by Rich Klein
There are several definitions of the word ‘prime’. A prime number is a unique number that has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. “Prime” also means “top-notch”. In its debut, the 2010 Topps Prime football product leans more towards the “top-notch” than being unique.
The product packaging features Rookie of the Year favorite Sam Bradford, and it’s his autographed rookie cards that are among the top prizes in Prime.
It’s a ‘mid-level’ product for Topps. The photography is outstanding and the cards are printed on 36-point stock. Boxes are currently available online at $80-85 and my local card store (Triple Cards in Plano, TX) reported reasonably decent sales at $95 per box.
This first-year Topps product was issued in a nice large-sized box, with 10 packs (more like boxes) per unopened box and six cards per pack. Boxes promise four hits: one autograph relic card, one autographed rookie card and two additional relic cards. With just 60 cards in the box; that means seven percent of what’s inside will be considered a hi
t.
2010 Topps Prime includes a variety of game-used and game-worn pieces for its relic program including wristbands, gloves, footballs and, of course, jerseys.
In hobby boxes, base rookie cards are numbered to 999, but that’s not the case in the retail product. Sticking with the hobby boxes would be the way to go.
There are a lot of parallels and inserts here. A base set collector will probably wind up buying at least three and probably four or more boxes to come close to a set.
Here’s what we pulled:
Base Cards: 39/100
Gold Parallel #d to 199: Reggie Wayne
Rookie Cards (#d to 999): Eric Decker, Armanti Edwards, Andre Roberts
Rookie Gold Parallels (#d to 699): Johnathan Dwyer, Emanuel Sanders
Rookie Black Parallels (#d to 25): Marcus Easley
Prime Rookies: Mike Kafka, Joe McKnight, Tim 
Tebow, Damian Williams
2nd Quarter (two-player cards): Peyton Manning/Joseph Addai; Jermaine Gresham/Jordan Shipley, Jimmy Clausen/Brandon LaFell
3rd Quarter (three-player cards); Demaryius Thomas/Ryan Mathews/Rolando McClain; C.J. Spiller/Joe McKnight/Taylor Price
4th Quarter (four-player cards): Sam Bradford/Tim Tebow/Eric Decker/Mardy Gilyard; Dexter McCluster/Montario Hardesty/Ben Tate/Brandon LaFell
Prime Rookie Relics: (#d to 420): Armanti Edwards
Rookie Autographs (#d to 149): Andre Roberts
Autograph Relics Level 5 (#d to 499): Golden Tate
While no big scores to overwhelm us, there were certainly enough hits both big and small to make it interesting. . In addition, the card stock was nice and thick and although the fronts reminded me of some Pacific products from the 1990’s, I thought the design grew on me and got more attractive the longer I looked at the cards.
At a little under $10 per pack, it’s not a bad value but again, it depends on the quality of your autographs.
Click here to see 2010 Topps Prime singles, boxes, lots and sets on eBay.
Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]
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