2005 Topps Draft Picks & Prospects Football box

(I promise to get to some baseball boxes real soon.  I still have the 2007 Topps Series 1 box from DACardWorld, but we're making progress--this isn't a Topps jumbo football post)


Today I'm celebrating the 2010-11 college football season by opening a box of 2005 Topps Draft Picks & Prospects I grabbed cheap off eBay.  This is another set I started in the past, probably mostly through packs, though I might have grabbed a cheap box at a show not too long ago.  Because of the low number of cards per pack, I still need a bunch, so this was a cost-effective way to put a dent in that wantlist.  Plus, two guaranteed hits is pretty nice.
 

• Purchased from/price:  eBay, $25.49
• Packs/cards:   24 packs / 5 cards
• Set size:  165 base cards (110 veterans, 55 RCs) (same for Chrome versions)
• Key features: One Chrome per pack, one rookie per pack, two relics or one relic and one autograph
• Key cards:  RCs of Braylon Edwards, Aaron Rodgers, Heath Miller, Marion Barber, Frank Gore, Kyle Orton and Darren Sproles, among others, plus autographed RCs of Alex Smith and Ronnie Brown
• Michigan Wolverines: Braylon Edwards RC, Chris Perry, Drew Henson, Marlin Jackson RC, Tom Brady

Base card front

Base card back

Base RC

Chrome base card

• Set completion:
• Base:  96/165 (58%)
• Chrome:  21/165 (13%)
• Extras:  
• Base:  0
  
• Chrome:  0
  

Chrome Gold Refractor

 

Meh jersey

Sweet jersey

• Insert:  Chrome Gold Refractor J.P. Losman (1:35, #'d/199)
• Autographs:  None
• Relics:  Senior Standouts jerseys of Cedric Houston and Carlos Rogers (2:box)

• Best pack:  Believe it or not, I'm not going with the pack that included Chris Perry, Tom Brady and Carson Palmer.  This goes to #18 thanks to the presence of the beautiful Cedric Houston jersey patch seen above.  The rest of the pack wasn't as inspiring:  Tony Gonzalez, Domanick Davis, Chester Taylor and Marcus Spears RC.  But as an added bonus, the jersey replaced the usual 1:pack Chrome card I didn't want.  Sweet!
• Worst pack:  Nothing terrible this time, but I'll go with #13:  Derrick Blaylock, Billy Volek, Ernest Wilford, Carlos Rogers RC, Hines Ward Chrome.  Yawn.
• Quality control:  8/10  Some of the base card corners were dinged, and both jersey cards had pretty soft corners  
• Collation:  10/10  No doubles = A+ 
• Value: 8 /10  For about $25 delivered I got more than half the set (and a bunch towards my wantlist), 24 rookies and two relics, including a pretty spiffy jersey, even if it's a player I don't care about.  The only real negative was a small number of cards per pack, which meant I ripped through this box pretty quickly
• Set design and player selection:  8/10  The cons:  the cards are almost entirely white and the player choice leaves a bit to be desired, partially because the set is small, and most of all, the Chrome set feels like an afterthought and a waste of a base card towards the set.  The pros:  lots of rookies, and my favorite feature:  rookies in their college unis.  While I would have preferred the cards to denote which teams had drafted them, I'm guessing these came out before the draft, making that impossible.  But seeing some of my favorite NFLers in their college days was a big plus for me.  Also, one of the jerseys was a pretty boring white, but the Houston card had a nice swatch, albeit likely from a photo shoot/all star game-type jersey
• Inserts and extras:  6/10  One insert.  ONE.  And it was J.P. freakin' Losman.  But getting two guaranteed hits for that low price was a plus

Overall score:  40/50


This set has its flaws, and you'll need a few boxes to put together the set yourself, but at the prices you can get it nowadays, this is worth your $25.  And now the question on everyone's mind:  how much did this help me in my ongoing pursuit of the set?  I needed 61, including 28 rookies, and with only 24 in the box I wasn't going to finally complete it, but I knocked 28 cards off my list, including 10 RCs, so not bad.  The extras and Chromes as well as the Losman Refractor and Rogers jersey are available if anyone wants them.

Wolverines?

Wolverines