by Rich Klein
We already discussed the Topps Chrome baseball box with the mix of only about 10 “hits” big and small in a box. Our specific box happened to have a big hit, but the mix was much more geared to the base cards and the two per box rookie autograph hits. 2010 Topps Chrome Football only mentions one autographed rookie card in each box but Topps tries to make up for that by having a box with at least one “hit” in almost every pack to compensate for the fewer autographs in a box.
Unlike the baseball box, most if not all of this year’s NFL rookies are performing at a fairly high level or at least haven’t done anything to lower long term expectations. Rams’ quarterback Sam Bradford looks like a star and Colt McCoy has begun to emerge in Cleveland. Tim Tebow has scored a touchdown and could figure in the Broncos’ future sooner rather than later. The base set includes 110 veterans and a whopping 110 rookie cards.
These boxes are currently faring better than the baseball counterparts on the online secondary market with the prices averaging $45-55 for each box on line. My local card store (Triple Cards in Plano, TX) is selling these box at an acceptable but not great rate with their retail price again at $74.25 per box. The Topps Chrome football box has 24 packs in the box with 4 cards per pack and one rookie autograph per box.
Among the big hits are the Refractor Parallel versions:
* Gold – Numbered* to 10
* Black – Numbered* to 25
* Refractor – Numbered* to 50
There are also triple rookie autographs numbered to 10 and dual rookie autographs numbered to 25.
Topps Reprint Refractors include 20 renowned Topps Football cards staging an encore featuring an autograph and numbered to 10.
So how did we do?
Base Cards: 75/220 with no dupes. For those who note these type of breakdowns, we received 10 less base cards in the football box compared to the baseball box. As an FYI, 33 of these 75 cards are Rookie Cards or fully 44 percent of all base cards we received in these boxes.
Refractors: Pat Angerer, Reggie Bush, Jacoby Ford, Tony Gonzalez, Julius Peppers, Rolando McClain and Andre Roberts
Blue Refractors: (#d to 199): Dez Bryant
Gridiron Lineage: Troy Aikman/Tony Romo; Percy Harvin/Dexter McCluster; Joe Namath/Mark Sanchez; Emmitt Smith/Felix Jones; Emmitt Smith/Ladainian Tomlinson; Johnathan Stewart/Jonathan Dwyer
Rookie Reprints: Jim Brown, John Elway, Steven Jackson and Eli Manning
Bowman Chrome Rookie Previews: Jahvid Best, Damian Williams
Rookie Autograph: John Skelton
Thus the biggest difference in the two boxes, and one that will be interesting to see how it plays out down the road, is how the baseball box with the two autographs per box but fewer overall hits end up in relation to the football box with only one autograph per box but more hits. Apparently, a lot of people are buying this product. Check out the link: 2010 Topps Chrome football on eBay (over 10,000 listings)
Rich Klein can be reached at sabrgeek@aol.com
