by Rich Klein
Although the 2010 Topps football card issue hasn’t been quite as anticipated as the company’s annual baseball issue, there is little doubt that Topps understands the importance of the product to their overall football line. The baseball cards were a hit this year and Topps stuck with the formula for football.
Each box gives you 360 cards and a number of smaller and larger elements inside packs that offer good value. The “big” things include the Short Printed Rookies, the chance for some really cool and expensive autographs out of a base product and the lottery aspect of the Gridiron Giveaway of vintage Topps football cards that one in every six packs reveals.
Topps’ loyalists got a scare last year when it was announced the company wouldn’t be getting a football card license for the first time since the mid-1950s. Fortunately, things changed and the long-running line is continuing.
Each box of 2010 Topps football consists of 36 packs with 10 cards per pack and one autograph or relic card in each box. In addition, each pack is supposed to contain at least one rookie card.
As we prepared this review, the current price of these boxes online are ranging from $40-50 while my local card store (Triple Play Cards in Plano, TX reported strong sales at $54.95). One of the customers at Triple Play reported receiving 60 rookie cards out of his box.
One thing collectors have noticed immediately is that the design is very similar to the design of the baseball base brand and many of the aspects from that brand are included in the football product.
So, how did we do in our box?
Base Set: 268/440 and the Drew Brees 44DB card. In addition, we counted 63 Rookie Cards out of our box; however, no Short Printed Rookies.
Gold Parallel (#d to 2010): Nathaniel Allen, Dezmon Briscoe, Jimmy Clausen, Brandon Ghee, Jerome Murphy, Joe Webb, Major Wright
Black Parallel (#d to 55): Cadillac Williams
Gridiron Lineage: Troy Aikman/Tony Romo, Jim Brown/Adrian Peterson; John Elway/Tim Tebow; Dan Marino/Drew Brees; Joe Montana/Jimmy Clausen; Randy Moss/Dez Bryant; Thurman Thomas/C.J. Spiller; Ladanian Tomlinson/Ryan Mathews; Patrick Willis/Rolando McClain
Attax Code Cards: Jared Allen, Oshiomogho Atogwe, Miles Austin, Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald, Dwight Freeney, Frank Gore (2 of these cards); David Harris, DeSean Jackson, Steven Jackson, Andre Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Lewis, Peyton Manning, Brandon Marshall, Jerod Mayo, Rashard Mendenhall (2 of these cards), Julius Peppers, Troy Polamalu, Ed Reed, Darrelle Revis, Ray Rice, Philip Rivers, Asante Samuel, Matt Schaub, Michael Turner, Brian Urlacher, Jonathan Vilma, DeMarcus Ware, Reggie Wayne (2 of these cards), D.J. Wlliams, Patrick Willis,Adrian Wilson
1952 Bowman: Arrelious Benn, Sam Bradford, Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Maurice Jones-Drew, Colt McCoy, Ray Rice, Aaron Rodgers, Golden Tate,Tim Tebow, Beanie Wells, DeAngelo Williams
Anniversary Reprints: Tom Brady, Stephen Jackson, Chris Johnson, Randy Moss
75th Draft Anniversary: Brett Favre, Jimmy Clausen, Percy Harvin, DeSean Jackson, Steven Jackson, Ray Lewis
Peak Performance: Joseph Addai, Dallas Clark, Eric Dickerson, Brett Favre, Joe Flacco, Calvin Johnson, Peyton Manning, Ray Rice. Sidney Rice
Peak Performance Relic: Chris Cooley
Gridiron Giveaway (Similar to the Topps Million Card Contest in Baseball): We pulled six contest cards which ended up being revealed on the Gridiron Giveaway website as: 1973 Fred Cox, 1975 Dennis Partee, 1976 Rich McGeorge, 1979 Benny Ricardo, 1995, Greg Davis and 2007 Travis Taylor. No huge hit there, but each code offers a little bit of mystery.
In the end, we did get our relic from the box and a massive amount of rookies. The best part of getting that many rookies is that are usually one or two who break out big later on and putting those cards away helps to guarantee not only the current value of a box but the future value of the box and the contents.
Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]
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