Topps’ flagship baseball product hits the streets months before the regular season hits its stride in April which sometimes means we have to wait for in-season products to arrive before seeing roster changes reflected on cards. That’s not the case with 2013 Topps football, or any of the company’s long-running pigskin issues.
Topps football has plenty of chances to get in their sets both rookies and free agents. This year’s base cards again have very similar designs to the baseball set. The boxes 
contain 36 packs with each pack consisting of 10 cards with one autograph or relic card per box. The usual parallels and stable of inserts continue as has been chronicled here before.
Topps put Adrian Peterson on the front of the packs and boxes and that was probably a smart move. With the uncertainty over the impact this year’s rookie cards will have, collectors have been cautious with some avoiding any 2013 football product. My local card store (Triple Cards, Plano TX) says he has barely sold a case at the $64.25 per box level while leading on-line retailers are currently between $45-50 per box.
How did we do out of our box?
Base Cards: 300 of 440. That is a tad less than 70 percent of the base set. Logically two hobby boxes should let you complete a set
Gold Parallels (#d to 2013): Baltimore Ravens, Marquise Goodwin, Brandon Marshall, Denarius Moore
Camo Parallel (#d to 399): Haloti Ngata
Black Parallel (#d to 58) Denarius Moore
1000 Yard Club: Dez Bryant, Marques Colston, Eric Decker, BenJarvis Green-Ellis, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson, Chris Johnson, C.J. Spiller, Demaryius Thomas
4000 Yard Club: Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Josh Freeman, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan
1959 Topps Minis: Dwayne Bowe, Dez Bryant, Arian Foster, A.J. Green, Jake Locker, Doug Martin, Joe Montana, Christian Ponder, Ben Roethlisberger, Aldon Smith, Reggie Wayne, Roddy White
Future Legends: Kennan Allen, A.J. Green, DeAndre Hopkins, Colin Kapernick, Luke Kuechly, Doug Martin, Jason Pierre-Paul, Cordarrelle Patterson, Earl Thomas
Gridiron Legends: Troy Aikman, Marshall Faulk, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Kurt Warner. Steve Young
Legends in the Making: Amquan Boldin, Tom Brady< Larry Fitzgerald, Arian Foster, Andre Johnson, Chris Jonnson, Peyton Manning, Darrelle Revis, Ben Roethlisberger
Relic Card: Giovani Bernard
While those who don’t pull an autograph might be a little disappointed, pulling 360 cards at the current price level of $45-50 is very fair as that comes out to less than 15 cents per card. There are over 45,000 listings on eBay right now so there has been a significant amount of these opened.
When I asked my local shop owner about Topps football, his comment was if a rookie or two explodes by October then there will be a major uptick in sales but otherwise this product will continue to be a slow seller. Our suggestion is to see if a box can be available at the current lower levels and then grab a couple. The risk is low and putting the set together is just a nice way to recall the season.
Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]
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