Tag Archives: rookies

Preview: 2011 Panini Gridiron Gear Football

  By Sports Card Blog | August 20, 2011 - 1:01 am |
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One of my favorite football products since it’s inception, Panini is bringing back Gridiron Gear football for the 2011 season and I couldn’t be happier about it after seeing the recent Panini Peek of this product with a ton of great photos of what the cards will look like in this year’s product, some of which I will feature here.

The famous Gridiron Gems rookie pull out autographs are back again as usual and are a little bit easier to attain then in year’s past. These cards are built so you can pull the piece of player worn jersey out from the card and can view the autograph a little better that is signed directly on the cloth. One of the coolest concepts to use player worn memorabilia I’ve seen, these are always a hit in this product.

Each box of 2011 Panini Gridiron Gear consists of 18 packs with 2 autographs and 2 memorabilia cards per box along with 18 rookies and 9 inserts or parallels. Some of the autographs you can pull are NFL Gridiron Signatures which features a replica full size football field signed by the player that is embedded into the card. These are definitely cool concepts as I had the pleasure of pulling a similar style card this past year in 2010-11 Crown Royale hockey. There are also NFL Pro Gridiron Signatures which features embedded rubber helmets and signatures from only legends of the game. These are similar to the rookie autographs found in Panini Prestige this past year I do believe. There is also a Plates & Patches subset with a game worn patch and nameplate patch from the jersey as well as an autograph which are numbered to 10 or less. There are definitely a lot of great autograph subsets this year to collect.

I am loving the autograph subsets and can’t wait to grab some of these when this product comes out in November. Make sure you check out the Panini Peek of 2011 Gridiron Gear football for more awesome images from this product. Again, this is one of my personal favorite products in the football arena over the past few years so I am especially hyped about this product and I think it’s one of Panini’s better football products out there. But how can you complain with these beauties?

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Preview: 2011 Upper Deck SP Authentic Football

  By Sports Card Blog | August 18, 2011 - 2:34 am |
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Your favorite rookies and veterans are back for another season in their college uniforms for 2011 Upper Deck SP Authentic football! Some of the hottest rookie cards on the planet come from this product with the SP Authentic autographed patches. Although these are in their college uniforms and not what they once were in terms of how people collect them, they still hold great value if you’re looking for some of the top rookie cards of your favorite players.

2011 Upper Deck SP Authentic comes out with a 100 card base set including 100 1998 styled SP Future Watch cards. You can also find SP Autographed Patches, SPx Rookie Autographed Jersey cards, and SP Signature Threads Autographed Jersey. And I must say, with last year’s SP Authentic football looking kind of boring in the insert department, these look a lot better than last year, especially if you’re lucky enough to pull a SPx pack because those cards look phenomenal.

Each box will yield 3 hits including one SP Autographed Patch card. You may also find 4 SPx packs per case featuring an SPx Autographed Jersey in every one of these packs. This adds a cool little addition to the SP Authentic brand by including some SPx styled cards. There will also be at least one SP Autographed Jersey per case. Your other hits normally consist of plain signatures. You may also find dual, triple, or even quad autographs from some of the games legends, veterans, and rookies from players like Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Mark Ingram, Cam Newton, and more!

You can find this product on shelves February 7, 2012, at around $115 per box.

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Preview: 2011 Topps Finest Football

  By Sports Card Blog | August 14, 2011 - 1:01 am |
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2011 Topps Finest football, a staple in the Topps family of products, has returned and is looking much improved over the past few seasons of product. With a completely different look, new die-cut rookies, and some sweet patches included this year, 2011 Topps Finest football looks like an early hit with all collectors.

Every master box will contain 1 numbered rookie autographed patch, 1 autographed jumbo relic, 2 atomic die-cut rookie cards, and 2 Finest Moments insert cards. The great thing is that all rookies will be featured in NFL uniforms, as like Topps Inception, they will be edited onto the players to create a nicer look.

Each rookie autographed patch is numbered and comes in 5 different parallels up to a superfractor 1 of 1. These include 35 top rookies from this year’s draft who also appear in the base set. 20 of these rookies are featured in jumbo patch autographed cards numbered to just 5. There will also be at least 1 variation of these rookie autographs per case. You can also find those 35 rookies plus a select list of 15 veterans in the jumbo relic autographs as well available in 4 different parallels. You can also find dual and triple autographed relics as well.

You can find even more rookie autographs in the Finest Moments subset as well as other veterans of the game. So this appears to also be a very rookie heavy product.

But what should be a hit amongst collectors is the rookie die-cut atomic refractors. These rookies are die-cut beautifully and can even be found in an autographed version if you are lucky enough to find a superfractor. These cards look absolutely beautiful and I love the die-cut design being brought back by alot of companies. Finally, you should find 2 Finest Moments inserts as well, common with Topps Finest over the years.

Oh yeah, there is also 5 base cards per pack as well. But no one REALLY cares about those anymore. But they look great with 8 different parallels. You will find 12 packs per master box so that breaks down a good number of these beautiful cards.

This product is set to arrive on August 30, 2011, for a price at about $90.

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Preview: 2011-12 Upper Deck Victory Hockey

  By Sports Card Blog | August 3, 2011 - 1:15 am |
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2011-12 Upper Deck Victory hockey is out now. I’m a little late on my preview, been busy with other projects, but it is here now. This is the low-end offering from Upper Deck as far as their hockey selection goes. You can find this product anywhere from hobby shops to your local dollar stores, which is where I bought my last packs of Upper Deck Victory a year or two ago.

With that being said, there isn’t much being offered in this product, but there is a little more then last year’s product. There are 36 packs per box and 6 cards per pack of this first hockey product of the season. The regular set consists of 200 base cards and 50 rookies. You can find parallels of all these cards in a black version only now it appears from the sell sheet. I don’t see anything about gold parallels like past years. I’m not a huge fan of the base design, but the inserts I mention below look slick.

There are a few inserts this year as well, including the new MVP rookies, found 2 a box. These cards feature a slick black background with the rookie in the center with the former Upper Deck MVP symbol on the front. I think the inserts look pretty good for a low end set. You can also find regular MVP cards, Stars of the Game, and Game Breakers insert cards at a little more better rate in a box.

And basically, that is it in this box. Not any chance for any autographs or any game used cards. So when I say low-end, this is really lower end.

Upper Deck, can’t you do something like Panini Score and maybe throw in a couple of autographs per case? Just a thought to get some of those top rookies autographs out a little bit earlier.

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Review: 2011 Panini Rookies & Stars Football

  By Sports Card Blog | July 29, 2011 - 9:56 pm | ,
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2011 Panini Rookies & Stars may not be at the top of your list of products to break for this NFL season, but it appears to be better than you may think. It returns this year with 4 autographs or memorabilia cards per box with at least one of them being an autograph. You can find patches, jumbo jerseys, prime jerseys, just about anything in a box of this product. It features a 100 card base set with 50 base rookies which are only inserted 1 per pack.

The inserts are plentiful too with a homage to Donruss Studio with Studio Rookies, Longevity, and Freshmen Orientation amongst other insert sets. With a bunch of parallels and so low numbered cards, it’s definitely worth the time to check out this review and decide what you think about the product.

Base:

Inserts:

Memorabilia/Autographs:

Design:

The base design on this product is better than many other Panini designs. It features an action shot of the players on the front with a little bit of the background faded into a solid white background. This is a very clean base design with clean lettering along the sides. I believe this clean base design is great and should be in more products. The inserts look great too. Freshmen Orientation is great with the memorabilia embedded and Longevity looks much better in person then on scans that I’ve seen. Impressive. Now I do not like manufactured patch autographs with the autograph on the cloth…I would much rather have a sticker or on-card autograph as it’s cleaner looking. Also, the way some inserts look when they don’t have memorabilia embedded look really weird, like the one I have pictured. It’s just a weird shape with a symbol inside? That just looks lazy.

Checklist:

The checklist features 100 veteran base cards and 50 rookie base cards. You can pull rookies and stars hence the title of the product. But I find there are more rookies than stars when it comes to memorabilia and autographs. With the abundance of rookies, it may seem like it cheapens the product a bit as it’s harder to pull veterans of the game. Other than that, you can find all the top rookies of the game from the draft for this season so there is no complaints there. The base set and rookie set is reasonable as you just about get a full set in a box. So the checklist of players is pretty solid overall. I think it could use a few more stars.

Value:

Overall, the value appears to be there. It looks to be a mostly rookie driven product, as I don’t see much in the way of stars as far as the real value, game used and autographs, goes. But a good job is done with the rookies here as there are plenty of autographs and memorabilia cards to go around and you may get to pull a nice veteran as well. The patches are nice, there are nice jumbo swatches, and autographs from all the rookies you could want. The only problem I have is the lack of veterans but also a bit of a collation issue. There are 100 cards in a the base veteran set, I’m missing two from completing it and I have like 8 dupes. Just throw in the extra 2 next time, seriously, that’s a bit tacky. Other than that, this is a decent mid-range product.

Overall:

Overall, as I said above this is a very solid mid-range product. The base design is nice but there are still a couple of issues with insert designs and I still don’t like manufactured patch autographs with the way they are done now. The checklist is full of rookies but I feel like it could use more stars in the product to fill the stars void. The value is there, but mentioned with the above issues it could be a little bit better and get 5 stars across many of the areas. But overall, it’s definitely worth looking into as your next box of cards.

I’d like to thank Panini America once again for providing this box for me to review. Check out their new Facebook page here.

The contest for the manufactured patch autograph, my base doubles, and some inserts/rookies will be to tell me what you think of this product and tell me your honest opinion on manufactured patch autographs that Panini makes. I will pick a winner from a randomizer. One per person please!

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