Vintage Card of The Month: Jim Thope

The Super Bowl is Sunday so I wanted to keep with a football theme for the Vintage Card of the Month. I posted a 1955 All-American last month so I went a different direction this month, so instead of selecting a vintage card I went with a vintage player; Jim Thorpe.

 This card is from the 2003 Donruss Elite release and is part of the Throwback Threads insert, the card contains a swatch of a Canton Bulldogs jacket that was worn by Thorpe during a game and the card is #/250. The thing I like about Donrss was that they included a picture of the specific jacket and included the image on the back of the card.

*Forgot to add the back of my card, here it is:

Famous Fabrics Unleashes The Presidents

In February we will be seeing the release of the 2012 Famous Fabrics Ink 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW product; this is probably one of the longest product names that I have seen in a long time.

Each box will contain 6 cards- 2 Cut Signatures and 4 Base cards. There are only 240 total boxes to be made and each base card is limited to #/10 with the Cut Signatures limited to #/3 or less. The specific release date or price have not been announced yet but based on similar prior releases expect to see $150-175 per box.

The base set consists of 96 cards over 3 subsets, the Presidents, Presidential Couples and Presidential Pets. The Cut Signature checklist includes single cuts (1 Presidential Cut per box) as well as First Ladies plus there are dual Cut Signatures too including Presidential Couples, Running Mates, Presidential Opponents and Forever Linked. Interestingly there will not be any George Washington cards at all, base set or cut signatures.

Each card will be encased and it appears that numbering will be similar to the 2011 Horrors of War set that Famous Fabrics released last year with each base card having a serial number (#/10) as well as a Series number to signify where it is in the overall master set.

The preview pictures show a generic series number of #/420 on each base card and #/240 on the Cut Signatures but considering a 96-card base set checklist and with base cards #/10 each means that the Series number for the base set should be #/960 and not #/420 as shown also the Cut Signatures should have a Series number of #/480 considering two Cut Signatures per box and 240 boxes made.

Topps Gimmick Cards Keep Getting Noticed

In Topps’ attempt at a “Game Changer” they have surprisingly added gimmick SP cards in to the 2012 Topps Baseball Series 1 release… I know, I know, complete surprise here right?

So the SP variation that has gained some serious attention is the card #93 Skip Schumaker Rally Squirrel SP version showing the squirrel that made his appearance during the Cardinals postseason last October. The first couple of SP versions have now shown up on eBay with the first one sitting at $655.99 with 20 hours left, 3 other auctions are sitting at $107.50 (22 hours remaining), $102.50 (22 hoursremaining) and $100 (5 days remaining)

Insanity at its best but you do have to admit, even though many collectors may be tired of the gimmicks Topps does know how to keep their name in the news.

2012 TriStar TNA Reflexxions Hits The Shelf

In the latest TNA release Tristar has gone a different direction in comparison to previous sets, instead of using action shots for the base set Tristar has decided to go with staged/studio shots for a majority of the base cards for the Reflexxions release. There are only 240 total boxes made and you will see plenty of limited numbered parallels. I watched 8-10 box breaks and saw quite a few 1/1, #/10 or #/25 pulled from the boxes. Also it appears that at least one of the two top packs (left side and right side) will always include an auto or memorabilia hit and in a few boxes I saw both top packs produce hits.

Each 20-pack box will run $70-80 and contains 7 hits including 3 autographs, 1 Event-used autographed Mat Relic card or memorabilia card, 1 foil card and 2 parallel cards. The 99 card base set is broken down in to a “Base” set and 5 sub-sets, each based on a theme. The sub-sets: “Ultimate Sunday”, a football theme; “Fast Traxx”, a car theme; “Be My Valentine”, TNA Knockouts; “Steiner’s World”, Scott Steiner’s review of wrestlers and “Lending A Hand”, a set about wrestler’s charity work. I think this is an interesting route and it introduces collectors to the wrestlers more than just their personas.

The foil cards consist of both foil and artwork cards, the foil are just foiled versions of the base cards and are numbered #/40 or less and the art cards are based on Jeff Hardy’s original artwork. There are also redemption cards for the original artwork created by Hardy.

The autograph checklist is pretty solid and includes the main-stays of TNA like Hogan, Sting and Flair, new wrestlers and up-and-comers along with the TNA Knockouts. Eric Bischoff is included on the list, along with his son Garrett too, apparently this is one of Eric’s first autographs. There are also dual, triple, quad and six-signed autograph cards and all autographs are numbered to #/99 or less. The downside is that besides the autographed Ring Mat cards all autographs are sticker autos.

Tristar included Event-used ring mat autograph cards for the first time and these seem to be drawing some pretty good attention. If you do not pull an autographed Ring Mat card then you will pull an Event-worn memorabilia card and to make it even cooler, all single memorabilia cards are autographed. There are also dual, triple and quad memorabilia cards too. I like that Tristar actually has the checklist on their web site that actually lists the checklist showing where the specific memorabilia item came from or when it was worn. For example, Hulk Hogan’s black t-shirt pieces came from the shirt he wore at 1^st Impact in 2010, Rob Van Dam’s t-shirt came from the 2011 Bound for Glory (where he beat Jerry Lynn).

Preview: 2012 Press Pass Essential Elvis

Next week (February 1^st) Press Pass will be releasing Essential Elvis, a mid-level product that includes 3 hits per box. Since 2006 Press Pass has released 5 different Elvis sets not counting this one (2006 Elvis Lives, 2007 Elvis Is, 2007 Elvis The Music, 2008 Elvis By The Numbers and 2010 Elvis Milestones). Each release was your standard 24-28 packs per box and besides the 2007 Elvis The Music (1 auto/memorabilia per box) set the hits were pretty rare.

With each 1-pack box you will receive 6 cards including 3 base cards, 1 autograph, 1 memorabilia and 1 additional auto or memorabilia card. Boxes should run in the $50-55 range.

Autographs include Elvis, his father Vernon, band members or co-stars who appeared with him in movies including Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden and Nancy Sinatra.

A 2011 Topps Football Repack Box Pans Out Nicely

I was looking to pick up a repack football box to do my Super Bowl prediction like I did last year and instead felt the call of a 2011 Topps football repack box instead. I picked up the Topps box, which contained 11 packs of 2011 Topps football plus 2 Chrome Refractors and 1 Super Bowl Legends code card. I decided to just bust this box for fun and I will pick up the random repack box next week to use for my prediction.

You start with a Cam Newton and Blaine Gabbert Chrome Refractor and a Super Bowl Legend code card, and this is before even opening a pack. Once the pack busting began I hit a pretty solid lucky streak until I came across a nice surprise. The last few packs were pretty average s but I was happy no matter what even though I did pull 11 duplicates.

Here are some of the better pulls and inserts from the box:

A trio of Seahawks including Mr. Skittles, Marshawn Lynch

A nice group of rookies

My required Clyde Gates rookie card (This year’s Mardy Gilyard)

Takeo Spikes, does this guy have bad luck or what? He has been in the league 12 years now and played over 200 regular season games but he has never been to the playoffs. 

The former (potentially) starting QB for the Jets and the future (potentially) starting QB of the Jets if rumor unfolds in to truth.

The inserts:

Faces of the Franchise

Game Day

Super Bowl Legends

Super Bowl Legends code cards

Which turned in to these

Chrome Refractors

Bowman Football

Beginning top left: Cooley, Bradshaw, Best, Johnson, Peterson, Mallett

The surprise highlight of the box:

A Bowman Football First Color Logo Ndamukong Suh parallel #31/50

In retail packs these are 1:1060 (even in hobby packs they are 1:350)

Has Leaf Created Buzz Or Just An Error?

The other day Leaf posted the first licensed Andrew Luck up for sale through their eBay store. What was not noticed was that Leaf proofers missed the misspellings of both “Anderw” and “Hight” on the backs all of the prismatic parallels. Since the Base cards were not affected they are still up for sale but all parallels auction have been ended. The Base and Metal (#/350) were selling with a BIN price and 39 of the Metal cards sold before the auction was ended. Leaf’s Brain Gray has stated that those 39 cards will be shipped with the error but all remaining cards with the misspelling will be destroyed and reprinted.

Some people have even suggested that the error was done on purpose to increase the attention of these cards. Admittedly the error and subsequent announcement by Leaf has drawn the attention of many collectors and those who were fortunate enough to purchase one of those 39 Metal error cards have begun to profit with 6 cards already posted up for auction by this afternoon, two have since sold. Prices currently range from $150 (with 8 days left) to a BIN of $349.99 (with 4 days left.), not bad for an original purchase of $14.99 plus shipping.

I have highlighted the errors on the card.

2011 Topps Magic Football- Worth It? Yes or No?

Next week (1/25/12) Topps will be releasing the 2011 Magic Football set and there will be some changes from the 2010 release. First this will be a rookie only release and second the product will only be sold through Topps’ online store. Each $19.99 box contains 10 rookie base cards and 1 rookie autograph. According to a Topps rep the shipping will be $8-12 (WTF?) depending on shipping preferences and location.

The set contains 100 base cards and 10 short print parallels for a 110-card base checklist plus 68 autographs. There are also 68 Black Magic Autograph parallels (Black bordered and #1/1) and 8 Black Magic Cut Signatures (Silver inked cut-signatures).

The Topps Magic Football set has changed over the years, 2009 was an NCAA product and 2010 was an NFL product but the most obvious change has been this year’s product. These base cards use some awfully bright colors, bordering on fluorescent in some case, and to counter that the autographed parallels are muted in color. I have to admit, besides the colors I do like the design but I am disappointed that Topps is shutting down the card shops/online retailers and requiring buyers to go through them and their insane shipping costs.

Cam Newton Base

Cam Newton Base SP

Cam Newton Bae Auto parallel

Cam Newton Black Magic Cut Signature

Mark Ingram Base SP

Mark Ingram Base Auto parallel

Mark Ingram Black Magic Cut Signature



Doug Baldwin Base

Ryan Williams Base

Preview: The Guild

Last month I posted a write-up for The Guild, a set being released by Cryptozoic Entertainment in February. Initially only the autograph cards were shown but they have now posted images of the base cards and both chase sets. There is also a shot of a Felicia Day wardrobe card in the “Coming Soon” header for the release.

Each base card will show scenes from an episode from the first two seasons (which changed from the initial announcement of the first three seasons). As you can see Cryptozoic uses one design with a scene on the front and a second scene on the back with a blurb about the specific sequence.

One chase set is based on Cyd/Codex's video blog, there are 9 cards in the set.

The second chase set is the actor’s biography. Each card depicts a different actor and there are 9 cards in the set.