2010 TOPPS FINEST FOOTBALL
2010 Topps Finest Football honors the finest on the field with cards spotlighting this year's NFL Rookie class. NEW this year, Finest Football offers Atomic Refractor Rookie Cards!
Set Features:
Configuration: 6 packs per mini-box. 5 cards per pack.
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
Every Master Box Contains:
- 1 Rookie Autograph Numbered Patch Card - 1:2 mini-boxes!
- 1 Rookie Autograph Numbered Dual Relic Card - 1:2 mini-boxes!
- 2 Atomic Refractor Rookie Cards - 1 per mini box!
- 2 Finest Cards - 1 per mini box!
CARD SETS
AUTOGRAPH CARDS - 2 PER MASTER BOX!
Rookie Patch Autograph Cards (35 Subjects)
- Super-Fractor - Each is a 1 of 1!
- Gold Refractor - Numbered to 25
- Red Refractor - Numbered to 50
- Black Refractor - Numbered to 75
- Refractor - Numbered to 99
Rookie JUMBO Patch Autograph Cards (10) - Numbered to 5
Autograph Dual Relic Cards (50)
- Super-Fractor - Each is a 1 of 1!
- Gold Refractor - Numbered to 25
- Black Refractor - Numbered to 75
- Refractor - Numbered to 99
Dual Autograph Dual Relic Cards (10) - Numbered to 10
Triple Autograph Triple Relic Cards (10) - Numbered to 10
INSERT CARDS - 4 PER MASTER BOX!
New! Atomic Refractor Rookie Cards (25)
- Superior - Numbered to 50
Finest Moments (25)
ROOKIE RED ZONE AUTOGRAPH CARDS (35 total subjects) ON-CARD AUTOGRAPHS!
FINEST MOMENTS AUTOGRAPH CARDS
Rookies and Veterans (25)
- Super-Fractor - Each is a 1 of 1!
BASE CARDS
Veterans & Rookies (125)
- Super-Fractor - Each is a 1 of 1!
- Printing Plate - Each is a 1 of 1!
- NEW! Mosaic Refractor - Numbered to 10!
- Red - Numbered to 25!
- Gold - Numbered to 50!
- Black - Numbered to 99!
- X-Fractor - Numbered to 399!
- Refractor
Here's what we pulled in our mini-box of 2010 Topps Finest Football.
Base Cards:
I'm a huge fan of the Finest brand, going all the way back to the 1992 premier of the product. It's always one of the finer looking sets released and this year is no different. The front simply has a nice picture of each player along with the Finest logo, the team logo and the player's position and number. The back of each card highlights one of that player's Finest Moments of 2009. It's a 125 card base set (including rookies), so with this box only containing 30 total cards (including hits) we didn't really come close to completing the set...but we also saw no duplicates. I continue to be impressed by how much better the technology on these cards gets every year. They're near flawless at this point.
Rookies:
The rookies in this set actually are not really treated any differently than the veterans. Since I've already dated myself talking about the 1992 Finest set, I'll go farther by saying that I much prefer the days when rookie cards looked the same as all the others. And with the exception of the little RC stamp, these rookies do that. The back has one of their Finest Moments from their 2009 college season. We actually pulled 8 rookies out of this mini-box and, as you can see, we got some pretty decent ones in Bradford, Spiller and Bryant.
Refractors and X-Fractors:
Going back several years, I can remember a time when refractors weren't marked as such and you honestly could hardly tell the difference between them and their base counterparts. That isn't the case anymore. The refractors are marked on the back, but they really don't have to be. The quality in the card is very noticeable to the naked eye. Unfortunately, they don't scan well at all, so the scan doesn't do the cards justice. In our box, we pulled refractors of Brandon Jacobs and rookie Colt McCoy. And we pulled the X-Fractors (each #'d to 399) of Clinton Portis and rookie Jermaine Gresham.
Finest Moments and Atomic Rookies:
The Finest Moments are a 25 card subset and they go back to the older style Finest cards, where the background is the field or the stands and has a little texture to it. In our box, we pulled a Finest Moment of Tampa Bay rookie Arrelious Benn. New to the Finest set this year is the Finest Atomic Rookies. This is a 25-card die-cut set that features the hottest rookies in the 2010 class, including Bradford, Tebow, Bryant, Matthews, Best and, as you can see above, CJ Spiller. For whatever reason, I've always kinda dug die-cut cards, so I really like this subset a lot.
Autographs:
As promised, we did pull 2 autos out of this mini-box and I have to say, I think we did VERY well. First up is the Ray Rice Finest Moments auto. Patriot fans probably won't want to read about his 83-yard TD in the playoffs last year, but that is his Finest Moment. This sticker auto is very nice looking and you actually have to look pretty hard to see the sticker outline...so well done.
The big hit in the box is a Jonathan Dwyer Black Refractor Patch/Auto #/75. Again, it's a very nice clean auto set back in the card a bit and the 2-color patch looks to be from the name or number plate with some real nice stitching. While not one of the premium most sought after rookies in this year's class, the Dwyer is more than enough to consider this to be a very successful break.
Final Thoughts on 2010 Topps Finest Football;
Finest has always been one of my favorite products of the year (of ANY brand) so I was quite excited to get this box sent to me for review. I have to say, aside from wishing I had more packs to open, I like this year's set a lot. The cards are of top-notch quality. The photography is superb and the hits are VERY nice looking cards.
The only drawback I have is that I'm not a huge fan of parallel sets. I like the Refractors, I think they're a neat variation on the regular card. But red, gold, black, X-Fractors, Superfractors, Tebow-fractors (ok, I just made that one up)...that might be kinda overdoing the parallels in my book. But considering the positives of this set, that's really just a nit-pick drawback from a writer who doesn't want to sound like a 100% complete shill for Topps.
Full boxes can be found in the $110-$130 price range, putting the price of a mini-box in the $55-65 range.
Here's how I would rate this product, based on what we experienced during our break;
Value = 4
Innovation = 5
Fun and Experience = 5
Rebuy Value = 5
I rate this product a "A" for Topps!
NPN Information;
Mail to;
NPN 2010 Topps Finest Football
P.O. Box 785
Pittston, PA 18640
Postmarked by, December 22, 2010
Now, I decided to do this as a video break, so if you'd like to check it out here are the links. I had to break it half because my lighting was terrible. Keep in mind, this was my first real shot at one of these, so go easy on me.
Part 1
Part 2
I would like to thank Topps and Trader Retreat for giving me the opportunity to review this new product.
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