2011 Topps football value box

I hadn't busted anything in a while so while I was at Meijer today I grabbed one of those Topps football value boxes, the ones that come with a nice assortment of stuff.  For $20 you get:

• 11 packs of 12 cards of 2011 Topps football
• Two "exclusive rookie Refractors" (I think these are always the same two)
• One guaranteed Super Bowl Giveaway code card

Here's what I got:

• 103 different base cards, 13 doubles
• One spectacularly damaged card whose top each must've been smashed by the pack sealing portion of the process
• My two guaranteed rookie Refractors, (Newton and Gabbert) both of which are definitely available, so make me an offer
• Three total Super Bowl Giveaway cards, including my one guaranteed by the package (Tom Brady, the last one I needed for yet another complete set of those) which produced two useless virtual items and one card (see below)
• Two Super Bowl Legends inserts I needed (Biletnikoff and Dent) plus one other I didn't
• The last card I needed for my fourth base set (Alex Green)
• Six base cards I needed for set #5 (meaning I still need 60 69 142 171 229 357 385)
• Another Cam Newton RC (also available)
• One Gold parallel, a Dexter McCluster
• TWO Faces of the Franchise inserts of Peterson/Harvin (plus one other)
• More inserts I didn't need:  three Game Day, two ToppsTown
• Two Minis (Steve Smith (Giants) and Bilal Powell)

The aforementioned Super Bowl Giveaway card was this:

Ottis Anderson from Super Bowl XXV.  I'm actively trying to trade it but likely won't be able to, so if nothing else I'll get it shipped with my other six cards and make it available then. (probably to Mike, right?)
Update:  I flipped the Anderson for a Marques Colston from XLIV.  That might still go to Mike, but at least it's a player I can appreciate more.  Hooray for trading!

Overall I thought this was a great value.  I didn't need very many cards from it, but to be fair, I previously purchased a case.  The number of doubles was a tad high, but for what you get, $20 is a fair price, and I do recommend grabbing one of these whether you're building the set or not.

Topps Super Bowl Legends Giveaway summary

First, on a brief serious note:
I'd like to give a quick shout out to a post today by Jeff of My Sports Obsession.  His wife was diagnosed with MS and they'll be doing a fund-raising walk next month.  I got to meet Jeff's family a couple weeks ago, and they were great people, plus they're Michigan fans so they're actually OUTSTANDING people.  Jeff's asking for donations and I hope some of you will help out a fellow collector and blogger with something this important, so if you can, please head over to the site for donations!

Give it away, give it away, give it away, now:

After weeks of misinformation and stalling, Topps (wait, Topps was doing a shitty job of customer service and meeting deadlines?!) FINALLY got the Super Bowl Legends Giveaway up and running today.  I had 60 codes, and after realizing they weren't exactly selling like hotcakes, I decided to have some fun and redeem them.


First, here's a look at the prize process:

There are four types of items you unlock:  diecut cards, rings, coins and jerseys.  The cards can be shipped (eventually, this IS Topps we're talking about) but everything else is virtual.  To get to each of those prizes up top, you need to unlock a certain number of "unique" items of each type (not including cards).  As you can see, I had no problem getting to at least 10 of each type, so I got three free codes, three 10% off discounts for Schlocks.com and three free entries for an autographed Namath (the drawing will be at the end of January).  To get an automatic Namath auto you need all 45 of any one of those items.  Items can't be traded for different items (e.g. you can't trade rings for jerseys or even cards for anything but cards) and I'm sure some of these are rarer than others.


Here's a very brief summary of what I had immediately after I entered my codes:

• 5 cards: James Harrison (43), Howie Long (18), Jerry Rice (23), Jordy Nelson (45), Reggie Wayne (41)
• 23 rings: 17 unique, dupes of Colts, Packers, Ravens, Earl Campbell X2, Len Dawson
• 16 coins: 13 unique, dupes of Packers (31), Colts (5), Redskins (17)
• 19 jerseys: 14 unique, dupes of Cowboys (27), Raiders (15), 49ers (24), Packers (31), Chiefs (4)

So many doubles you'd think this was a physical box of Topps!  You can see how I'm doing working on the prizes in the screen shot above, and also here:

Right now, without more code cards (which I'm working on buying, but only at bargain basement prices--I'm not THAT obsessed) the Namath may be a pipe dream, but I'm still trading and seeing what I can do.  I'm also working on trades for the cards themselves, but here's what I started with:

I do have to say the cards look like they may be very nice (and maybe serial numbered?).  Frankly I'll be happy if I can end up with the Tom Bradys in the set and get those shipped, maybe along with the Rice if I can hold onto it.

My impression thus far is that this is another D+ Topps online giveaway effort--the codes proved to be almost worthless and they've barely improved the trading system.  Also, just because they know I love my "Topps is dumb" tag, here's what happens if you request to get a card shipped:

Well why AREN'T the cards "aviable," Topps?  Is "activiation" a new process you just invented or did you pull your entire customer service team from a pool of idiots who comment on YouTube videos and message boards?

Topps in one beautifully concise meme

It's not so much that I don't like having to wait until mid-October (right, we all know they'll meet THAT deadline) for my cards to ship--I just can't believe that after literally weeks of the site being overdue they didn't have someone with at least a third grade education proofread a site intended for the public.

Well, at least this didn't feel like the kick in the nuts that the baseball giveaway always offers.  Should any interesting developments with my progress on this ensue, I'll make sure to post something about it.  Until then, enjoy your usual overdue, overpriced, cookie-cutter shit from Topps! 


Edit, 9 pm:  Thanks to some wheeling and dealing, and especially to the generosity of Ted from Crinkly Wrappers, I now have the following:

• 24 unique rings
• 17 unique coins
• 19 unique jerseys

I managed to trade away all my doubles (including all three of my Earl Campbell rings accidentally, but no big deal) to end up with the numbers above.  On the third and final code Ted donated to me, I also hit this, my best so far:  

That's pretty cool, to be sure, so a big thanks again to Ted.  I now have six cards (all different) including the Montana to Rice combo.  Unless I can turn it and another card into both Bradys, this one's staying with me.

Final 2011 Topps football case break sales report

Well, it's been three weeks since I busted my 2011 Topps football jumbo case.  As a refresher, here are the results:

• Hits
• Base and Wolverines (plus design grades)
• Inserts and final grades

I made it clear from the get-go that this would be an experiment for me to experience busting a case and trying to sell the contents (anything that wasn't personal collection-worthy, of course).  So how did I do?  Entirely through Blowout's forums (because I don't trust screwBay and I didn't wanna pay even more fees) I sold the following (all prices are shipped and obviously don't account for eBay fees or what I actually paid for shipping:

• Aaron Hernandez, Matt Forte, Randall Cobb, Jordan Todman, Bilal Powell autos, Ryan Williams Rookie Patch:  $25
• Most of the Golds (29) and Minis (57):  $30
• Kyle Rudolph Rookie Red Zone auto, Santonio Holmes and Jason Witten autos, Kyle Rudolph Game Day jersey, Jordan Todman Rookie Patch:  $65
• Black Chad Greenway:  $8
• Cameron Heyward Printing Plate:  $25
• Greg Little, Marcell Dareus, Leonard Hankerson Rookie Patches:  $12

All told I pulled in a grand total of $165 (again, not including fees/shipping).  This was my return on paying a bit over $500 for the case.  So what did I learn?  More bullets!

• Busting cases is fun!  Well, I already knew that, but busting cases entirely for me is fun!
• It's not remotely easy making a profit.  That wasn't my ultimate goal--really I was hoping to get half my money back, which is still possible if I can finish up and sell a few of my sets.  Wanna buy a set?  If I can't get a good price for them now I'll hold onto them for a time when they're worth a bit more and then try to get something for them.  I also have a couple more decent hits that could bring me some cash eventually.
• It's not the easiest thing in the world making deals as a seller either.  However, I really didn't get lowballed all that much, at least not as much as I was expecting.  Because I know as a buyer I'm only happy with a low price, I worked with each person as much as I could, especially when they bought multiple items.
• I didn't get top dollar for my items by not using eBay, but I felt much more comfortable knowing I wouldn't get screwed as a seller by forgoing that option.
• Don't give buyers so much leeway.  Early on, I had a guy with a pretty good reputation on Blowout ask about a good number of my best hits.  We eventually worked out a decent price on the condition that we would also work on each others' set wantlists. Although several people made offers on some of those same cards, I held onto them for him despite a couple weeks of "I'll have your lists tonight."  I eventually found out he had a personal situation, but I ended his dibs on those cards right then because he should have been more up-front and said "I have a situation, but by this date I can deal again."  Fortunately, I found an excellent buyer who was willing to take most of that stuff, plus I got a bit more for almost everything else he wanted as well.
• These cases are really hit or miss.  About three of my boxes produced pretty nice stuff, but the others were relative duds, especially compared to what I've seen.  It still doesn't look extremely easy to come close to profitability on these cases, though I realize they're not exactly designed for that.
• Most importantly, I won't be getting into the business of busting cases to resell items for cash--I just don't have the time or skills to maximize my profit (or even make one apparently).  But I'm totally glad I tried this, and I hope it proved to be useful info for some of you too.

What's left?  Well, I have the following stuff remaining, which is still for sale, but now available for trade as promised:

All available except the Jenkins--headed to BA Benny

I'd really like to get cash for the Black Jones and may try to sell that individually, but wow me with an offer and it's yours.

I also have three base sets available right now (with hopefully one more up for grabs soon as well).  I'm asking $35 dlvd on those, but I'll work with you.  If you want to trade for one I might be willing as long as you pony up for shipping and give me fair trade value.

Thanks for following along with this crazy experiment--I hope you had some fun with it too, especially vicariously since I'm the one that took the shot to the wallet!  One thing I should stress though, is that, as I intended, any money I brought back in selling stuff was spent on more cards, as you've likely deduced from my recent (and future) Blowout acquisition posts.  Cards über alles!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: inserts and sorta wrapup

This will be the last look at what I pulled from my 2011 Topps football jumbo case; however I plan to post an update/summary of my progress in selling things off pretty soon.

Today I'm showing off the plethora of inserts the case yielded, then giving my final opinion on quality control and the product as a whole.

Inserts (390):  

Faces of the Franchise:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

A very meh insert that borrows from its equally uninspiring baseball cousin Legendary Lineage.  The player combos aren't terribly exciting, and instead of making one for each team, or at least focusing on teams with quality combinations...well...they produced this crap.  I pulled two full sets, 19/20 of a third and one quadruple (the crap you see above).

Game Day:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Now here's an insert I like.  I think what works for me is that the player is the obvious focus while the background is very secondary, though it often ends up looking very cool itself as it's depicted in the team's colors.  I also like how it highlights a key game in a player's pro or college career (kind of like Peak Performance highlighting a single game or season achievement in baseball).  I got 39/50 in the set plus 20 doubles and one triple.

Gold:  30 (1:2, 30 expected)

You've purchased a Topps flagship box before, yes?  These have remained fairly constant and the only thing I really don't like is that they abandoned stamping for printed-on numbers, which just isn't the same.  It wouldn't be a Topps set without these.  I was happy to pull a Steve Breaston, but the next best player I got was probably Reggie Bush or Eli Manning, unfortunately.  Why these were 1:2 I couldn't say.  Fortunately, every card was different, so I didn't have to deal with the annoyance of beating the odds and pulling a double.

Minis:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Carrying on the momentum from the baseball set, I'm sure, these work well here.  I just wish there weren't so many (140) or else I'd shoot for the set.  As it is, I'm trying to sell the 57 of them (including Cam Newton and Mark Ingram) I didn't really want, but I'm keeping the Charles Woodson, Tom Brady and Mario Manningham you saw last time.  I am happy to report that I got 60 different players here--no dupes!  They seem to suffer from bad cutting/centering, though.

Super Bowl Legends:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Here's another set I was pretty happy with, both due to concept and design.  Because my football knowledge isn't even a tenth of my baseball knowledge, I enjoy the history lesson it provides for a sport I've come to love over the last few years.  What I didn't love so much was the collation:  I got 25/45 in the set, then 21 dupes and 14 triples.  I just feel that out of a case it wouldn't kill them to get me one 45-card set.  Collation aside, it's a cool set with the bonus of forcing collectors to learn Roman numerals.  Bonus #2:  three Tom Bradys (one for each ring), though I only pulled two.

Super Bowl Legends Giveaway:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

This one's still a bit of a mystery as all details of the promotion haven't been released.  It doesn't necessarily look like you redeem them for crappy Topps commons, but there are definitely prizes (virtual and tangible) for redeeming certain numbers of codes, with one of the better prizes being a Joe Namath autograph--the stipulation I'm reading into being that you need to unlock 45 "unique" items, but maybe that's not necessary, or maybe you can trade for them.  We'll know more in the future, but for now I'm holding onto mine until I know more and can decide I should redeem them or sell at a fair price.  Lots of sellers are liquidating these but I don't think that's the best idea without knowing what they could get you.  On a related note, I pulled five 10-card sets, then nine of a sixth, but got a seventh of a different card.  By the way, if you're lazy/stupid/cheap enough to be searching for free Giveaway codes, by all means please use the one above.  If you do, my reaction will be thus:

ToppsTown:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)
Ok, let's get this out of the way:  these suck, though not quite as much as the flimsy, throwaway versions Topps has done in the past. These are more like StarQuest, except with a dumb game you can play online.  Go ahead and swipe my code, see if I care.  I got 41/50 out of this set plus 19 dupes, so not terrible there.


NOTE:  I already showed the Black parallels in the hits post, so that's why you're not seeing them here.


NOTE #2:  I didn't pull an SP somehow, despite quite a bit of searching.  Go figure.


Quality control:  D-
Things seemed to look ok as I got started, but not long after that I started accumulating a small pile of cards with wrecked-as-hell corners:

I'm not sure this scan does the damage to the upper-right corner justice, but it's pretty bad, and symptomatic of a good pile of cards from the case overall (with some being bad on the lower-left instead).  Additionally, I found a nice little stack of poorly miscut cards:

Any worse and Brian would have been poking his head into his neighbor's card above going "HAY GUISE, WATS GOIN' ON IN THIS CARD?"  Since Topps has a stupid policy of limiting you to sending in 25 damaged cards at a time, plus I'd have to go through the hassle of proving they didn't fall off a truck (literally, apparently, judging by what you see) with scans of the boxes/packs/my retinas, I'm gonna say screw it since I really only needed something like 15 cards to complete sets 4 and 5 and I should get those soon in a deal anyway.  
I think the total number of damaged and miscut cards came out to be less than 50, but it was still very annoying after ponying up for a case, and I'd be even more pissed if I'd grabbed just one box and those cut into my base set.  Then again, this is Topps, whose reputation for quality control (if they ever had one, I don't rightly know) has plummeted in the last few years.  Way to set the bar low, guys.


Overall grade:  B+
At this point I don't think I could live without putting together a Topps flagship football base set.  While I'm sure I won't be repeating the case experiment very often, I'm glad I tried it with these first, especially because of what you saw in the hits post:  two autographs and a generally excellent rookie patch guaranteed plus some extras make for a nice experience for the money (and these will surely come down to more reasonable levels before long; I just wanted to strike while the iron was hot for selling purposes).  The base set and many of the inserts are also big pluses, and really only the usual Topps annoyances--bad QC, one or two stupid inserts--detract from a very good product.  So I give buying something of this product a big thumbs up and I strongly encourage you to save up for the jumbo box--you'll be glad you did.


And now, my promise that I'll return to this topic in a couple weeks with what I learned after trying to sell some of my hits, sets and inserts!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: base and Wolverines

I'll get to the inserts and my overall thoughts next, but for now we'll take a look at the design, collation and Wolverines from my case:

Case:  2011 Topps football (jumbo)
Packs/cards:  60/50 (10 packs of 50, six boxes)
Price:  $510, Dave & Adam's

Base cards:

Some fronts:  regular, team card and RC

Aaron Rodgers back

Design grade:  A
I've always been a sucker for Topps' design.  Well, maybe not always--they had some pretty ugly sets prior to the late 90s--but for the last few years I've appreciated their consistent, yet subtly different base set designs.  With base Topps, you pretty much know what you're gonna get:  solid photography, a white border and a section with team, position and logo.  Added to that you can expect stamps or icons for RCs and major awards.  The backs are pretty standard, too: a clean design with bio info, a blurb about the player and full stats, not to mention team colors being part of the theme.
As usual, there's a few different types of cards or subsets:  regular players, RCs, checklists, Rookie of the Year, MVP, Pro Bowl and teams.  These are all mixed among the base set as Topps has been doing for the last few years--no more blocks of rookies at the end of the set, for example.
Not everyone is a fan, but for me this is what a Topps base set should look like (and I'm fully aware it was borrowed from its older brother, 2011 Topps baseball).


Base set completion:

• Set 1:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 2:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 3:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 4:  439/440 (99%)
• Set 5:  429/440 (97%)
• Set 6:  325/440 (74%)
• Extras:  13 x7s, 7 x8s

Average:  ~419/440 (95%)

Collation grade:  B

This is actually pretty solid for Topps--at least the average number makes it look like it.  It was nice to be able to do a case to get a more useful statistical sample to determine what you might be able to expect.  I do want to note that while the numbers came out pretty nicely, they're a bit higher than they should be in that a large handful of cards came out of the packs damaged (almost all of those being significantly wrecked corners) or with inexcusably poor centering (but all that falls under QC, not collation).  I'm debating sending those back to Topps, but I'm in the process of working out a deal on Blowout to get the rest of the base I need for sets 4 and 5.  I am a bit annoyed that I needed a single card for the fourth, but I'll live.  I decided not to go for a sixth set since it seemed like it would be cost prohibitive, but I'll have those to trade for other stuff, so that's a plus.  I'm happy that with relatively little work I should finish with five base sets, meaning I can keep one for myself and try to sell four others (want one?).  

And the bottom line is that getting about 95% of the base set is reasonable to me when you do the math:  you pull roughly 500 cards but each pack has roughly seven inserts, plus maybe a hit (some being thick and eliminating a few more).  My average box based on the whole break shows that you should get about 420/440 base cards, fewer than five doubles, three-to-four hits and around 70 inserts.  As far as Topps' very low bar goes, that's pretty good!

Wolverines!:

Lots this time since there were quite a few in the base set and I even pulled a bunch of inserts (no hits, though).

Base part 1

Base part 2

Inserts, with the Minis being Manningham, Woodson and Brady

More to come soon with a look at the inserts and my overall recommendation!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: just the hits

It's late and I'm tired, so most analysis will have to wait til tomorrow.  Until then, here are the highlights of my six jumbo boxes:

Edit, 8/6:  all are now available for sale right here.  As promised, things will be available for trade once selling winds down.

Box 1:

Box 2:

Box 3:

Box 4:

Box 5:

Box 6:

Edit:  somehow forgot to scan this one.  I'm guessing I got it in box 5, but who knows?:

A big thanks to BA Benny, Colbey, Derek and Dustin for hanging out and watching the break which made it that much more fun.  More to come, until you're sick of this set!  At least it's not Gypsy Queen, A&G, Bowman/Platinum or the like...

Let's break some 2011 Topps jumbo football!

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TONIGHT ONLY!  8 pm EST on Livestream (link and player below).  Come for the vicarious fun, stay for the contests!

If you would like to be eligible for the giveaways, please make sure to sign in with a name that identifies you as someone I know, or make sure you identify yourself when I run through a quick roll call before the break (or whenever you stop in).  Some contests require you to guess something before or while I'm busting packs, so show up on time!  Please also note that you'll need to be part of the chat, so click the link below the video if necessary.

Watch live streaming video from toomanygrandersons at livestream.com

Direct link:  http://livestre.am/zkbc

For those of you that can't make it, I'll put up a recap soon after the break, likely within 24 hours.  Stuff will be available for sale so keep an eye out for that.


Come join your fellow bloggers revel in an outstanding case or make fun of me for wasting my money, tonight at 8!