Tag Archives: rookies

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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Preview: 2011 Panini Prime Signatures Football

  By Sports Card Blog | December 1, 2011 - 5:34 pm |
1 Comment

Is it love at first sight? Or is this just lust? February 15, 2012, we will find out.

2011 Panini Prime Signatures football is a newly rehashed product based off of it’s old product by Donruss in 2002. As the name of the brand says, this product will contain purely signatures inside a 4 card box.

The contents of that box are as follows: an autographed card numbered to 299 or less, 2 base cards numbered to 499, and either an additional base card or an added insert.

For a small product, the checklist is quite big. At 261 cards, you will find a wide range of cards, making set building this product near impossible. There are 175 currents stars and retired players and 86 rookies. However, every rookie card is autographed and the players who attended the Rookie Premiere will feature on-card autographs.

There are 30 boxes in a case which leads me to believe that the price on this product may not be too bad either. Each case will yield 8 to 9 on-card rookie autographs, 10 to 11 other rookie autographs, and 10 to 11 current stars or retired player autographs.

Every veteran autograph will be paralleled to 75, 25, 5, and 1 of 1 cards along with printing plates with a checklist highlighted by players like Troy Polamalu, Matthew Stafford, John Elway, Barry Sanders, Dan Marino, and Joe Montana. While the rookie autographs will be paralleled to 199, 49, 25, and 1 of 1 cards along with printing plates.

You can also find some other subsets like Signing Bonus Signatures featuring dual autographs numbered to 49 or less of players like Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning. Or maybe you’ll pull a Call to the Hall signatures or dual signature card featuring members of the NFL Hall of Fame.

All this and more in a product that looks like a mix of Topps Inception and Panini’s Limited product.

Check out the Panini Peek of this product for more information and images.

How about some more cards from Prime Signatures?

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Preview: 2011 Topps Triple Threads Football

  By Sports Card Blog | November 21, 2011 - 4:23 am |
1 Comment

Thanksgiving will have come and past, Black Friday will be a week ago memory, and Christmas will be on the horizon. Are you single and have some extra money from your Christmas bonus to blow? Maybe you hide your card collecting from your significant other and want to gamble on a high end box. Or maybe you know someone who would love a box of this product, like myself, and want to send them an early Christmas present. (If you need my address let me know!)

2011 Topps Triple Threads football is back and better than ever with an extra hit per pack giving you 4 hits per box now instead of just two at the same price we are accustomed to. First, I’m happy to see they are giving you an extra hit per box. I just hope it’s slightly better then the boring plain single jersey swatches you get in Triple Threads baseball.

Each pack will contain 2 base parallel cards numbered to 350 or less, 3 numbered base cards, 1 triple relic numbered to 36 or less, and 1 Triple Threads Unity autograph relics card numbered to 99 or less. Or you may get a pack with 1 autographed triple relic card numbered to 99 or less and 1 Triple Threads Unity relic card numbered to 36 or less. Which means there will be some boring plain single jersey cards in this $175 product as one of your 4 hits.

Some of the case hits include 1 of 1 autographed triple relic cards and triple autographed relic cards numbered to 36 or less. So at least the case hits look like they will be something nice to behold, but aren’t they always?

Another worry I have is that Topps has included way too many rookies compared to veterans in their products this year. I know it’s a pretty good rookie class, but a lot of the rookies are still not even worthy of being in a product like this. I just hope there are more veteran possibilities with less of the crappy rookies. I mean, in my review last year, I got lucky and pulled a book card of a Hall of Famer, but if I pulled another swatch of a rookie, it would have been terrible. We’ll see what happens this year.

November 30, 2011 is the release date. It’s definitely one of the bigger gambles, but it has some great possibilities for big hits as well.

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2011-12 Basketball Rookie Cards

  By Sports Card Blog | November 7, 2011 - 5:23 pm |
1 Comment

The NBA lockout has caused a number of issues with fans of the NBA, people who work for these professional teams, the players themselves, but also with trading card companies.

Panini America, the exclusive licensee of NBA trading cards, has not made any NBA licensed trading cards this season because of the lockout and will not create any products during the lockout. There does not appear to be any NBA trading cards as long as there is no NBA season. Definitely a bummer as there will be some great rookies to watch in their first season like Jimmer Fredette (exclusive Upper Deck signer), Derrick Williams (exclusive Panini signer), and Kemba Walker.

Since Panini will not be creating cards, what will happen to rookie cards of these future stars of the NBA?

2011-12 Upper Deck SP Authentic basketball released just last week and features some of the future stars in their product, which is fully licensed by the NCAA. You can find your autographed rookies of future stars like Jimmer Fredette, Nolan Smith, or the Morris twins.

But if there is no NBA season, how will the collectibility of these rookies be affected? With no season these rookies won’t get any exposure and won’t get to debut until next year with another class of rookies coming from the college ranks.

Will these Upper Deck cards be considered “true rookies” still or will they be marked as a “XRC” by a place like Beckett. Will the values of these rookie autographs drop or will they out gain next year’s products as they were produced first?

I guess time will tell, but I can see either occurrence having a legitimate chance of happening. My guess is that they are considered a “XRC” and really don’t have much of a rise in value nor a drop after the prices have been established. But they could possibly jump up in value as well, especially if one of the rookies in that product becomes a superstar.

We’ll find out if this NBA lockout ever ends.

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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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