Product Review: 2013 Topps Archives Football Hobby Box

Within the hobby you have different types of collectors out there. In one element of collecting, you find people  in the hobby like to stick to a brand. Heritage and Allen & Ginter are two good examples of that, well enter the Archives collector into this mix. Yes we are starting to see the Archive collectors coming out again after the 2012 baseball edition of the product. Following up this year is 2013 Topps Archives Football first.

The funny thing about this release is that it was slated for a late 2012/early 2013 date and even had 2012 in the title but Topps has changed this over to 2013 in October and delivered it this month. The other notable mention is that there are zero rookies in this product. All rookie players from last year (Griffin, Luck, etc..) should be considered second year cards. It's unfortunate they couldn't pull this off for 2012 and made them fit into the rookie card qualifications but the bonus about this would be there shouldn't be many redemption cards for autographs in the product (an assumption that hopefully holds true).

The concept for the Topps Archives brand is to bring the older designs from years past to the future with current players. This works very well in Baseball and has grown in popularity, football should be no different. The designs Topps has used in this product are 1959, 1976, 1985, and 1986 (one of our favorites) for the 200 card base set. You will also find Short-printed High numbers (cards numbered 201-240) which span across the many years of Topps Football.

The inserts in 2013 Archives Football have some old favorites like 1000 Yard Club, 1970 Topps Glossy Set, and the 1968 Topps Stand up Set. These designs pattern the previous years inserts within Topps football products.

The main draw in any Archives product are the Fan favorites line of Autographs. These autographs are from 75 players that were fan favorites across the span of football. Most notably in this set are autographs from Ickey Woods, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Louis Lipps and Christian Okoye. Of course we can't list all 75 of these players here but all have a certain place in football fans hearts.

Autograph seekers will also have a chance to pull 1984 Autographed book cards, 1988 Framed Mini Autographs, 1980's Celebrity Cut Autographs, Topps Originals Autographs, USFL Buy Back Autographs and 1965 Tall Boy Autographs. Lots of autographs to look for in this product, mind you these are all lower printed autographs with the highest being numbered out of /25.

The added bonus to Football Archives that the 2012 baseball missed on is the Box Bottom cards. yes we are going back to the good ole days with four box bottom cards on each hobby box. We aren't sure of the complete checklist, but the designs are the 1985 Topps Red Border design. These are pretty cool to see again on a hobby product, very happy about this addition.    

So the basics of this hobby box product is 24 packs per box with 8 cards per pack. Within each hobby box you should find 2 parallels, 6 Short prints and 2 autographs.

We ran our Box Break through live video which can now be found here
This is a breakdown of how we did:

Base Cards: 173 (0 doubles)
Base Card SP: 6 - Woods, Johnson, Chrebet, Sikahema, Clark, Okoye
Gold Base Parallel: 2 - Wes Welker, D'Qwell Jackson
1970 Glossy: 4 - Rice, Newton, Elway, Bush
1000 Yard Club: 3 - Peterson, Cruz, Rice
1968 Standup: 2 - Allen, Fitzgerald
Fan Favorites Autographs: 2 - Harold Carmichael, Bob Golic

This is a great product to start the 2013 Football card season. Topps did a great job on selecting the designs for this. The 1986 design is our favorite within the product along with the 1000 Yard Club inserts. The inclusion of the high-numbered short prints are nice and follow the same as baseball did. The assortment of the box was great and didn't expect anything less. Topps really did a nice job on this opening Football product for 2013.

The autographs we landed of Carmichael and Golic were cool ones to receive. Again with Archives your looking at retired fan favorites that are all on-card autographs. This is great for collectors and much better than stickers. With these players signing it makes them a great collectible for all fans. You might not pull greats of the game but they are very nice autographed cards.

Highly recommend this product to any Football collector and any collector that loves vintage. This is a very solid product, inserts, autographs and the base cards are great. We are only 27 cards short for the complete 200 base card set (which we plan on finishing). Awesome way to start the 2013 Football card season.

As always, most cards we pull in our breaks we send into our COMC account. If you are interested in any of the cards we have mentioned please send us an e-mail at packgambler@gmail.com

Thanks again and remember to visit us at www.packgambler.com

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 5/5
Inserts: 4/5
Parallels: 4/5
Concept: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 4/5