Preview: 2013 Topps Platinum Football

The 2013 NFL Draft begins Thursday so Topps is taking advantage of the attention and they have begun releasing information for the 2013 Topps Platinum Football set that is set for release later this year, around September 4th.

Boxes will be running $90-95 and they will contain 20 packs with 5 cards per pack. Each box will include 3 hits, 2 autographed rookie cards (on-card autos) and an autograph rookie refractor patch card, plus a Black Refractor rookie card parallel.

The base set is made up of 150 cards, 100 veterans and 50 rookies. There are parallels for the base cards too; the veterans only have one parallel version while the rookies have 9 parallels.

Base:
Veterans- Sapphire 1 per pack

Manning Base Card

Rookies-
X-Fractors (1:5 packs)
Black (1:20 packs)
Purple (#/75)
Gold (#/50)
Red (#/25)
Pink Breast Cancer Awareness (#/10)
Camo Military Support (#/10)
SuperFractor (1/1 Hobby only)
Printing Plates (1/1 Hobby only)

Smith Rookie Base Card Camo Military Support Parallel

 The Autographed Rookie Refractors, 2 per box, use the base card design but with a chrome refractor surface. The autographs are all on-card and there are 10 parallel versions

Black Refractor (#/150)
Blue Refractors (#/99)
Frost Refractor (#/50)
Purple Refractor (#/25)
Gold Refractor (#/15)
Brest Cancer Awareness Refractor (#/10)
Military Support Refractor (#/10)
Red Refractor (#/5)
SuperFractor (1/1 Hobby only)
Printing Plates (1/1 hobby only)

Wilson Autograph Rookie Refractor



Te'o Autograph Rookie Gold Refractor

 There are a handful of relic cards, there will be one Rookie Refractor Patch card per box but the rest are a bit more difficult to pull including the Platinum Rookie Jumbo Patch Chrome Refractor which is a case hit.



Lacy Autographed Rookie Refractor Patch

 

Luck Autographed Veteran Refractor Patch Superfractor Parallel

Inserts also include the die-cut Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon card and the die-cut Military Support Ribbon card and there will be autographed versions of each die-cut. Some of the bigger hits are; Dual Autographs (#/25), Hexgraphs (#/10), Dual Autograph Dual Patch (#/25), Dual Autograph Rookie Refractor Jumbo Book cards (1/1), Autographed Refractor Platinum Patch card (#/5) and finally the Platinum Rookie Jumbo Patch Chrome Refractor case hit. An interesting redemption card is for the Uncut Sheet Redemptions which are good for an uncut sheet of the base card checklist and includes X-Fractor, Black Refractors and Sapphire Parallels.



Barkley/Woods Dual Autograph Dual Patch



Brees Die-Cut BCA Ribbon



Lattimore Die-Cut Camo Ribbon Autograph Parallel

  One thing to note, Topps has stated that the rookies are shown in their college uniforms for the promotional material only, they will be pictured in their proper NFL uniforms when the product is released in September.

I will admit it, I love the Platinum sets so I am withholding a rating because it would be biased towards the release. The last couple of Platinum releases (baseball and football) I have been satisfied with picking up packs and blaster boxes but I am considering going with a hobby box this time.