Recent Nick Foles Pickups

This post is a continuation from yesterday's post, I actually had this written up over the weekend and planned on posting it today but that was before Foles exploded on the Raiders. With his prices rising, it doesn't look like I will be adding any of his cards to my collection for awhile.

A couple of new additions to my University of Arizona personal collection, a duo of Nick Foles autographs. I am not a fan of the Eagles, I was born in New York and my dad is a Giants fan (though I am not a Giants fan) so it is kind of inherent to dislike the Eagles.

 

First up is this on-card Courage autograph from 2012 Topps Valor Football. I really like the Valor Football cards, they are on a solid card stock with a high-end look to them with on-card autographs. I picked up the redemption for this card in September. It only took three weeks to get this card from Topps, talk about a surprise.

The second card I bought last week and is from Upper Deck’s 2012 Fleer Retro Football, it is based on the 1999-00 Skybox Basketball Autographcs insert. I prefer his Upper Deck and Leaf cards because they depict him in his Arizona uniform.

It cost me $8.75 for both of these cards, around $11 with shipping. I just checked out some auctions, the same cards are now selling between $8-12 (lowest bids) with time left on the auctions. Hopefully his prices will drop back from the atmosphere, I am hoping that the price jump was from the wagon jumpers looking to make a quick buck after an amazing game only.

 

 

How Cool Would This Be?

I think we all can agree that Fleer Retro Football would do much better with an NFL license. This is my vision of what could have been. I spent about 5 days building the templates and another day or so working with the player images to find the right shot and cleaning them up to fit in the templates. Finding the right font with some of the cards was a pain in the ass, I have hundreds of fonts that I went through to find the perfect match but a couple were off slightly but I don't think it really hurt the aesthetics.

 

I began with the RG3 Precious Metal Gems just to see if I could replicate the card surface. I did the Jambalaya next, which was probably the most difficult to make because I had to build it almost entirely from scratch. The Hardware cards are pretty boring really but I made this to add some variety. The 1960 Peterson and base card Richardson were both pretty easy to make. The base card is my second favorite, behind the Jambalaya, followed by the 1960 card as my third favorite. I like the simplicity of the designs.

 

Some of the shots were difficult to find because I had certain things I was looking for (besides size) like the 1960 Peterson where he was in a Vikings uniform with his helmet off. If you look at the original Fleer 1960 football cards the players are all without their helmets and most are in posed shots. With the Jambalaya, my favorite, I wanted to use a shot of Fitzgerald jumping because the basketball versions all have players in a jump/shooting motion. With the Hardware card, because the card theme is players with trophies/rings, I wanted to use a Brady shot from a winning Super Bowl so I used this one from Super Bowl XXXIX where the Patriots beat the Eagles.

 

I was working on a Noyz Boyz card but was not happy with how it was coming out so I dropped it all together and I wanted to add one of the Autographics cards but I decided to hold up and just post what I have completed so far.

 

I am an Upper Deck fan going back to their first releases and I know that Richard McWilliam has made some horrible decisions regarding the company and the athletes UD has worked with but I still hope that someday either he will pass the company on to someone else or shows he can make the right choices and earn back the lost licenses.

 

Early Preview Images: 2012 Fleer Retro Football

Trying to build of the popularity of the recent Fleer Retro Basketball release Upper Deck has turned their attention towards football. 2012 Fleer Retro Football is set to release February 14, 2013 and right now 20-pack (5 packs per pack) boxes are pre-selling in the $300-325 range.

Box Break:
6 Autographs
4 Inserts

After announcing the football release a couple of weeks ago we are finally getting a look at some of the cards that will be included in the set. Because this is a retro set Upper Deck has gone deep in to the Fleer product line using everything from the 1960 Fleer football design all the way up to the 2000 Skybox Autographics design. Each box will deliver a large variety of designs and should include something for everyone. Personally I am tiring of the retro fad, too often companies are turning to retro products to fill out their already bloated release schedule.

One thing that may put a damper on this release is that it is college based, without an NFL license Upper Deck is limited on what they include, and while it works with the basketball release it will be a more difficult sell in football. Basketball is more international while football is uniquely American, it also helps to have Jordan and LeBron included in basketball which football cannot replicate. I am sure that there will be some high dollar inserts pulled from Fleer Retro Football but in the end will they compete with their basketball counterparts?

If this were an NFL licensed product I would expect it to do well, maybe not $300/box well, but decent. The NCAA licensing  will still be sought after but I would think that beyond the rare inserts most cards will be well within  people's budget.

 

 

This RG3 Green Precious Metal Gems showed up online a couple of weeks ago, before Upper Deck released the 4 images above. Originally I thought that it may be legitimate but I noticed that there are a couple of things off, first is the dates. In the Red Mirror RG3 the dates above the Metal Universe logo say "12-13" where the Green Mirror below says "11-12" like the basketball versions. Additionally, the Red has just "Baylor" under his name were the Green says "Baylor University Bears".

 

The Green Mirror below appears to be a custom card made, honestly I think it looks better than the real one Upper Deck posted.