Topps waxed nostalgic this summer with its Archives Baseball product. It was enough of a hit that the concept is sliding over to football next April. On Monday, the company announced plans for 2013 Topps Archives Football, promising each box would include images of today’s players on the designs used in 1959, 1976, 1985 and 1986 Topps cards. It will also utilize some of the insert designs from years past for inserts and redemption cards good for graded and ungraded vintage cards, unopened packs, sets and items from the Topps vault.
Archives hobby boxes will cost dealers $67-70 and Topps is promising two autographed cards per box and eight cards per pack when they’re released in the spring of 2013.
The 200-card base set will feature Andrew Luck as card #1 (in the ’76 Topps design) and consist of retired stars, veterans and rookies. There will be gold parallels seeded one in every 12 packs as well as 1/1 printing plates for each.
Topps Originals will feature 10 stars who have autographed their original Topps cards for insertion into Archives. They’ll be numbered to 10. Mini versions in the 1988 Topps football design will be signed and numbered to 25. There will be 10 original 1984 Topps USFL cards as buy back autographs, and 1965 Topps ‘tall boys’ autographed and numbered to 25.
Also among the big hits will be book cards, done in 1984 Topps style and featuring two rookie autographs. All will be 1/1.
Touched by Greatness will be similar to the Fist-o-Graphs in Topps’ UFC products. Players will provide autographed hand print cards with all numbered to 10.
Fan Favorites autographed cards will showcase some names from the past that fans may remember including Mercury Morris (’72 Dolphins), Ickey Woods, Ben Coates, Flipper Anderson, Christian Okoye, Eric Allen, Too Tall Jones, Wayne Chrebet and 68 others. All will be on card designs from the era in which they played but with pictures never used on their original Topps cards.
The insert sets championed on Archives will include 1968 Topps Stand-Ups, 1970 Topps Glossy and 1980s 1,000-Yard Club glossy.
1980s style box bottom cards return with 1985 Topps themes. Check out sample images below.
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