Topps announce big contest

Topps today announced a contest to help promote their new five star football product. The contest basically revolves around people taking a photo with the card Topps announces, the first person to send this to Topps wins. The first of the prizes is amazing, an autographed helmet from the 2008 NFL Rookie Premiere, featuring the signatures of Matt Ryan, Matt Forte, Joe Flacco, Chris Johnson, Felix Jones, and Jonathan Stewart. I think it's a great idea, but honestly I would prefer it if Topps would do contests giving away these incredibly premium cards instead of contests using the cards. Hopefully this kind of promotion will be used to promote their less premium products coming out in 2011.

Press Pass Football checklist revealed

Although the future of the 2011 NFL is still very uncertain one thing that we do know will be happening is the NFL draft, which as usual will lead to a mad rush of football products on the market containing autographs from the hot new rookies. One of the first will be 2011 Press Pass Football, which will actually be released before the draft on March 23, 2011. Today Press Pass released a checklist of some of the rookies expected to be in the product. The checklist is not final, but already features the projected No.1 pick, Nick Fairley, and the last two Heisman trophy winners, Mark Ingram and Cam Newton


Darvin Adams WR Auburn
Prince Amukamara CB Nebraska
Akeem Ayers LB UCLA
Jonathan Baldwin WR Pitt
Armon Binns WR Cincinnati
Ahmad Black S Florida
Da'Quan Bowers DE Clemson
Brandon Burton CB Utah
Delone Carter RB Syracuse
John Clay RB Wisconsin
Randall Cobb WR Kentucky
Andy Dalton QB TCU
Marcell Dareus DT Alabama
Tandon Doss WR Indiana
Nick Fairley DT Auburn
Blaine Gabbert QB Missouri
AJ Green WR Georgia
Roy Helu, Jr. RB Nebraska
Mark Herzlich LB Boston College
Cameron Heyward DE Ohio St.
Kendall Hunter RB Ok St.
Mark Ingram RB Alabama
Jerrel Jernigan WR Troy
Julio Jones WR Alabama
Colin Kaepernick QB Nevada
Ryan Kerrigan DE Purdue
Mikel Leshoure RB Illinois
Dion Lewis RB Pitt
Greg Little WR North Carolina
Derrick Locke RB Kentucky
Jake Locker QB Washington
Ryan Mallett QB Arkansas
DeAndre McDaniel S Clemson
Von Miller LB Texas A&M
Rahim Moore S UCLA
DeMarco Murray RB Oklahoma
Drake Nevis DT LSU
Cameron Newton QB Auburn
Stephen Paea DT Oregon St.
Niles Paul WR Nebraska
Austin Pettis WR Boise St.
Christian Ponder QB FSU
Stevan Ridley RB LSU
Jacquizz Rodgers RB Oregon St.
Evan Royster RB Penn St.
Kyle Rudolph TE Notre Dame
Greg Salas WR Hawaii
Dane Sanzenbacher WR Ohio St.
Aldon Smith DE Missouri
Torrey Smith WR Maryland
Luke Stocker TE Tennessee
Tyrod Taylor QB Va. Tech
Daniel Thomas RB Kan. St.
Jordan Todman RB Connecticut
Terrence Toliver WR LSU
Shane Vereen RB Cal
JJ Watt DE Wisconsin
Aaron Williams CB Texas
DJ Williams TE Arkansas
Ryan Williams RB Va. Tech
Titus Young WR Boise St.

All that sparkles isn't always gold (but it may diamond)

While the hoopla around Panini's gold cards has been enveloping the forums, so has the topic of sparkle variations of cards in Topps 2011 baseball. Today Topps released full checklist for the players who have a ''sparkle'' on a few of their cards. The ''sparkle'' cards are just another way Topps is commemorating it's 60th anniversary in this years set. Below is the full checklist including the card number.


1
Ryan Braun

3
Jon Lester

5
Joey Votto

15
David Wright

20
Hanley Ramirez

23
Jaime Garcia

25
Carl Crawford

35
Shin-Soo Choo

40
Justin Upton

42
Mariano Rivera

44
Martin Prado

50
Alex Rodriguez

60
Andrew McCutchen

61
David Price

67
Vladimir Guerrero

70
Kyle Drabek

75
Jered Weaver

78
Mike Stanton

80
Desmond Jennings

100
Albert Pujols

102
CC Sabathia

108
Zack Greinke

110
Aroldis Chapman

120
Mat Latos

128
Manny Ramirez

140
Brett Anderson

150
Miguel Cabrera

165
Jeremy Hellickson

166
Josh Johnson

169
Chipper Jones

174
Roy Oswalt

177
Brian Matusz

195
Nick Markakis

200
Ichiro 


208
Clay Buchholz

209
Carlos Santana

210
Brian Wilson

214
Chase Utley

216
Jose Bautista

218
Victor Martinez

236
Nelson Cruz

240
Andre Ethier

241
Wandy Rodriguez

247
Starlin Castro

250
Carlos Gonzalez

255
Torii Hunter

269
Stephen Drew

270
Ubaldo Jimenez

271
Adam Dunn

275
Clayton Kershaw

290
Ike Davis

293
Justin Morneau

294
Luke Scott

299
Chris Carpenter

300
Roy Halladay

307
Alex Rios

315
David Ortiz

320
Michael Young

322
Brent Morel

330
Derek Jeter

Rush of gold

Today Panini released a video of the first of their golden ticket cards from 2010 Playoff contenders being redeemed in person. The Mark Sanchez variation of the card was redeemed by Dallas-area collector Michael Keller yesterday. In the video Tracey Hackler (marketing manager for Panini America) also confirms that the Troy Aikman, and Brett Favre variations of the solid gold have also been redeemed, added to this are new listings for the Eli Manning and Chris Johnsons on eBay. The Eli Manning card being the only one with the fixed price, listed at $1,500. At time of writing the highest bid for the Aaoron Rodgers was at $2,025, with 3 and a half days left on the auction. Though the design on the cards may be reasonably simplistic, the idea of owning some of the first solid gold football cards appears to be driving the prices sky high. Below is the video post on Panini America's blog.

Panini Unwraps exlcusives

While the football variation of playoff contenders seems to be garnering all the attention the basketball version has had a bit of a shake up. This year there is an emphasis on manufactured rookie patch autographs. Manufactured patches don't normally go down too well with collectors, so it'll be interesting to see the reaction to this product. With the emphasis on rookies game worn jersey/patch cards aren't really possible, so I'm guessing this is Panini testing out the waters to see whether the patch cards get a better reception than event worn cards. Below is a box break on this product. The product will retail at $6 a pack and $120 a box, with many online retailers offering pre-sale deals. The product will officially hit shelves on the 23rd of February.

Also in the break Panini dropped a couple of exclusive announcements. Including the fact that the NBA version of the 24 carat gold cards will be available in NBA Gold standard, which is due out in May. No more details about the cards were revealed. It was however revealed that as well as Kevin Durrant Panini has signed deals with Paul Pierce, and David Robinson. Other things revealed with very little detail in the video was that there would be buybacks and veteran autographs as part of this years NBA playoff contenders patches.

2 down in two days

A few hours after writing a post in which I talked about the first golden ticket being found it turns out that another one has been discovered by a member of the blowout cards forum. With the Aaron Rodgers being found yesterday, today the Mark Sanchez version has been pulled. The member is intending on redeeming the card at Panini headquarters tomorrow, so hopefully we wont have to wait too long to get a proper scan of one of these cards. Until then this will have to do.

A long lost of short prints

Yesterday night details of the short prints in Panini's latest release of Playoff Contenders Football became available online (the full list can be seen at the bottom of this post). I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed and a little bit disappointed. I like the idea of players having short print cards of them in their alternate/throwback jerseys, and my initial impression was that was what Panini was going to do with this release, however that's not the case. As you'll see from the list at the bottom of the page some of the variations are as simplistic as a player having the ball in the other hand, or the player standing in a different position. I personally think this is a bit of a squandered opportunity, I can't see many collectors chasing short prints because a player has the ball in different hands. I hope in future that Panini takes this idea further and has all the players in alternate jerseys for short prints next year.

Keeping on the theme of Playoff Contenders Football, someone has already pulled a redemption card of the Aaron Rodgers version of the much talked about gold ticket card. The card is now listed on eBay and looks set to easily break the $1,000 card.






2010 Panini Contenders Football
RPS Rookie Ticket Autographs
- Some Feature On Card Autographs -
-184 Jermaine Gresham
(White Jersey SP)
201 Andre Roberts
(White Jersey SP)
202 Armanti Edwards
(Black Jersey SP)
203 Arrelious Benn
(White Jersey SP)
204 Ben Tate
(Facing Forward SP)
205 Brandon LaFell
(Running With Ball SP)
206 CJ Spiller
(Blue Jersey SP)
207 Colt McCoy
(Brown Jersey SP)
208 Damian Williams
(Blue Jersey SP)
209 DeMaryius Thomas
(Blue Jersey SP)
210 Dexter McCluster
(Red Jersey SP)
211 Dez Bryant
(White Jersey SP)
212 Emmanuel Sanders
(Black Jersey SP)
213 Eric Berry
(Left Arm Covers # SP)
214 Eric Decker
(Orange Jersey SP)
215 Gerald McCoy
(White Jersey SP)
216 Golden Tate
(Left Leg Covers Name SP)
217 Jahvid Best
(Blue Jersey SP)
219 Jimmy Clausen
(Black Jersey SP)
220 Joe McKnight
(Green Jersey SP)
222 Jordan Shipley
(White Jersey SP)
223 Marcus Easley
(Ball In Right Hand SP)
224 Mardy Gilyard
(Left Hand Out SP)
225 Mike Kafka
(Green Jersey SP)
226 Mike Williams (Exch)
227 Montario Hardesty
(Ball Covers Numbers SP)
228 Ndamukong Suh
(White Jersey SP)
229 Rob Gronkowski
(White Jersey SP)
230 Rolondo McClain
(Hands Above Waist SP)
231 Ryan Matthews
(Facing Forward SP)
232 Sam Bradford
(Both Hands On Ball SP)
233 Taylor Price
(Ball In Right Hand SP)
234 Tim Tebow
(White Jersey SP)
235 Toby Gerhart
(Ball High On Chest SP)