2012 Topps Finest Baseball Box Break Recap and Review

In 2011, Finest Baseball walked away from Letter Patch cards, refined the look of the base cards and added a series of inserts making the product better.  For 2012 Finest Baseball Topps has again made some changes, giving the base cards a more streamlined design, replacing straight inserts with diecuts, adding surprise Rookie Auto Redemption Cards and Triple Autograph cards making the product this

year even better.  What remains are the multi-color refractors that compel collectors to put together rainbows.

While Finest Baseball falls under our classification of premium cards, there is enough here to keep set builders interested so there is some cross over into our trading cards category.  Hobby exclusive master boxes contain 2 mini boxes, with each mini containing 6 - 5 card packs.  Each master box contains 1 Autograph Card and 1 Autographed Jumbo Relic Card.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.

Base Set

Felix Hernandez, front and back

Alex Rodriguez, Brett Lawrie, Bryce Harper

Jay Bruce, Jered Weaver, Joe Mauer

Jose Bautista, Justin Verlander, Matt Moore

Mike Napoli, Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt

Paul Konerko, Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard

Trevor Bauer, Tsuyoshi Wada, David Price

Inserts

Miguel Cabrera Game Changers

Ryan Zimmerman Faces of the Franchise Diecut

Miguel Cabrera Finest Moments Diecut, Robinson Cano Finest Moments Diecut

Refractor Parallels

Alex Liddi Base Refractor, CC Sabathia Base Refractor

Evan Longoria Base Refractor, Ian Kennedy Base Refractor

Buster Posey Xfractor, Tim Lincecum Xfractor

Clayton Kershaw Green Refractor #/199, Wilin Rosario Orange Refractor #/99

The Hits

Tom Milone Autographed Xfractor #/299

Brad Peacock Autographed Jumbo Relic Green Refractor #/199

Overall Look

The these are some really nice looking cards.  Short of the Game Changers inserts, I like them all.  Refractors here look great, in particular, the any of the colored refractors whether it be red orange green or gold.  The boldness of the colors is enhanced by the refractor technology. The Diecut are top notch and the on-card rookie autos are fantastic.

Quality and Variety of Players

Topps has kept this checklist at 100 base cards, which makes sense for this product.  68 of the cards are some of the best veterans playing the game today. 32 rookies account for the other base cards, which is a really nice ratio.

Do the Hits satisfy?

There is a lot here to pull that will make collectors happy.  Harper and Darvish are the obvious pulls, but there are diecut of star veterans, game changer autos and multi auto cards that are amazing.

Will you keep coming back for more?

This is very consumable for a wide variety of collectors, from set builders to rookie prospectors to hit seekers.

Rating 

4 1/2 out of 5

2012 Topps Finest Baseball Cards provides a good chance to pull some nice hits in addition to offering a nice set of base cards and diecuts.


Review box provided by Topps