Category Archives: Football Breaks

Review: 2011 Topps Chrome Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 6, 2011 - 4:54 pm | ,
5 Comments

Well, I broke down and decided to try my luck with some 2011 Topps Chrome football. I saw all the great things that a ton of people had to say about the product and I decided that I wanted to try and review it myself. So I ordered a box with some money I put together and have a review for you guys. I picked this up for about $100 bucks so let’s see what we got.

Base:

Parallels:

Inserts:

Autograph:

Design:

I really can’t say enough about the design. Again, Topps has put out a product that looks really great. They have done that alot with this year’s products which is a good thing. The things Topps needs to work on, in general, is content. But that’s besides the point. This product looks fantastic. Very clean design, nice borders, nice photos, and the refractors look really good. I love the look of the sepia tone refractors myself. The inserts are solid and I enjoy the Bowman Chrome design as well. Oh yeah, everyone knows I love die-cuts so the atomic refractors are great too. Nice and sparkly as well! Pretty. Not that I’m taking points off this, but I opened this up last night and I swear I can still smell the Chrome finish on my hands…ew. Can’t we get strawberry scented Chrome finish?

Checklist:

The checklist is solid. There are a ton of nice autographs to be had in either regular or paralleled form. But the thing for me is that they are rookie autographs. I would like to see at least a better possibility of pulling a bonus autograph and having it be a nice veteran autograph. Why can’t we see a few other autographs thrown in there? I mean, it’s already up to over $100 a box…I know the rookie class is good but that changes the decision on whether buying this is a good idea or not.

Value:

That leads us here to value. The prices has rocketed up on this product, but for good reason. The rookie class is doing great this year and people want to find rare cards of these rookies. This is a great product to find it, but it suffers from the same problem we find in baseball. So many parallels. These parallels effect the value in a negative light, especially if you start pulling parallels of rookies no one cares about or ride the pine. A nice cut down on the number of parallels would be nice and I go back to wanting a chance at a veteran autograph as well. The rookie patch autographs are nice and rare, but again, I don’t want a product where the only hits are rookies when there are veteran base and parallels as well. Oh, don’t get rid of the superfractor though, they are beautiful and are worth a pretty penny.

Overall:

Overall though, I had a ton of fun opening this product. It just leaves a little tiny bit to be desired in the checklist and value portions. Otherwise, this is a great product which I can see being the rookie card everyone wants to get every season like Bowman Chrome is to baseball. The cards look sharp in all their parallel forms, but maybe try and get a few more on-card signatures. If Panini can do it, anyone can. I would like to see a little more work put in the value, but there already is some great value if you pull the right players and they seem to hold value pretty well. I’m going to harp on this again though, I would like to see some veteran hits. Good work Topps.

The video will be here when I get a chance to upload it.

Still looking for my first Cam Newton card of the year…

 

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Review: 2011 Panini Absolute Memorabilia Football

  By Sports Card Blog | October 30, 2011 - 3:08 am | ,
6 Comments

One of the higher end staples from Panini is back on the table this year with some nice improvements to the quality of the product. This year, all the 36 rookies who attended the Rookie Premier have on-card autographs in this product which results in some great looking cards. But how will the rest of the product hold up?

We have been given a box to review once again by Panini and we will check out some the great hits that you can pull from this product. And by great, I mean great, because we ended up pulling a great looking card below.

Base:

Inserts:

Memorabilia:

Autographs:

Not shown: Greg McElroy Rookie Spectrum Auto GOLD (Redemption)

Design:

The overall base design is very solid in foil with a great action shot and a great layout for name and position. To me, it seems like they got confused and put the team logo where the brand logo should be. But that’s not a big deal at all. Even the Spectrum layouts are solid as well. The inserts are very…”Panini-like” as they have the same feel as other products. Player off-centered, team logo where memorabilia goes, and then the other information. It’s been that way as far back as I can remember since I got back into the hobby in 2005 so no change there. I’m not a huge fan of the design of the RPM cards, I mean look at that Steven Ridley card. That Patriots logo is HUGE! I’m guessing that’s where an autograph would go if it was an autographed version? Just not a fan. But that Ingram looks great with everything filled up (as well as the Tony Gonzalez patch).

Checklist:

A great bunch of rookies that you will find in every product, but the paralleled RPM materials help make the rookies pulled that much better. The jumbo patch autograph really added the needed value to the box and having future Hall of Famers like Tony Gonzalez on the checklist is a solid addition. You can pull just about anything from this product, but you’ll more than likely hit mostly rookies, which can be good or terrible. But they make the rookies well worth it if you hit a nice card like that Ingram. But again, this product suffers from too large of a base set of veterans and rookies and needs to be cut down a bit.

Value:

I really didn’t hit any plain jerseys in this box which is a great start to a product that costs over $150 for four packs of cards and a hit per pack product. The RPM you could consider a plain jersey, but you’re bound to find them in every product like this. The other hits were great with the Tony Gonzalez two color patch, the Mark Ingram jumbo patch autograph, and even a solid rookie autograph redemption. I still have faith in Greg McElroy. I’ve seen a lot of great boxes of this product, more then a lot of products out there by any manufacturer and more “good boxes” then “bad boxes”.

Overall:

Overall, Absolute is a fun break at a hit per pack but it’s also an expensive break. If I bought one pack and got that Steven Ridley as my hit, I wouldn’t be a happy camper. This is definitely best bought by the box. The design is solid and I think they did a good job with the traditional Absolute foil on the base and inserts. The design on the hits are okay but that doesn’t matter as much when you get some solid hits like this box provided. The checklist is too large for this type of product for the base veteran and rookie set, but the hit checklist is pretty solid and the rookie on-card autographs are great. I mean, the Ingram wouldn’t look half as good if that was a sticker. The product is going to be hit or miss, but it looks like there are more hits and then misses this time around from the number of box breaks I’ve seen which is a good thing.

Again, I’d love to thank Panini for providing this box for me to review. You can visit their official site or their official blog to find out more information on great cards like the ones pulled above.

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Review: 2011 Panini Crown Royale Football

  By Sports Card Blog | October 29, 2011 - 4:15 am | ,
5 Comments

Crown Royale is back in it’s second season in a return from the dead right before Halloween and it looks just as good, if not better than last year. With a hit per pack and averaging at least 2 autographs and 2 memorabilia cards per box, it has the possibility to yield some great hits including some legendary swatches and some awesome Rookie Silhouette prime material autographs.

Well let’s see what is in our box given to us for review from the wonderful people at Panini America, shall we?

Base:

Inserts:

Memorabilia:

Autographs:

Design:

I’m a sucker for die-cuts. I always have been a sucker for die-cuts. The only thing that I am more of a sucker of is very shiny die-cuts. But these look fantastic. I’ve always loved the design and the great colors that come along with the cards around the crown area which matches the team colors. The shiny borders look good too. Panini is getting better at designing their inserts to where you are starting to not be able to see boxes where memorabilia goes as those get kind of annoying after awhile. The only real complaint is that I’m getting tired of seeing white boxes where the autographed stickers go. I understand you need the autograph to be legible, but can’t you incorporate something into the design like just fading out the deep colors towards the bottom of the card where you put the sticker? Maybe a little round area faded design for the auto cards instead of box (ala Inception)? Surely the design team can do something other than a white box.

Checklist:

In my honest opinion, it’s too large for the amount of cards you get in a box and a pack at the price point it’s at. And by that I mean the base set and the base rookies. How on earth is anyone supposed to put together a set of these cards? The base set is huge. I love the insert sets and especially the great on-card checklist for the Rookie Silhouettes, but I think the base set needs to be cut down a bit. Maybe 100 total cards? 75 veterans and 25 rookies? Even 125 would be better than the current amount of 200.

 Value:

At $25 per pack, this is really hit or miss. But as a box, you might hit it big and get something worth the box itself. It’s tough as there are plain jerseys in here, which is obviously needed, but there are also some REALLY nice possibilities for hits. This sort of feels like Absolute Memorabilia Jr. So I’m kind of not sure how to rate this for value. Two autos and two memorabilia per box, which is better than most boxes at the price, but less total cards. I think there needs to be maybe one more single case hit kind of like the Net Fusion cards to make something for people to chase besides the Rookie Silhouettes. Finally, I’d also like to see the inserts numbered. I mean this is a product where you have to number the inserts. I really want to give this a 3.5 because of its hit or miss nature by pack (and my case by box, just look at sale values), but I always round up for the benefit of the doubt.

Overall:

Overall, I still absolutely love Crown Royale. I love the die-cut design, the colors, and the great Rookie Silhouettes cards. It’s an extremely fun product to open, but I find the huge checklist of base cards kind of disappointing as it takes a lot to try and put a base set together of those awesome looking cards. Back to the Silhouettes, I love that all the autographs are all on-card as it just makes them look that much better. We just need to work on those white boxes…please? Otherwise, it won’t kill your pocket, but you should definitely purchase this by the box and not by the pack. I like the addition of a case hit, but maybe one more type of limited case hit that would shine and be a welcome addition.

Oh, and for those who might want to complain about the Net Fusion manufactured net cards, they count as an insert, not as one of your hits. So you can either like them or not and you don’t have to worry because they aren’t taking the place of any of your mojo.

Again, I’d like to thank Panini for providing this box for review. Make sure you visit their website and blog for more information about products like this.

Video is coming up soon!

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Review: 2011 Panini NFL Sticker Collection

  By Sports Card Blog | October 2, 2011 - 12:10 am | ,
3 Comments

It took awhile, but my local store finally had some stickers available. Well, they had some available once already, but it appears I was too slow as I think they were gone in less than a week. But I could totally see why they would be.

I never thought I would enjoy stickers and sticker books or anything as a 25 year old. Even when I was a youngin’, I wasn’t a huge fan of stickers. I know I had some baseball team stickers back then and would collect those, but didn’t actually stick them anywhere. I don’t think there was a book or anything for them back then. Who knows, I was little. But these were a lot of fun.

Regular:

Star Player:

Team:

Design:

I really like the design of these. I’ve been saying over and over again, Panini does a really great job of designing their lowest end products. These stickers look great. The player is cut out and the focus of the sticker, while the background is a team color with a team symbol. The star stickers look great in all their foil glory, as well as the team stickers which even have some etching in their foil. Very cool. The book design is solid and I love that under each sticker area is information about the player and some stats. I also really like the inclusion of the Pop Warner insert set, Super Bowl, and NFL Hall of Fame subsets. There really is a great variety of stickers.

Checklist:

There are a ton of stickers for you to collect. Every team has a team logo and 12 regular player stickers along with 3 star player foil stickers. There are also stickers for the NFL, each division, Hall of Fame players, Pop Warner, and Super Bowl. There is so much variety in this product that it makes trying to collect all the stickers not only challenging, but a lot of fun as it breaks up the monotony of the same kind of sticker over and over again. I bought 9 packs of stickers and it seems like I got something different in terms of insert stickers in each pack.

Value:

$2 for a sticker book and $1 for a pack of stickers. How could the value get any better? The stickers are what you would expect and then some. How many companies out there have etching on their foil stickers? None that I know of other than Panini. If you are thinking, well, they’re just stickers, you are mistaken. The promotions involved in this product are great. There are random inserts for Madden 12 or Madden 12 Hall of Fame Edition and special rare sticker backs that if you collect all the sticker backs you can win some awesome prizes from Panini. Or do you want to win your Pop Warner football team a brand new sponsorship with new uniforms and equipment? Collect 3,000 sticker backs and be put in a drawing to win that as well. With all the added promotions and giveaways Panini has added, it gives you another reason to want to buy these.

Overall:

Wait a minute, this is close to a perfect score. These are stickers, should they even count as a trading card set? Both are valid concerns. This product deserves the close to perfect score. The only problem with this product and any sticker product is trying to unpeel the backs. The design is wonderful, there are a ton of great stickers to be had, and it’s a cheap thrill with some great added bonuses. Should they be counted as a trading card? Can you trade the stickers? Yes? You can? Well then, I guess that answers that question. I wouldn’t go as far to say this is the best product ever created, but for what it is, it deserves the stars in every category. It’s fun, cheap, looks good, and does a great job to get kids into collecting. Whether you are into stickers or not, this is definitely a winner of a product.

I didn’t even mention that if you are just a few stickers short, go on the Panini website and order the stickers you need to complete your set!

Have you checked out Panini’s blog on how to stick your stickers properly?

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Review: 2011 Panini Threads Football

  By Sports Card Blog | September 26, 2011 - 3:32 pm | ,
1 Comment

2011 Panini Threads football has been out for a bit now and once again has divided the football card collecting community. Some people love it, some people hate it, and there really isn’t anything in between. But don’t worry, I am here to bring you that voice of the collector who is the one person out there who doesn’t love it, but doesn’t hate it either.

After opening and going through the product, it looks to me to just be an average mid-range product. There are some highlights though that you won’t find in other Panini products like autographed manufactured letterman patches, a wider crop of rookie autographs with some that may not have made prior releases, and some really nice insert sets that I haven’t seen before. So let’s see what we got…

Base:

Inserts:

Autographs/Memorabilia:

Design:

Okay, I’ll start with the things I like. I love the use of team colors across this product. It seems like every card incorporates the team colors of the team that player plays on. From the regular base set to the inserts, the team colors proudly wave across the cards. I also really enjoy the action shots and the horizontal design of the cards. The inserts are also done very well, I especially enjoy the Gridiron Kings and Star Factor sets. Now, the bad. I still don’t like manufactured patches but in a product called “Threads” I can live with it. I also don’t like the random stripes going down the side of some cards that have the set names and the team logo. For example, I already love the Gridiron Kings set but would love it even more without the stripe. I know you use it for placement of game used material, but couldn’t there be a less intrusive way? Maybe it’s just me.

Checklist:

I really like a nice base set like this. A ton of different players from your favorite teams can be pulled. I’m still not a huge fan of the rookie per pack thing, I’d like to see Panini do something like Upper Deck does with hockey and Young Guns. Limit the rookies in the product to keep them at a higher value. It seems like product after product is one rookie per pack. Other than that, they feature quite a few players from today and years gone by, which is always nice in moderation. This is definitely my type of product with the small insertion of former players. As always, Panini does a great job of inserting case hits being stars of the NFL including the newly added Troy Polamalu autographs can be found in this product. I was lucky enough to pull a nice patch card of his.

Value:

At $85 a box, I think it may be a little high. I mean, I only received one autograph in the box and we all know autographs are really what collectors are looking for nowadays. Some boxes have 2 autographs in them, but I’d like to see 2 autographs and 2 memorabilia in each box. Even if it was another rookie of some sort, at least that has more potential to rise in value while game used memorabilia cards are going down in value what seems like every day. The Polamalu should hold decent value as he doesn’t have many out there, but the Tebow and the Packers rookies might not. Then again, fans of both are pretty rabid. I’d just like to see a little more ink.

Overall:

Part of me really thinks that with some tweaking, this product has the potential to be a really great product. The designs have improved and have some really great things to see. I love the use of team colors and the action shots showing everything is really nice. Even the inserts look nice, but I would still find a way to get rid of that line down the side. The checklist is pretty good, but I’d still like to limit the rookies. I say this through a lot of products, but it’s just something I see over and over again. It was nice to pull a Julius Thomas rookie finally for my PC though. Finally, I would find somewhere to add a little more value or lower the price $10 or so. Make it two autographs and two memorabilia or even add in an extra memorabilia card and I think it would hold up pretty well. But I think with a few minor tweaks, this product has the potential to be so much better.

Again, thanks to Panini for providing this box for me to review. I will be giving away some cards from it in the future because I have the Panini NFL POD contests going on until November so make sure to check those out.

I’ll have the video up shortly, it is kind of a long one.

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