. But I love everything else, the die-cuts, the refractors, the dotted design in the background, thumbs up.

Checklist:

Again, a great showing here. With the rookies AND veterans, this product would please just about everyone on the map, besides those who want legend possibilities in their product too. I dinged it a half star because I would of liked to see a little more depth with the veteran autographs and a little more with the Finest Moments cards. The non-autoed Finest Moments are probably the only thing I don’t like alot about this product. I know it’s been around awhile, I don’t mind it, but compared to everything else it’s just there.

Value:

Value, value, value. I got great value. Others may not have done too hot. I also spent more because the prices with this product have gone up as well. But overall, this has more value then most of Topps football products this season. With the inclusion of the veteran hits and the patch autographs, this rivals Topps Chrome as Topps’ best full product of the year. (Inception is a different type of product with it’s few cards) Not only are you guaranteed a patch auto and jersey auto, you may get a bonus hit…like mine. I just wish the patch autographs weren’t all numbered so high, but when every box has one, I guess that should be expected.

Overall:

Overall, there really isn’t much bad to say about this product. It is as close to perfection as you can get, in my eyes. You have a great looking design all the way around. You have a checklist with rookies and veterans and possible hits for both. You also have a solid value because of the nice rookie class and the inclusion of those veteran hits and rookie patch autographs. I thoroughly enjoyed opening this product and if I had the cash, I would probably put down enough for a case of it. I had that much fun. This is my kind of product.

Funny how my first Cam Newton card of the season is an autograph numbered to 25!

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