2011 Topps Finest Football Box Break Recap and Review

What Platinum is to “Rainbow” cards, Finest is to Fractors.  2011 Topps Finest Football is the place to find refractors, xfractors, colored refractors, mosaic refractors, atomic refractors and the holy grail... the superfractor.

Topps Finest Football falls under our premium cards category.  Each box contains two mini boxes with 6 packs per mini and 5 cards per pack. Each mini contains a sequentially numbered autographed jumbo relic or an autographed rookie patch card..

Here are some of the cards we pulled from the box.

 Larry Fitzgerald base, front & back

 More base - Ray Rice, Jermichael Finley, Tony Romo and Wes Welker

 Rookies - Kyle Rudolph, Jake Locker, A. J. Green and Randall Cobb

 Finest Moments - Shane Vereen, Anotnio Brown and Titus Young

 Xfractors - Jonathan Stewart and Greg Little

 Atomic Refractor Diecuts - Leonard Hankerson and Andy Dalton

Blaine Gabbert Atomic Refractor Diecut #/25

 Jerrel Jernigan Autograph Jumbo Relic #/589

DeMarco Murray Autographed Rookie Patch #/310

Overall Look

If you like the shiny and are looking for refractors of all kinds, these cards are for you.  There is no denying these cards look great.  Bold lines with complementary team colors work well.

Quality and Variety of Players

At 125 base cards, the checklist is about as small as you would want it, but makes sense for this product.  Here you are getting the best of the best, both veteran and rookie players.

Do the Hits satisfy?  Are the cards too base heavy?

If you hit the right fractor, things are great, other hits are very nice too.  The base set is collectable because of the parallels.

Will you keep coming back for more?

I can see several purchases of this product but for most collectors, after a few, aftermarket purchases make more sense.

Rating

4 out of 5

2011 Topps Finest Football provides some beautiful fractors.

Roberto Clemente To Appear On 2012 Topps Cards

Topps has announced that legendary Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente will appear on 2012 Topps cards now that the company has signed a multi-year deal with Clemente's estate.  This deal is on the heals of the announcement that Willie Mays will appearing on and signing 2012 Topps Baseball cards.

There should be several types of Clemente insert cards, including cut signatures and relics, throughout 2012.  Topps Series 1 will be the first product to offer a sampling of these cards.

First Look Sneak Peek At 2012 Topps Heritage Baseball

This morning, via Twitter, Topps released an advanced look at 2012 Topps Heritage Baseball Cards.  2012's release will be based on the 1963 set of Topps Baseball cards.  Heritage is always a great chase for set builders and it looks like the 2012 version will be some nice cards to collect judging from the Ryan Braun card above.

As with past releases, 2012 Topps Heritage will have two sets of autograph cards, one in blue and one in red which should be numbered to 63.  Here is a look at those.

Adrian Gonzalez in standard blue ink and the newly announced Willie Mays in Short Print red ink.

Minus the Topps Certified Autograph Issue marking on the top, the Willie Mays card is essentially a reprint of his 1963 card.

2011 Panini NFL Stickers For Week 3 And Players To Watch This Week

We are in week 3 of filling in our 2011 Panini NFL Sticker Collection Album and the third week of the football season.  Last week’s players to watch put together some nice stats.  This time around we are taking a few chances, hopefully picking some sleepers who could have big games.

Her are the three players to watch this week

Ryan Mathews of the San Diego Chargers showed a lot of promise when he entered the league as a rookie last year.  This year he has become a definitive red zone threat.  With Anotonio Gates questionable to start, this could be a break out week for Matthews.

Robert Meachem of the New Orleans Saints is one of many targets in Drew Brees arsenal.  Some of the focus has been on others so it would not be surprising if Meachem sees a few big plays this week as the Saints go up against the Texans.  Both teams like to go long with their passing game and this game could be a high scorer.

Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots has been splitting Tight End duties with Aaron Hernandez.  With Henandez hurt, there is a high likelihood that Tom Brady will be looking for Gronkowski when it counts.

In addition to the players to watch this week, her are the stickers going into our album.

Brandon Marshall, Yeremiah Bell, Shonn Greene

Joe Flacco, Dwight  Freeney, Antoine Bethea

David Garrard, Mike Sims-Walker, Jonathan Baldwin

Louis Murphy, Jay Cutler, Danieal Manning

Charles Woodson, Toby Gerhart, Charles Johnson

Chris Gamble, Ronde Barber, Chris Long

James Hall, Alex Smith, Takeo Spikes

Miami Dolphins, Adrian Peterson, Jon Beason, Dallas Cowboys

Michael Griffin, Chris Cooley, Josh Cribbs, Dwight Freeney

Be on the look out for more additions to our sticker album next week.