2013 Topps Inception Football Cards Box Break Recap And Review

I was brutal last year during our review of Topps Inception Football giving it one of the worst ratings we’ve ever handed out. While the cards were great looking and it was a fun break, dealing with the delicate edges negated most everything because in card collecting condition is king.  Most of the cards had cornering and chipping issues straight out of the pack. The major point I was trying to make was Inception Football would never achieve its full potential until Topps devised a plan to protect the edges of the cards.

With the 2013 version of Inception, Topps has resolved these issues and even tweaked some of the design elements to make this release the comeback product of the year.  This is a fantastic looking set of cards with great on-card and jumbo swatch hits with smooth surfaces and sharp edges and cornering.

Inception Football falls into our premium cards category.  Each hobby box contains 1 – 7 card pack with 1 memorabilia and 2 autograph cards per box.

Here is a look at the cards we pulled.

Base set

 

Reggie Bush, front and back

 Von Miller

Parallels 

 

 Michael Crabtree - Green #/199, Brandon Weeden - Yellow #/75

 The Hits

 DeAndre Hopkins Rookie Jumbo Relic - Green #/75

 Tavon Austin on-card Autograph

Vance McDonald Rookie Auto Jumbo Patch

Overall Look

With the edging and cornering problems solved, the full impact of how great these cards look hits home. The base cards and lowered numbered parallels have been slightly tweaked towards a more subtitle and sophisticated approach to the high dynamic range photography, contrast layout, Spot UV and matte finishes with smart foil accents.  The base autos are executed to near perfection with just the right amount of soft edged, cloud-like dodging to allow for the signature to be highlighted without seeming like a huge blank space was created. 

Quality and Variety of Players

Most of the variety of players can be found in the 100 card base set and parallels.  In all other cases you are dealing with the 40 players who attended this year’s Rookie Premiere shoot.

Do the Hits satisfy?

With the chipping issues gone, the answer is now a resounding yes.  The autos are great.  Catch a booklet and you’ve got a serious hit on your hands.

Will you keep coming back for more?

For collectors of premium products, now having the potential to achieve a high grade with these cards, multi box to case purchases is completely understandable.

Rating

4 1/2 out of 5

The layout and look of 2013 Topps Inception Football is striking and impressive.  With the quality issues handled, it earns a big jump in desirability