Sunday, September 21, 2014

All Defensive cards today




Today's three additions include 2 base rookies and one base card from 2013 Topps Chrome. I've determined that once I book the whole 220 card set from 2013 Chrome I'll purchase a full set of 2014 Topps Finest. This will go along with the box hits that I purchased online the day these came out. Even with lack of patience I still ended up rounding up three autographs (one was a Pulsar Refractor Fantasy Finest Auto /10 ) which would be a far better box than most. Based on You Tube breaks you average one Patch auto and one Jumbo Jersey auto. Here's a video from my local card shop. 

Alas, I didn't participate but I felt like spending 50 and getting a case hit guaranteed and not being limited to one team was far better than spending 25 for a chance at one autograph. Looking at a case you get 17 autographs; since the break is broken up into 32 teams that means 15 guys will walk away with either base and if they are lucky, a refractor or two. Most of those not named Manning or Brady aren't worth  the price of admission. With my money I got a Tahj Boyd Jumbo Auto, a Ka'deem Cary patch auto, 3 blue refractors /99, a regular rookie refractor, a Pulsar Fantasy's Finest Auto /10 redemption card of Zac Stacy, a Pulsar refractor of Drew Brees /99 (the fantasy insert) and two rookie atomic refractors. I did not get any base cards but I'll just buy a set later on rather than pulling 1/3 of the set and perhaps finishing it, perhaps not. If I had gotten a box with cards like this I'd be pretty happy. My experiment was to place one bid above what the last one was on any cards coming up on Ebay that matched what might come out of a box. That's why my base autos were not really hitting it out of the park (Boyd has already been cut, Ka'eem Cary might be good but we probably won't know for a while since he's backing up Matt Forte). The Stacy auto I probably only won because it's a redemption. The lesson learned here is it's far better to get a sure thing if you're not in the mood for gambling. I had a bad feeling about this case break and after looking at the content this year I'm glad I went this way. We're seeing far more cards like Jace Amaro and not very many Jadeveon Clowneys or Johnny Manziels coming out of these packs. I still like the cards but it's much harder to pull anything valuable from this year's product than I would have expected. One thing I'm noticing that's driving down the value is that many of the second year players that are being included (see my Zac Stacy card or the Marquis Goodwin patch autos) just aren't that proven and don't have a fan base. At least in 2013 there were some really good players from 2012 that were added like Andrew Luck autos and Alfred Morris. These boxes could have gotten an A+ grade, instead I'd give this product a B+. Topps is going to be out of the game for who knows how long and they really had a chance to sell out on this product. Now I'm not so sure.

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