Tuesday, January 1, 2013

2012 Topps Platinum Football NFL Trading Cards Box Break Recap And Review


A lot of the Rainbow collecting has been taken out of this year’s Topps Platinum NFL Trading Cards.  Gone are the Emerald and Gold parallels, all that remains are the Ruby parallels and you can only find them in Hobby packs, not retail.  What’s also gone is the numbering of any cards other than the hits.  This shifts Platinum from being intended for parallel chasers, focusing the product mainly on hit seekers.  Even that category gets narrowed down as the number of veteran autos has been reduced this year. All of this makes 2012 Topps Platinum Football, which already appears to be kind of hit or miss, a product with a much narrower appeal.  That is a advantage for some collectors and a disadvantage for others.

Topps Platinum falls under our premium cards category.  Each box contains 20 packs with 5 cards per pack.  Each box delivers 3 autographs, two of those will be Rookie On-Card Autographs and one will be an Autograph Patch Relic card.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.

 Base Set
 Brandon Marshall, front and back
 Julio Jones, Cam Newton, Troy Polamalu
 Patrick Willis, Clay Matthews, Ahmad Bradshaw
 Andy Dalton, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco
 Peyton Manning, Greg Jennings, Larry Fitzgerald

Ruby Base Parallel
For comparison, Drew Brees, regular base and ruby parallel
 Ndamukong Suh, Demarius Moore, Philip Rivers
Michael Turner, Patrick Willis, Adrian Peterson
 LeSean McCoy, Darren McFadden, DeSean Jackson
 Antonio Gates, Matt Forte, Steven Jackson
 Roy Helu, Arian Foster, Matt Ryan
 Jimmy Graham, Ray Rice, Mike Tolbert

Rookie Base
 Andrew Luck,  Stephen Hill
 Jarius Wright, Lamar Miller, Luke Kuechly
 Ronnie Hillman, Michael Egnew, Tommy Streeter
 Melvin Ingram, Dwayne Allen, Michael Floyd

Rookie Refractor Parallels

X-Fractors
 DeVier Posey, Robert Turnin
 T.J. Graham, Chris Givens, Marvin McNutt

Color Rookie Parallels
 Dwayne Allen - Black, A.J. Jenkins - Purple #/75

Diecut Rookies
 Bernard Pierce

The Hits
 DeVier Posey Platinum Rookie Patch #/71 (A Case Hit)
Greg Childs On-Card Rookie Autograph
 Melvin Ingram On-Card Rookie Autograph Redemption
 Kendall Wright Rookie Refractor Jumbo Patch Auto Black Parallel #/125

Overall Look
I like the overall look of these cards.  The design elements are slightly more stylish than in years past.  Diecuts are great and hit cards work well.  There were some quality issues with my box, not sure if others have experienced this, problems with cards bowing and for a box with a total of 55 veteran base cards, I received an abundance of doubles.  Here is what I mean.
 Matt Schaub, Antonio Gates, Jamaal Charles, Ryan Mathews
 Tony Romo, Mathew Stafford, Sam Bradford, Jay Cutler
 Steve Smith, Kevin Kolb, Felix Jones, Santonio Holmes

I don’t have a problem with collation when I received a few doubles, but when it is like this, it is very off putting.

Quality and Variety of Players
At 100 veteran base cards and 50 rookie base cards, this list of players is strong.  But for some reason, that number of rookies swells to 65 for the on-card autos.  That number of Rookies becomes more concentrated for the other hits.

Do the Hits satisfy?
Like with all other rookie prospecting products, hit the right one and you should be very satisfied.

Will you keep coming back for more?
If your needs are just a specific player from this set, aftermarket singles are the way to go. For those interested in Platinum, multiple box purchases are easy to see, but I expect a certain percentage of the market will be reduced because of the absence of veteran color parallel cards and low numbering.

Rating
3 1/2 out of 5

With the changes that have been made, 2012 Topps Platinum Football seems to have lost its way a little this year .

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