Product Review: 2013 Topps Series 1 Baseball

With the year 2012 had you know Topps is going to bring a lot in 2013 with their products. First one up is Topps Series 1 Baseball. This has been a staple in LCS, the secondary market and within the collecting community. Everyone and anyone into Baseball buys at least one box of Topps Series 1. This years product will again try to top the year's previous and bring even more into the first baseball product of the year. Released on January 30th, this years product will have a totally new design based on a white background. The 330 card sets theme is "The Chase" in regards to records, autographs, white whales and contests within the product.
The breakdown of this product is plentiful with inserts, autographs and relics all to be found within Series 1. Here are the basics of the product assortments: 330 base card set, 8 different Parallels of each card including the new Pink, Camo and Emerald lines. Commemorative relics are back with MVP winners, Cy Young Winners and Proven Mettle coin cards. Autographs can be found in a various number of inserts consisting of the lines; Chasing History, Chasing the Dream, Cut to the Chase Die-cut, The Greats, Calling cards, 1972 Mini's and World Series Champions. The same lines also have Relic/Game Used cards to be pulled as well as Autographed Relics. And not to be left out are the Ultimate Chase Card lines of Cut Signatures, Autographed Relic cards, Bat Knob cards and Jumbo Patch cards. The Ultimate Chase Card series seem to be all 1/1 printed hence the title Ultimate Chase.
As for the Box breakdowns, well they are keeping the same course with 1 Autograph or Relic per Hobby box and 1 Autograph and 2 Relics per Hobby Jumbo box. Chances are that the Commemorative Relics will be one of the two relics in the Jumbo Hobby boxes. 
With the first product of the year having this much packed into a relatively low-mid range product, you just know Topps is in for a huge year within the Baseball market. And like I stated earlier, any baseball fan will be picking up at one of these boxes. Which is exactly what I did on release day, here is how I did with my Jumbo box;

Base Cards: 372 (69 doubles)
Emerald Parallel: 10 (Seager, Chavez, Descalso, Happ)
Gold Parallel: 4 (Ellis, Huff, Zambrano, Correia)
Black Parallel: 1 Chase Utley /62
Chasing History: 10 (Berra, Schmidt, Musial, Mays, Jackie Robinson)
Chasing the Dream: 10 (Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Trevor Bauer)
Cut to the Chase: 4 (Adam Jones, Ryne Sandberg, Willie Mays, Ryan Braun)
The Greats: 2 (Cal Ripken Jr., Rickey Henderson)
Calling Cards: 5 (Ortiz, Stargell)
1972 Minis: 10 (Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Matt Kemp)
Autograph: Chasing History David Justice (sticker Auto)
Relic: Chasing the Dream J.P. Arencibia White Jersey
Commemorative Relic: Cy Young Award Johan Santana

Topps Series 1 is on the streets and snow is falling around here. Can't wait for baseball to start and these cards make up for it till then. Well this box turned out very well for me. The Base card design is very nice with the white backdrop, the Seattle Green and the Miami Orange colors really standout on the cards. The inserts really make this product fly though. Each of them have unique designs not see before and get you a wanting more feeling for some like the Cut to the Chase Die-cuts and The Greats. Both of those are really great card inserts. The Die-cuts are Refractor based and the quality on them is fantastic. The Greats inserts are on Thick stock and close to the same as a Relic stock piece. Both will be very hot in the secondary market and The Greats have already seen a difficulty on some set builders completing the collection. I like the fact Topps added the Camo, Pink and Emerald parallels to the base cards this year. I scored a Black Utley and seems to pull a Pink or Camo will be very hard to do. So if you see your guy on the market grab him up cause you won't be finding them around too often.
On to the Autographs and Relics. In this area I was very pleased with my pulls. The J.P. Arencibia is a nice simple relic, very clean cut and nice design touch with the card stock line across the relic piece. The Autograph of David Justice was also a nice hit as it was cool to pull a retired known veteran from this product. The sticker on the Justice is a little off center but still a nice card and player to pull compared to those seen on the checklist. This brings us to the Johan Santana CY Young Award Winner card. Now when I first saw these cards I wasn't too impressed and thought it would be a simple little manufactured piece on a card with no lasting value. I take that all back after pulling this one. The pieces in the Award Cards are thick and made unique for that player/year/award. The Cy Young Award almost looks like a pin of sorts die-cut to replicate the actual award given. To top the cards off they are on super thick card stock and are solid, no chipping or bent corners on my card. When I opened the pack I thought I hit a jumbo patch or booklet it was so big. Well worth it on these ones, again if you see your player buy them up cause they won't last long and people will want to collect these for sets.

Overall I was very pleased with the 2013 product. Topps again delivers the best it can to start the season on the right foot. I would definitely buy into this product and look on the secondary market for the cards you really want to spend money on. The next baseball products aren't here until March so Topps Series 1 will be around to rip or search for your card. Jumbo boxes again are the better value, you can't beat what you get in a Jumbo compared to the Hobby box. Plus you could pull one of those great Award cards to add to your collection!

Gambler Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4/5
Memorabilia: 4/5
Parallels: 3.5/5
Design: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 4/5

2013 SuperBowl Gambler Giveaway

Here are the details for the 2013 Superbowl Gambler Giveaway!
In order to be eligible to win any of the Giveaways you will need to do the following:
1) Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook
2) Pick the Winner of the Superbowl between Baltimore vs. San Francisco
3) Pick the Final Score of the game
4) Pick the MVP of the game (to be used for Tie Breaker)
5) Pick total yards by the winning team (to be used for Tie Breaker)

Twitter Rules:
1) Each Follower from Twitter will be eligible to win a Giveaway providing they follow us @packgambler on Twitter

2) RT your answers within the #SuperBowl #GamblerGiveaway Tweet on Thursday January 31st
(ex: SF; 32-10; AJ Jenkins; 823)

3) Followers will not be eligible to win more than 1 Giveaway during the 2013 Super Bowl Gambler Giveaway.

Facebook Rules:
1) Each Follower from Facebook will be eligible to win a Giveaway providing they like The Pack Gambler on Facebook

2) Enter your answers on the Facebook Super Bowl Gambler Giveaway Post on Thursday January 31st
(ex: SF; 32-10; AJ Jenkins; 823)

3) Followers will not be eligible to win more than 1 Giveaway during the 2013 Super Bowl Gambler Giveaway.

Please ensure that you follow these instructions for Twitter and Facebook in order to be eligible to win.

ENTRY DEADLINE: All entries must be in before February 3rd 2pm EST


Below is a listing of the Super Bowl Gambler Giveaways:

All Giveaways will be awarded/announced after the games conclusion:

1) Twitter Winner: 2012 Panini Rookie and Stars Longevity LaMichael James Jersey card plus team lot of your choice

2) Facebook Winner: 2012 Panini Crown Royale Ray Rice Jersey card /99 plus team lot of your choice

Good Luck to all of our Followers on the Super Bowl Gambler Giveaway! Thank you again for following and please continue to spread the word out as we will continue to bring you the best giveaways in the hobby as we expand our followers.

Sincerely,

The Pack Gambler

500th Gambler Follower Giveaway - January 19th 2013

Thank you for helping us reach another Milestone with 500+ Followers on Twitter!
To show our thanks we will be having a Gambler Giveaway Day!

In order to be eligible to win any of the Giveaways you will need to do the following:
1) Follow us on Twitter
2) ReTweet any of the Gambler Giveaway Day Tweets.
3) Watch for Tweets sent out on Gambler Giveaway day which will be Saturday January 19th 2013

Rules:
1) Each Follower will be eligible to win a Giveaway providing they follow us @packgambler on Twitter and  ReTweet the #GamblerGiveaway Tweets.
2) Followers will not be eligible to win more than 1 Giveaway during the 500th Follower Giveaway Day.

And that's it, again another simple to pickup a nice Giveaway from The Pack Gambler

Below is a listing of the 500th Follower Giveaways. I think you'll be excited to jump on and hopefully win one of these on Gambler Giveaway Day January 19th 2013.

All Giveaways will be Random drawings of current Followers on January 19th 2013:

1) 2012 Topps Chrome Matt Dominguez Autograph, 2012 Bowman Platinum Greg Bird Autograph, and Baseball Team lot of your choice

2) 2012 Panini R&S Ryan Broyles Jersey, 2012 Panini Crown Royale Stephen Hill Jersey and Football Team lot of your choice

3) 2009-10 UD Champs Chris Osgood and Paul Stastny jersey cards, 2012-2013 UD Artifacts Jason Spezza Dual jersey and Hockey Team lot of your choice

500th Follower Grand Giveaway: 1 - 2012 Topps Series 1 Baseball Rack Pack, 1 - 2012 Topps Football Rack Pack, 1 - Panini Score Hockey Retail Blaster Box. 

Good Luck to all of our Followers on Gambler Giveaway Day! Thank you again for following and please continue to spread the word out as we will continue to bring you the best giveaways in the hobby as we expand our followers.

Sincerely,

The Pack Gambler

Best in Class Awards: 2012 Baseball Products

Here are my 2012 Baseball Product Rankings for the year;

Best Product / Best Set / Best Design / Best Value: 2012 Topps Archives
Not sure about anyone else, but once I saw the sell sheet of this product I fell in love. Forget that you were getting two Fan Favorite On-Card Autographs in each box, forget about the chance of maybe pulling a relic card as well. The concept of this set was great. Bringing back the older versions of Archives but on a present level with today's stars was brilliant. 1954, 71, 80 and 84 designs represented in this set was a great way to start Archives back up again. The inserts of the Decals, Cloth Stickers and 3D cards were a very nice touch to the already anticipated set. The Cost per box was very reasonable hitting the $75-$90 range. As if it didn't need anymore added value, Topps introduced Redemption's for Buybacks, Uncut sheets and Topps Contracts. Just a great overall product for any Baseball collector and looking forward to 2013 Archives.

Best Autographs: 2012 Topps Five Star
The most expensive product in Baseball provided us the most variety of Baseball signatures we have seen in years. Every autograph was on-card which included dual, triple, quads and even six and eight autographs. The logistics alone to obtain each of these autographs is insane. If you were lucky enough to pull one of those multiple autographs, you know first hand how great these cards are. In addition to these, cut signatures were included into the mix and had a decent list of players to possibly pull. One of the most interesting autographs seen in this product was Sandy Koufax autographed book with jersey. Now the reason why these were interesting was that Sandy signed the booklet and the piece of jersey! Dual Koufax auto's? Unheard of, and great for collectors looking for unique ultimate autographs.     

Best Relic & Game Used: 2012 Topps Museum Collection
Do you remember this product? Seems like it went off the radar a few months after the release. Then Prices skyrocketed and become very hard to find. Even still to this day the price for a box of Museum is a solid high-end. This product started the On-card Autograph coming out party for Topps in 2012, but the most sought after cards were the relic cards. These ranged from single players, duals, triple and quads. Swatches seemed to be minor in this product and provided more of the prime patch or prime stitching type of relics not regularly seen. Some of the nicest sleeve patches came out of this product and were numbered around the /10 mark which made collectors jump on them once they hit the secondary market. Also included in the product were jumbo jersey's and jumbo bat relics. The jumbo bat relics really took off and were very nice in hand, another one of those must see items to really appreciate them. The ones I love in this product were the quad patches of four different players. These were segregated by position, teammates and also rival teams within the sport. Since this product is hard to find in sealed hobby boxes your best bet on locating some of these will be on the secondary market as singles.

Best Rookies: 2012 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects
When hasn't a Bowman product provided the best rookies? This years Draft picks and Prospects not only delivered the widest assortment of up and comers, but provided you with autographs of them. The Jumbo boxes hit the roof once the product hit the streets as these included three autographs for the first time within the product. Now as everyone knows most of these players nobody has heard of or seen play baseball, but the unknown value of these players in the future is what continues to make a strong following of collectors year in and year out. Even if you don't open a box and store it for three to four years the value of it can increase based on the players being called into MLB camps or getting their debuts. No other product will touch this in the rookie category nor will any in the future.

Best in Class Awards: 2012 Football Products

Here are The Pack Gambler's Best in Class for the 2012 Football Products;

Best Product / Best Set / Best Rookies / Best Value: 2012 Topps Chrome
Topps Chrome has been the best selling and most popular Football product on the market for the last few years. This year I thought Panini would bring a product that would take over the number one spot but I was wrong. the 2012 edition of the powerhouse Chrome came in fierce and packed up so much demand that it is still carrying over into the new year. Presale for the Hobby boxes were running at $69.99 a few months prior to the release. A couple of days after the release in early November boxes jumped to the $130 range, and not only were they still selling, but they were selling out of Hobby shops everywhere. The rookie class of 2012 sure did help with the sales as well with both RGIII and Luck doing very well in their first seasons. the two rookie autographs per box were the main reason everyone wanted in on Chrome. New for Chrome this year were the Military (Camo), BCA Pink and Prism Refractors. All three were offered in the Base cards as well as the coveted rookie on-card autographs. The 220 card strong set was filled with all the rookies from 2012 as well as new subsets like the 1957 Retro Rookies, 1965 Tall Boys and 1984 Retro Rookies. This product was not to be out done and will continue to be strong for the years to come.  

Best Autographs: 2012 Panini Black
Black and gold just seem to go together so well, and that brings us to the reason why the best autographs of 2012 are found in Panini Black. Sure there were a lot of products that provided us autographs through 2012 and a lot of them are as nice as the next one. A couple of things stand out in autographs and they are, placement, on-card and look. Even the worst signer that prints two letters of his full name on one of these cards is going to look amazing. Hands down Panini Black raised the 2012 autographs with their product.   


Best Relic & Game Used: 2012 Topps Strata
We have been lucky enough to have some of the best relics / game used cards come out this year. The prime patches particularly have been great on cards and the placement on the cards have been outstanding this year. The best of everyone was Topps Strata. The Clear Cut Rookies were the best pieces I have seen in a while come out of a product. The placement of these jumbo pieces on the card have made even the common collector want one of anyone they can get their hands on. With the amount of space on the cards the patches have allowed the lucky collector who pulls one of these feel like they have something tangible from that player. Oh and they didn't just put in jumbo swatches into the product, they put awesome looking patches, spikes, gloves and RGIII socks! Could you make a product more intriguing for relic/game used hunters? Well why not throw in a Rivet card to boot! Yes those Rivet cards are something, all numbered /5 these cards fan out in three sections and take the Relic/Game Used cards to a whole new level that will make everyone want to catch up.  

Best Design: 2012 Panini Black and Panini Momentum
This year I thought the best two designs came from Panini Black and Momentum. Both high-end products and both provided quality card stock and designs to their customers. Starting with Momentum, they really are nice with the white background covering the base cards. The sleek design lines on the card front complement the white back and give the base cards something to desire for. This runs the same with the inserts and relic/game used card designs. A very clean and neat design for 2012. Panini Black struck a note with the bold black cards and the unique design lines on the cards. It is a really dark look for cards and makes the product very rich looking. Even the common cards look to be $10 or more for the commons they look this good. As mentioned above the gold autographs on the black cards are striking and a must have just for the way they look and not the player. Both of these sets are opposite spectrum's of designs and both have given a very attractive look to their respective 2012 cards.

Best in Class Awards: 2012 Hockey Products

Here are The Pack Gambler's Best in Class for the 2012 Hockey Products;

Best Value /  Best Set: 2012-2013 O-Pee-Chee
Being Canadian O-Pee-Chee has been a home name known for years within the sports card industry. When Upper Deck bought them and started producing cards under that brand I was very happy that it was being revitalized within the community. That being said this years product brought a lot to the table. Now being a low end product this was not going to provide you with the spectacular dazzling of autographs and game used cards, but instead made it a fun product to rip for the Canadian Redemption (for us Canadians) as well as trying to complete the set. A 600 card strong set was challenging for some collectors, but also gave them some of that old-time feeling of the older non-glossy cards we know today. The captured a wide spread audience of players from all teams and was very much worth the money to collect.  

Best Product / Best Inserts: 2011-2012 Panini Rookie Anthology
As you are well aware I fell in love with Rookie Anthology the first time I opened a box. By far the best product for the price and quality. The Base cards had a very nice and have a crisp design which were followed by Game Used and Autograph cards with the same flavor. The idea behind inserting Rookie cards from previously released sets from 2011 was genius to say the least. This made anyone wanting to complete a set to hunt down these newly released cards. The product was full of rookies from base/inserts to game used and autographed cards. With the inclusion of a Box Topper in each box which was either an Autograph, Autographed Game Used or Game Used card how you not pick up this product to try it out.

Best Autographs: 2012-2013 Panini Classic Signature
At a time when the NHL was on strike what better way to sell a product than to get Legends and Home Town Heroes into a set. And not only a set of these players but on-card autographs too! Classic Signatures came out at the perfect time and gave the collectors a piece of their past with these offerings. Now these were pretty expensive to buy but the upside was that you were guaranteed an On-Card Autograph in each pack. Some of these were Short Printed and even Super Short Printed, but the main thing was they were all on-card. Some even included nicknames which were really cool for those that were entrenched in hockey growing up. The selection of players and the amount of autographs proved to be the best overall Autograph product of 2012.  

Best Relic & Game Used: 2011-2012 Panini Prime and 2011-2012 Panini Dominion
It is really hard to go against what Panini brought to the table with Prime and Dominion. Prime started the Game Used memorabilia in September and took it to a whole new level. Of course Panini can't put all the great memorabilia into one product (hence Dominion), but they divided it up and gave us cool Prime Ties 1/1 which by far were the coolest idea for Hockey Used items in a long time. And if that wasn't enough the Prime Colors Patches and Authentics set the bar even higher. Then we had Dominion come in and again bring us something we didn't think could top or match Prime with Booklets of Six, Eight and Twelve player jersey cuts, Jersey Buttons, Tape to Tape Autographs and Silver Engravatures. And these are only the few of the Game Used/Autographed inserts in these products. Of course both dealing with only 1 Pack per Box it was a little nervous on who you might end up with, but with the amount of quality inserts each one was a special hit for any player you manged to pull.  

Best Design /  Best Rookies: 2012-2013 Upper Deck Artifacts
The design of Artifacts this year brought me to buy into the product. I thought they really provided a smooth design to represent this NHL product to collectors. Along with very nice parallels matching the same design, these cards just plain out look nice to see. Artifacts continues to have a strong following within the NHL brands and this years design will keep them coming back for more. In addition to the great designs, they have also produced some of the more sought after rookies of 2012. Now of course this came out when the NHL was on strike so a lot of us thought we wouldn't be seeing these players anytime soon. But with the history of Artifacts past you had to take the plunge on the Rookies being offered. They ranged from Rookies (all numbered), plus continued with their Rookie Redemption program. The Redemption cards were slated at one per box and still even with the players unknown bring in decent value in the market. Once these Rookies hit the ice this product will be one to look for in the future to obtain these players.

Product Review: 2012 Panini Golden Age Hobby Box

 When I first heard of Panini Golden Age I thought of Goodwin Champions. Very similar concept with Baseball being the main sport in the product along with other aspects of entertainment and famous people. Now I'm not a fan of the Goodwin products recently, however with this Panini edition I was intrigued by a couple of things. The first being Panini, they have continued to provide quality products for 2012 and this one would be no different. The Second being the hits you could pull, from a piece of the harness from Secretariat to a piece of wood from the Titanic. Along with Autographs, Cut Autographs and Box Toppers, this was definitely an intriguing product to say the least. 

As for the basics of the product; there are 146 base cards to collect with 25 base Card SP's to find (slotted at 2 per case). Each of the Base cards also have a Mini Tobacco Parallel with 6 variations. Three Insert sets are included in the product, the most anticipated is the Batter-Up pop-up cards. The set of 25 are inserted 2 per box. There will be one Box Topper per box and they will consist of a Ferguson Bakery Pennant (Blue or Yellow), 5x7 Movie Poster or a 5x7 Movie Poster Memorabilia.

Each box will also yield 1 Historic Autograph and 1 Museum Age Memorabilia. The Historic Autographs also have Cut Signatures from 10 subjects and numbered up to /3. Some of the talk around the community is on certain people in the Historic Autograph checklist like Nolan Ryan, Barbara Eden, and Bob Woodward.

Now this product is on the cheaper side of the scale running at $69-80 range so with 2 hits and a lot of potential it was worth the try on this product. Here is the assortment I pulled from my box:

Base cards (Baseball): 57
Base cards (other): 57
Mini Tobacco Broadleaf Brown: 19
Mini Tobacco Broadleaf Blue: 1 Jimmie Foxx
Mini Tobacco Candy Crofts Red: 3
Mini Tobacco Ty Cobb Tobacco: 1 Gordie Howe
Headlines: 2 (Secretariat, Kissing War Goodbye)
Batter-Up: 2 (Early Winn, Jack Dempsey)
Newark Evening World Supplement: 1 Ron Turcotte
Box Topper: Bill Dickey (Yellow)
Historic Signature: Don Larson (on-card)
Museum Age Memorabilia: Sam Snead, Bill Madlock

I had fun with opening this product up. The cards are nice and I really like the mini's to go along with them. The Larson autograph is nice for me being a baseball fan and wasn't sure what other people I would be getting out of this product. After the Snead hit I thought I was done, but then the Madlock came within the next 3 packs as an extra hit which is always great to find. The Snead material is very rough like carpet almost so not sure what this is nor does it say on the card back. The Madlock is a very nice multicolor swatch/patch that again is nice for a baseball collector like myself. I did end up with a couple of doubles in the box, but I will take that for the extra hit. Also I liked that the Baseball cards and other personalities in the set were split 57 each in the product. That is a great assortment for a multi-sport product.

Overall this is a decent new product into the multi-sport lines from Upper Deck and Topps. I think this will do well going forward and like I said before, Panini always provides a high quality product which is something you can always count on. if you not into multi-sport or baseball this is not the product for you, but if you love Goodwin or Ginter, then I'm sure you've already bought your box/case of this product and enjoyed it as much as I did.

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4/5
Memorabilia: 4/5
Inserts: 4/5
Concept: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5

Product Review: 2012 Topps Strata Football

Wow is the first word that came to mind about the 2012 Topps Strata product. This was mainly due to the Clear Cut Jumbo Autographed Relics. Those are Beasts to look at, and the Patch versions are ridiculously beautiful. This was one product I needed to rip. Now buying a box of Strata just for the Clear Cut Autograph is not really a good idea as you not always going to get a nice patch or multicolor design, some are just one color jersey swatches. But don't be fooled either as the product has two other hits that can net you some decent players.

Each box comes along with the One Clear Cut Autographed Relic, One Rookie Base Variation Autograph, One Memorabilia card and One Rookie Die-Cut card. The Base set is 150 cards deep and has five different Parallels to chase down. All of the 2012 Rookies are included in the Autographs, Relics and Base Cards. 35 of these rookies made it to the Rookie Die-Cut set which are a nice touch to this set.

This is a relatively inexpensive box to purchase as they are ranging from $79-$99 a box depending on where you buy from. And with the Clear Cut Autographs being as hot as they are, it is sure worth the money. here is how I did on my box:


Base Cards: 67
Base Card Rookies: 34 (RGIII, Doug Martin, Russell Wilson, T. Richardson)
Base Parallel: Whitney Mercilus Gold /99
Rookie Die-Cut: Kendall Wright
Rookie Relic: Isaiah Pead Patch /75
Rookie Autograph: Dre Kirkpatrick (Redemption)
Rookie Clear Cut Autograph: Trent Richardson Green Parallel Patch Autograph (Redemption)

So overall I did very well on my box. The Richardson Patch Autograph is a great pull from this product even though it is a redemption. Haven't had more than one redemption in a box in a long time until today with the Kirkpatrick Autograph, but I'm not going to complain on these. The Pead patch is a nice little hit as it has a little bit of the Rams patch showing and is a low number. Also pulling the RGIII rookie card is good too as him and Luck are not showing up in each box and some with neither of them. This box brought in a total of 34 rookie cards which is very impressive from a product. I was impressed with the overall design of Strata and the cards felt like a mid-level card which is nice to see from Topps. One thing to watch for is that the product does not use filler cards so you can easily check through an open box for the Clear Cut Autograph or the Relic with ease, so watch out if your buying by the pack on this one.

Until I receive the Richardson I won't know how it will look with the Patch, but hopefully from the other players I've seen in person and online it should be a sweet looking card. I would recommend this product for anyone looking for a nice looking hit in a decent price range.

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.4 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4/5
Memorabilia: 5/5
Parallels: 3.5/5
Rookies: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 4/5