Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Product Review: 2014 Press Pass NASCAR Total Memorabilia

It's been a long time since a new product caught my eye like this one did. 2014 Press Pass Total Memorabilia is a high end NASCAR release that is sure to get the attention of all racing collectors. Press Pass has always brought some very cool designs and memorabilia to racing fans and this year is no different.

With being a high end product you are limited to only 5 packs per box with 9 cards per pack. The breakdown for the 45 cards you will find is 25 base cards, 5 base parallels, 5 NASCAR Hall of Fame Plaques, 5 Acceleration inserts and 5 Autograph or Memorabilia cards.

Each pack of this product is providing you some good value where you'll find 1 Autographed or Memorabilia card. With NASCAR memorabilia, there are always multi color or nice big pieces put into the cards which bring you that much closer to your favorite drivers.

The Base Card set is only 50 cards deep so you will need to crack open at least 2 boxes in order to collect it. This is the same for the Acceleration Inserts (only 10 in the set) and the NASCAR Plaques are 25 cards to collect.

Getting back to the Memorabilia of this product, each card is numbered with the highest being only /275 (Retail) /175 (Hobby) and the lowest being 1/1. The Autographs are even more scare than the Memorabilia as they are between /125 and /5 for the Rising Stars and between /10 to 1/1 for the 14 Veterans listed. The items listed for the memorabilia range from Hats, Gloves, Shoes, Shirt, Sheet Metal, Tires, Firesuit,  and Windshields.  That's a lot packed into trading cards, and all look pretty cool.

Another cool thing is only Tony Stewart Autographed Memorabilia cards are redemption's, everything else is live in packs. Press Pass has always been great about this on all NASCAR products.

You'll find boxes around the $100-$125 range which broken down is not too bad for a high end product that yields a hit per pack. Especially with the low serial numbered checklist this was an intriguing product from the start.

Lets find out how we did in our box break;

Base Cards: 20 (0 doubles)
Base Card Gold Parallels: 4 - Menard, Mears, Danica Patrick, Jimmie Johnson Cup Champion (all /175)
Acceleration Insert: 4 - Edwards, Truex Jr., Earnhardt, Kyle Busch
NASCAR Hall of Fame Plaques: 3 - Tim Flock, Fireball Roberts, Maurice Petty
NASCAR Hall of Fame Plaques Holo Foil: 1 - Bill France Jr.
Total Memorabilia Dual-Gold: 2 - Trevor Bayne (Tire/Sheet Metal) /150, Kasey Kahne (Tire/Sheet Metal) /150
Total Memorabilia Quad-Melting: 2 - Martin Truex Jr. (Sheet Metal, Firesuit, Glove, Shoe) /25, Marcos Ambrose (Sheet Metal, Firesuit, Glove, Hat) /25
Clear Cuts Windshield Melting: Dale Earnhardt Jr. /25

This is a very strong and pretty awesome product overall. The base cards and parallels are nice with the foil technology however a couple of things noticed. On the front you'll notice it says "Since" near the bottom left of the card. The Right side was to say the year they joined Cup racing but that is missing. Might be a miss on all cards as every card I pulled was the same. Secondly, using this thin stock can cause some chipping around the foil area of the cards. Be careful pulling them out of the packs.
Both inserts, Acceleration and Plaques are basic looking and similar to other inserts found in Press Pass NASCAR products. Nothing too special on this ones and might have expected a little more from a high end product. Managed to pull only 1 Holo-Foil which was the France Plaque. 
The Dual-Gold memorabilia of Bayne and Kahne were good pulls. The Bayne Sheet Metal has some nice damage to it and Kahne's Tire has some wear on it. Also Kahne's serial number is his car #, small bonus on that one.
Both of our Quad-Melting cards had some great pieces included. The Truex card has multi-color Sheet Metal and Firesuit. Ambrose's pieces of Hat and Glove are both cool as they almost jump right out of the card at you. Both cards numbered out of only /25 and both providing low numbered card quality on the pieces they carry.
Last but not least is one of the thickest cards I've ever pulled in a break. The Earnhardt Windshield card is simply amazing. New this year to the Press Pass memorabilia pieces able to pull and yet again another cool piece. The Windshield in the card spans from the front to the back of the card and leaves little room for the outside layer of the card. 
Most of the cards since online have been clear but ours is the top black piece of the windshield which is pretty interesting. The scan and pictures don't really show the detail of the black on the windshield but in person it's a special piece of memorabilia.  

This is a very recommended product for all you NASCAR collectors. The Base Card designs are great and the Memorabilia cards can't get any better. We didn't pull an Autographed card but very happy with all of our 5 hits we came up with. our total cards from the box was 37 but this was due to the hard to pull Windshield card which is simply awesome. NASCAR products are different from other sports as your only dealing with 43 drivers and some rising stars. A much better chance of pulling your favorite driver or comparable driver that provides you great value. 

Most cards/hits pulled in our breaks end up on our site storefront www.packgambler.com, or our COMC account ThePackGambler. If you are interested in any of the cards we have mentioned please send us an e-mail at packgamblersales@gmail.com

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Memorabilia: 5/5
Parallels: 4/5
Inserts: 3/5
Concept: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5

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