Retail Review - 2011-12 Pinnacle Hockey

-------------Front------------------------Back-----------
























2011-12 Pinnacle Blaster

Commons:
4 Taylor Hall $1.25
8 Alex Ovechkin $1.25
19 Tyler Seguin $1.25
31 Carey Price $1
53 Jeff Skinner $1
62 Michal Neuvirth $1
87 Sidney Crosby $2
91 Steven Stamkos $1.25
196 John Tavares $1.25
219 Jonathan Toews $1










Rookies:
273 Alexei Emelin $3











Rink Collection:
20 Chris Pronger $4














Breakthrough:
7 Ryane Clowe $1.50
20 Loui Eriksson $2

Fans of the Game:
8 Pressly $4



















Foundation Tandems West:
7 Halak/Pietrangeld $n/a (one sold on Ebay for $5)











Game Night Materials 35 Drew Doughty (Black Swatch) $10

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Design: 3/5

Pros: The photography is pretty great. Blows most of the competition's cards off the ice. (Just look at the couple I scanned for front and back base card scans. Card backs have alot of interesting text to read.
Cons:Boring card back design. No stats whatsoever and it re-uses the front image.

Set Building: 1/5
Pros: Tons of players to collect, 250 total!
Cons: The rookies #251-280 are short printed. Not too bad considering Upper Deck does the same thing, however Pinnacle made the last #281-290 autograph versions. Putting this set together will be near impossible without spending a ton of cash.

Rookies: 1/5
Pros: You get at least one per box... I mean it could be worse right?
Cons: 40 rookies total in the base set, 30 of those are short printed, the last 10 are super short printed autographed cards. You'd have to be extremely lucky to pull one, at least in retail! Rookies have the 'foil' finish and don't blend with the rest of the set.

Inserts: 3/5

Pros: Plenty to collect. I'm not sure how rare the Foundation inserts are but they seem to sell well on Ebay and I don't see many listed. They could be retail exclusive? The foil cards don't scan well, but they do look nice!
Cons: Boring designs. All of the inserts have the same picture on the front and back. Has anyone ever cared about Fans of the Game? Also nothing is serial numbered.

Autos/Relics: 3/5

Pros: One per box, the only reason the box wasn't a complete bust!

Cons: No serial number again!

Value: 11/25
I don't think I'd buy this again. It seems like the perfect product to build a set, with the outstanding photography and decent insert/jersey to pack ratios. They had to screw it up by making the rookies impossible to get though!

Retail Review - Retro - 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball Blaster x2

2010 Topps Chrome Baseball Blaster x 2

8 Packs Each - $11.98 Each

(Click images for larger)


I'll list both boxes together for convenience.








-------FRONT-----------------------BACK--------------














Notable Base Cards:
165 Derek Jeter

Rookies: 13
172 Bryan Anderson
173 Jon Link
180 Jason Donald
184 Ike Davis
185 Andrew Cashner
189 Wilson Ramos
193 Lance Zawadzki
195 Starlin Castro
198 Carlos Santana
206 Mike McCoy
212 Stephen Strasburg
213 Jake Arrieta
216 Drew Storen

Refractors : 6
1:3 Packs

70 Max Scherzer
78 Placido Polanco
83 Orlando Hudson
105 Mike Pelfrey
144 Alex Rodriguez
144 Alex Rodriguez

X-Fractors: 4
1:3 Packs

23 Nick Swisher
125 Jon Lester
132 Michael Cuddyer
166 Mike Napoli





Refractors Purple: 1
1:12 Packs

82 Lyle Overbay /599








Refractors Blue: 1
1:191 Packs

47 Rich Harden /199






-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Design: 4/5

Topps almost never goes wrong with the main set's card design. This was the first year Topps had exclusive rights to the MLB license so they displayed large team logos in the corners of the cards. The only problem I have is that some of the text on the back of the cards blends in with the backgrounds.

Set Building: 5/5

Chrome is always a great set to put together. The only real difficulty would be the maximum 3 base cards per pack you get.

Rookies: 3/5

Decent rookies pulled from these blasters, I usually see refractors of rookies but not this time. The Strasburg would have been much nicer in 2010!

Inserts: 3/5

Refractors only this time. I like the finish on the refractors though, they even scan well! X-Fractors are retail exclusive like previous years. The blue refractor was a tough pull and I wish it was a Yankee for my personal collection. There are apparently Chicle inserts, the pack says 1:81 packs to pull one.

Autos/Relics: 1/5

Didn't get any. Odds on the pack are 1:171 packs so its a pretty tough pull. Rookie autographs only.

Value: 16/25

Had fun opening these. The refractors are always great to pull from a pack and look at. Liked pulling the Strasburg and the two A-Rod refractors. Also needed the Jeter for my personal collection!

Retail Review - 2011 Press Pass Legends Football Blaster Box

2011 Press Pass Legends Football Blaster Box

3 Packs - $19.99











Base----Front-------------------Back----------













Base Rookies + Legends
1 Blaine Gabbert
8 Tyrod Taylor
18 Stevan Ridley
27 Julio Jones
28 Torrey Smith
29 Greg Little
38 Dane Sanzenbacher
42 Luke Stocker
43 DJ Williams
45 Aldon Smith
87 Mike Rozier 1981-1983
89 Dick LeBeau 1956-1958


Bronze Foil Parallel

42 Luke Stocker /250









Past & Present
1:14 Packs

PP9 Warren Sapp/Nick Farley





Saturday Signatures
LS Luke Stocker

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Design: 2/5

You know it's not too bad, but I have to knock off a point for having no team logos, city names, or anything! The air brushed helmets and jerseys are pretty ugly. It's too bad because I like the gloss finish in the middle of the card and the foil design.

Set Building: 3/5

Seems like a small set, 90 or 100 cards. You'd have to buy alot of boxes to put one together though, and only if you are a fan of college football and don't care about the missing team logos and names.

Rookies: 5/5

Pretty much all you get in this product except for a few legends cards.

Inserts: 3/5

Each blaster seems to have one #'ed card, and one insert. It could definitely be worse.

Autos/Relics: 4/5

Relics are pretty hard to get, 1:9 packs, I didn't pull one so I can't comment. On the other hand, you'll find an autograph in the other 8:9 packs. For the price, it's not too bad. Sage seems to give you one more autograph per box, but with lower quality players and on sticker autographs. I'd take an on card auto any day over a sticker!

Value: 17/25

This was a short break, but its nice to get the guaranteed auto. I really don't care for the base cards, its too obvious that they are missing the team licenses. A different picture on the auto card would have been nice too, kind of lazy of them! Wish I was a Luke Stocker fan, 3 cards in this box where his!

Retail Review - Retro - 2009 Topps Chrome Baseball Blaster Box

2009 Topps Chrome Baseball Blaster Box

8 Packs - $11.98











(click images for larger)










Base Card Design Front and Back



Rookies: 7
180 Phil Coke
181 Jordan Schafer
182 Joe Martinez
183 Trevor Crowe
184 Shairon Martis
200 Rick Porcello
204 Jason Jaramillo

World Baseball Classic Stars: 2
1:4 Packs

W14 Luis Durango
W88 Tai-Chi Kuo







Refractors: 1
1:3 Packs

182 Joe Martinez RC








X-Fractors: 3
1:3 Packs

80 Carlos Zambrano
94 Joe Mauer
191 Ryan Perry RC






Gold Refractors: 1
1:98 Packs

141 Kenji Johjima /50

Design: 5/5

I'm a fan of the 2009 Topps design. It's a clean design with lots of diagonal lines but doesn't get too crazy like recent Panini designs. Lots of information is included on the backs too.

Set Building: 5/5

Topps Chrome is always a decent set to put together. No short prints to search after in the set, and it's a pretty low numbered (although you'd only get 2-4 base cards per pack.)

Rookies: 4/5

I pulled lots of rookies, at least one per pack counting parallels.

Inserts: 3/5

I don't care much for the WBC inserts, and there seems to be alot of them in the set. You can't go wrong with refractors though, and the XFractors are retail exclusive I believe. I got lucky and pulled a gold refractor, too bad it wasn't a Yankee!

Autos/Relics: 1/5

No relics, and autographs are inserted at an insane rate. Such is the fate of retail pack busters! The easiest autograph to pull is 1:308 packs. I can only give the score a 1 because of this.

Value: 18/25

It was a fun break, and I'm glad I got it 40% off. It's nice to get a 'hit' in every pack with a refractor or insert but I kind of miss the days when those where rare (and actually valuable).

Retail Review - 2011 Topps Platinum Football

2011 Topps Platinum Football Blaster Box

8 Packs - $19.99

(click images for larger)

--------Front------------------------Back----------

Notable Commons:

70 Tom Brady

74 Ben Roethlisberger

130 Drew Brees

Emerald Veteran Parallel, 1:10 Packs

60 Arian Foster

Gold Veteral Parallel, 1:24 Packs

(Thick Card Stock)

77 Thomas Jones

Rookies:

(Chrome Card Stock, Refractor Finish)

51 Jimmy Smith

91 Delone Carter

101 Vincent Brown

120 Mark Ingram

136 Ryan Mallett

Rookie XFractors, 1:4 Packs

7 Julio Jones

148 Greg Little

Rookie Gold Refractors, 1:365 Packs

50 Blaine Gabbert /50

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Design: 4/5

Decent design on both the front and back of these cards. The front features an action shot of the player with a symmetrical curved design. Each card has a 'refractor' finish on the front also. The backs include last years stats as well as a text block describing something the player did that year. The design also mirrors the front's.

Set Building: 4/5

Not a bad product to put together as a set with a total of 150 cards and no short prints. But it would be difficult to get all of the rookies with only one per pack, or at least, you'd be left with alot of common veterans left over.

Rookies: 4/5

I'd say this is a pretty good set for pulling rookie cards. You get one per pack and they're printed on a nice chrome card stock with a refractor finish.

Inserts: 2/5

Only parallels here unfortunately. The XFractors look nice, but I don't care for the various multi colored cards. I also hate the uneccessary thick card stock cards like the gold veteran parallel. For some reason they didn't bother serial numbering them this year either. Such a waste. I was lucky enough to pull one low numbered rookie card (at insane odds) otherwise I'd be giving this a 1.

Autos/Relics: 2/5

I'll give it an average score because I didn't pull any. It seems like they could have inserted them at a better rate, but such is retail. They seem to only be seeded an average of 1/3 blasters and that's a little too hard of a pull for the price.

Value: 16/25

In conclusion this set has a nice design and could be built with a little bit of rookie trading or purchasing through online auctions. If you're looking for a nice hit though, skip it, you're much more likely to bust and walk away with a small handful of parallels.