Today Topps put their new website and store into practice by offering 2012 Turkey Red Football, which is back for the first time in a few years. Back in 2005 and 2006, Topps used this retro style brand to highlight a sister product also offered in baseball. When it was axed in 2007, there were a lot of collectors that were saddened that it was no longer going to be available.

Earlier last month, Topps announced that Turkey Red would be available through an online exclusive, and much to my surprise, it sold out in a matter of minutes. The mini boxes each contained one pack of a few base cards and an autograph for 25 dollars. Seeing how limited this set would be, collectors swooped in and bought it all up, hoping to resell on the secondary market for a big markup.

2012 Topps Turkey Red Box Pre-Sale

2012 Topps Turkey Red Box Pre-Sale #2

I think this was a great marketing ploy for Topps, as the limited release will no doubt make these packs extremely valuable. Not only that, but the cards look very nice, and should perform in a similar way to the way they did in the online baseball release back a few months ago. The issue with the baseball packs centered around the fact that top tier autographs were in SHORT supply, and many sets did not deliver content worthy of the price tag. With Football being different in its configuration, I think that problem might not be as big of a deal.

Topps seems to have had a lot of issues putting a cap on orders put in by buyers who purchased in bulk, which left fewer packs available for collectors who just wanted a pack or two. I think an order limit of 5 instead of 25 would have been much better, and there are reports that collectors put in more than one order at the capacity to get more packs to sell. Ouch.

Personally, I put in for one and got shut out, which was disappointing, but I can see that this is an attractive offer. I am looking forward to seeing how these breaks turn out, as there are a lot of reasons why people want to buy these cards.